State v. Fairbanks

117 Ohio St. 3d 543, 2008 WL 919610
CourtOhio Supreme Court
DecidedApril 3, 2008
DocketNo. 2006-1529
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 117 Ohio St. 3d 543 (State v. Fairbanks) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Fairbanks, 117 Ohio St. 3d 543, 2008 WL 919610 (Ohio 2008).

Opinions

Cupp, J.

{¶ 1} The issue presented in this case is whether reckless operation of a vehicle, R.C. 4511.20, is a lesser included offense of failure to comply with an order or signal of a police officer, R.C. 2921.331(B), when the failure-to-comply charge is accompanied by a specification of causing a substantial risk of serious physical harm to persons or property pursuant to R.C. 2921.331(C)(5)(a)(ii). We hold that it is not.

Facts and Procedural History

{¶ 2} On October 12, 2003, appellee Paul Fairbanks was pursued by a police officer for driving his motor vehicle over the center line. While attempting to flee the pursuing officer, Fairbanks lost control of his vehicle and crashed it. Fairbanks received multiple traffic citations arising out of this incident, including [544]*544one for reckless-operation. He waived his court appearance for the reckless-operation charge and paid a fine on October 29, 2003.

{¶ 3} Subsequently on December 5, Fairbanks was indicted on a single count of failure to comply with an order or signal of a police officer, with the specification that Fairbanks’s operation of the motor vehicle “caused a substantial risk of serious physical harm to persons or property,” which is a third-degree felony under R.C. 2921.331(B) and (C)(5)(a)(ii). Fairbanks initially pleaded not guilty and moved to dismiss the charge as barred by the Double Jeopardy Clauses of the United States and Ohio Constitutions. After the trial court overruled his motion, Fairbanks entered a guilty plea. However, he later successfully petitioned to withdraw the guilty plea, and he then entered a plea of no contest. The court accepted the no-contest plea, found Fairbanks guilty, and sentenced him to community-control sanctions.

{¶ 4} The court of appeals vacated the judgment of conviction and ordered the defendant discharged. The case is before this court upon our acceptance of the state’s discretionary appeal.

Analysis

{¶ 5} The court of appeals’ opinion, which failed to muster a majority, stated that reckless operation is a lesser included offense of the felony version of failure to comply. Thus, it concluded that Fairbanks’s conviction for reckless operation under R.C. 4511.20 was a double-jeopardy bar to a subsequent prosecution under R.C. 2921.331(C)(5)(a)(ii).

{¶ 6} In Blockburger v. United States (1932), 284 U.S. 299, 52 S.Ct. 180, 76 L.Ed. 306, the Supreme Court of the United States set forth a test to determine whether the protection against double jeopardy prevented conviction under one statute because of a previous conviction for the same conduct under another statute: “The applicable rule is that, where the same act or transaction constitutes a violation of two distinct statutory provisions, the test to be applied to determine whether there are two offenses or only one, is whether each provision requires proof of a fact which the other does not.” Id. at 304, 52 S.Ct. 180, 76 L.Ed. 306. Thus, we have noted: “If application of [the Blockburger ] test reveals that the offenses have identical statutory elements or that one is a lesser included offense of the other, the subsequent prosecution is barred.” State v. Tolbert (1991), 60 Ohio St.3d 89, 573 N.E.2d 617, paragraph one of the syllabus.

{¶ 7} An examination of the two statutes in this case reveals that they do not have identical statutory elements. R.C. 4511.20(A) prohibits any person from operating “a vehicle * * * on any street or highway in willful or wanton disregard of the safety of persons or property.” A violation of that provision is a minor misdemeanor. R.C. 4511.20(B). R.C. 2921.331(B) defines the offense of [545]*545failure to comply as operating “a motor vehicle so as willfully to elude or flee a police officer after receiving a visible or audible signal from a police officer to bring the person’s motor vehicle to a stop.” This offense is a misdemeanor of the first degree. R.C. 2921.331(C)(3). However, if in committing the offense of failure to comply, the operator of the motor vehicle causes “substantial risk of serious physical harm to persons or property,” then the offense is statutorily enhanced from a misdemeanor to a third-degree felony. R.C. 2921.331(C)(5)(a)(ii). Because the statutory elements of reckless operation and failure to comply are not identical, the only inquiry is whether either is a lesser included offense of the other.

{¶ 8} In State v. Deem (1988), 40 Ohio St.3d 205, 533 N.E.2d 294, we established a three-part test to determine whether one offense is a lesser included offense of another. A lesser included offense exists if “(i) the offense carries a lesser penalty than the other; (ii) the greater offense cannot, as statutorily defined, ever be committed without the lesser offense, as statutorily defined, also being committed; and (in) some element of the greater offense is not required to prove the commission of the lesser offense.” Id. at paragraph three of the syllabus. In analyzing the two statutes in the present case, the court of appeals’ lead opinion determined that the requisite culpable mental state for the felony specification in R.C. 2921.331(C)(5)(a)(ii) is recklessness. State v. Fairbanks, Ross App. No. 05CA2870, 2006-Ohio-3530, 2006 WL 1875897, ¶ 15. Thus, when applying the second prong of the Deem test, the lead opinion concluded that one could not commit the felony version of failure to comply without also committing the offense of reckless operation. Id. at ¶ 18.

{¶ 9} We conclude, however, that the addition of a felony specification to a charge of failure to comply does not render the two offenses alike for double-jeopardy purposes. In order to commit reckless operation, a person must operate his or her vehicle “in willful or wanton disregard of the safety of persons or property.” R.C. 4511.20(A). Failure to comply, however, does not require proof of a willful or wanton disregard of the safety of persons or property; it merely requires proof that a person willfully elude or flee a police officer who has given a signal to stop. R.C. 2921.331(B). And the addition of a felony specification pursuant to R.C. 2921.331(C)(5)(a)(ii) does not alter this conclusion.

{¶ 10} There are many circumstances wherein one can elude or flee a police officer without a willful or wanton disregard of the safety of persons or property. For example, one can flee at a safe speed, if the officer is on foot, or hide the vehicle in an alley, a driveway, or behind a building. The potential factual scenarios are numerous, yet the conclusion is the same: a person can commit failure to comply without also committing the offense of reckless operation. Consequently, part two of the Deem test cannot be met and the offense of [546]*546reckless operation, therefore, is not a lesser included offense of failure to comply. The point of contention then becomes whether charging the penalty enhancement contained in R.C. 2921.331(C)(5)(a)(ii) alters this result. Under R.C. 2901.21(A), one requirement for finding criminal liability is that the defendant has “the requisite degree of culpability for each element as to which a culpable mental state is specified by the section defining the offense.” (Emphasis added.) R.C. 2901.21(A)(2).

{¶ 11} In this case, R.C.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
117 Ohio St. 3d 543, 2008 WL 919610, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-fairbanks-ohio-2008.