State v. Gavin

365 N.E.2d 1263, 51 Ohio App. 2d 49, 5 Ohio Op. 3d 168, 1977 Ohio App. LEXIS 6918
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedJanuary 13, 1977
Docket35391
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 365 N.E.2d 1263 (State v. Gavin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Gavin, 365 N.E.2d 1263, 51 Ohio App. 2d 49, 5 Ohio Op. 3d 168, 1977 Ohio App. LEXIS 6918 (Ohio Ct. App. 1977).

Opinion

I.

Day, P. J.

This appeal stems from the conviction for felonious assault of defendant-appellant, Johnnie Gavin (defendant). The victim, Adell Stillwell, was the manager of a poolroom (Southeast Recreation Center) situated at 4118 East 131st Street in Cleveland. At 12:30 a. m. on March 14, 1975, Stillwell was preparing to close the poolroom, while two patrons, Larry and Ernest Kaiser, were *51 still there. All three men left the poolroom, and as they stepped outside Stillwell saw a “quick movement” and fire in the entranceway of the adjoining building. All three men fled back into the poolroom, where it was discovered that Stillwell had been shot. Larry Kaiser testified that when he walked out of the poolroom .he saw defendant with a rifle and looked defendant “dead in the face” before defendant fired the gun. Another witness had seen defendant in a nearby alleyway with a shotgun about midnight that same evening.

Policemen who arrived at the scene shortly after the incident received descriptions from bystanders of a male, thought to have a rifle, who got into a Ford automobile and left. A witness gave police the license number of the car. "While the police were at the scene an automobile matching the description went by. The vehicle was apprehended. Three men were in the car — defendant, Kermit Matlock, and one Krenshaw. Matlock testified that: defendant had signaled him to pull over near the poolroom earlier that evening; defendant entered the car with what appeared to be a gun that resembled State’s Exhibit No. 8; Matlock drove defendant home, at which time defendant took the gun out of the car and returned in half a minute without it; both men then returned to the area of the poolroom to get the defendant’s coat.

Later that evening the police went to defendant’s residence. The police met Charles Gavin, defendant’s father, and informed him of his son’s arrest. The police asked permission of Charles Gavin to search the house. Gavin, who owned it, consented. The defendant lived there with him The search yielded, among other items, a shotgun found on the front porch. Police examination and testing of the gun revealed that it was the one fired near the poolroom on the evening of March 13th-March 14th, 1975.

Defendant denied participating in the shooting, and claimed that he had loaned his rifle to Matlock that evening. 1

*52 Defense counsel moved to suppress the guns found at the home after the testimony of the State’s first witness. The motion was overruled. The court granted the State’s motion in limine. This blocked questioning of State witness Larry Kaiser concerning any pending indictments against him in the instant jurisdiction. At the time of trial it appears that Kaiser was incarcerated in the Cuyahoga County jail for the shooting of a police officer. At the close of all the evidence defense counsel requested a charge on aggravated assault. The court overruled the motion. The court did not charge on aggravated assault, and defense counsel objected at the close of the charge and renewed his request.

Defendant appeals raising three assignments of error. 2 For reasons assessed below we find Assignments No. 1 and 3 without merit. Assignment No. 2 is well taken. We reverse.

II.

Crim. R. 12(B)(3) specifies that a motion to suppress evidence must be made before trial. Failure to do so constitutes a waiver unless the court for “good cause shown” grants “relief from the waiver,” Crim. R. 12(G-). Here, defendant failed to make his motion to suppress until after the State had examined its first witness at trial. The court did not abuse its discretion in overruling the motion be *53 cause the motion was not timely. The defendant waived his right to assert it, Crim. E. 12(B) (3).

Even had: the motion been timely, the court correctly overruled it. Warrantless searches are permissible when the “* * * parent who owns or controls the premises in which a child resides * * consents to the search, Stale v. Carder (1966), 9 Ohio St. 2d 1,10. Further, consent for a warrantless search may be obtained from a person having common authority or other sufficient relationship to the premises, United States v. Matlock (1974), 415 U. S. 164, 171-172, 39 L. Ed. 2d 242, 249-250.

Here Charles Gavin is defendant’s father and owner of the searched premises. Gavin’s consent fits squarely within the rule permitting such search under the doctrine of Carder and Matlock.

The first assignment of error is not well taken in pertinent part. 3

IH.

It is fundamental that the bias of a witness may be explored to test credibility. Allen v. State (1859), 10 Ohio St. 287, 306; Tullis v. State (1883), 39 Ohio St. 200, 202.

In a criminal case the spectre of bias materializes anytime the evidence indicates that the witness has potential trading assets to barter with the State. For instance, the potential is suggested whenever the witness is:

(1) a co-defendant, an accomplice or a suspect susceptible to charge in the case on trial or (2) under pending indictment in another case or a suspect susceptible to charge in another case or (3) serving time subject to executive commutation, pardon or parole.

In particular circumstances the possibility for bias may be so remote that it is an appropriate exercise of judicial discretion to exclude the evidence. A pending indictment in a foreign jurisdiction, or time being served there may provide such minor trading leverage that the issue becomes one of competence rather than weight. Eemoteness is not an issue of concern in the present case. Here the *54 witness was under a pending .indictment apparently in the same jurisdiction. Pending charges raise entirely different questions than those posed by stale indictments. An indictment is only a charge and it is the universal rule that a stale charge is irrelevant to credibility because the element of pressure is not there. A conviction may contain an echo of unreliability (unless it is very old, see Luck v. United States (D. C. Cir. 1965), 348 F. 2d 763, 768, and Rule 609, Ohio Proposed Rules of Evidence, June 1976) because of past miscreancy rather than current pressure. Some confusion has arisen when parties and courts in the thrall of the rule that only convictions not indictments are relevant to credibility fail to distinguish between obsolete indictments and pending ones. Current status implies the strong probability that the witness may trim his testimony for either the actuality or hope of State favor. Such favors may take the form of favorable plea bargains, disregard of possible charges or dismissal of a pending one, or immunization. Of course, the key factor is pendency.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
365 N.E.2d 1263, 51 Ohio App. 2d 49, 5 Ohio Op. 3d 168, 1977 Ohio App. LEXIS 6918, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-gavin-ohioctapp-1977.