State v. Glacken

469 N.E.2d 95, 13 Ohio Misc. 2d 17, 13 Ohio B. 371, 1984 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 180
CourtHamilton County Municipal Court
DecidedApril 7, 1984
DocketNo. 83 TRC 47714A & B
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 469 N.E.2d 95 (State v. Glacken) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Hamilton County Municipal Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Glacken, 469 N.E.2d 95, 13 Ohio Misc. 2d 17, 13 Ohio B. 371, 1984 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 180 (Ohio Super. Ct. 1984).

Opinion

PAINTER, J.

This matter came on to be tried to the court, defendant being charged under R.C. 4511.19(A)(1) and (A)(3). After presentation of the evidence, the court granted a Crim. R. 29 motion for acquittal as to the R.C. 4511.19(A)(1) charge, i.e., driving under the influence of alcohol.

Both parties agreed that the sole remaining issue in the case is whether or not a certain document is admissible. If so, the defendant having tested above .10 on the intoxilyzer machine and all of the elements being proved, he would be guilty of violating R.C. 4511.19(A)(3). As part of the foundation for the admission of said intoxilyzer test, the state presented Exhibit 4 (see Appendix), which is entitled “Ohio Department of Health, Alcohol Testing, Approval & Permit Program, Report of Analysis: Calibration Solution”; or the “batch.and bottle affidavit.” The defendant objects to the admission of this document, claiming that it cannot be admitted under the Rules of Evidence. Defendant cites State v. Zimmerman (Feb. 27, 1984), Hamilton Cty. M.C. No. C 83 TRC 41140A&B, unreported; State v. Emch (1982), 7 Ohio App. 3d 7; and State v. Schell (Feb. 21, 1984), Clermont App. No. CA 83-07-055, unreported. The state relies upon State v. Walker (1978), 53 Ohio St. 2d 192 [7 O.O.3d 368].

Evid. R. 803(8) provides that the following are not excluded by the hearsay rule, even though the declarant is available as a witness:

“Public records and reports. Records, reports, statements, or data compilations, in any form, of public offices or agencies, setting forth (a) the activities of the office or agency, or (b) matters observed pursuant to duty imposed by law as to which matters there was a duty to report, excluding, however, in criminal cases matters observed by police officers and other law enforcement personnel, unless offered by defendant, unless the source of the information or other circumstances indicate lack of trustworthiness.”

The state’s reliance on the Walker case is somewhat misplaced, since the Walker case was decided prior to the adoption to the Ohio Rules of Evidence, under the old R.C. 2317.42. Since R.C. 2317.42 is superseded by the Evidence Rules, the specific holding in Walker is questionable. State v. Emch, State v. Zimmerman and State v. Schell, supra. It should be noted, however, that the Emch and Zimmerman cases dealt with police logs, not the batch and bottle affidavit.

The state also contends that the document might be admissible under Evid. R. 902(1), which states as follows:

“Domestic public documents under [18]*18seal. A document bearing a seal purporting to be that of the United States, or any State, * * * or of a political subdivision, department, officer, or agency thereof, and a signature purporting to be an attestation or execution.”

Since the document in question here is signed by the Director of Health, and has a seal of the Ohio Department of Health, the state contends that that makes it per se admissible. To so state is of course to misapprehend the concepts of authentication and admissibility. Evid. R. 902 applies only to authentication as a condition precedent to admissibility. Evid. R. 902 only states that no additional evidence that the document is what it purports to be need be shown before the document is accepted as what it represents itself to be. However, the issue of authentication has nothing whatsoever to do with the admissibility of the statements contained therein. This may be easily shown by reference to Evid. R. 902(6), which also states, “[p]rinted materials purporting to be newspapers or periodicals * * *” are self-authenticating under that rule. That simply means that a printed newspaper may be taken to be what it says it is, not, however, that all the statements contained therein are true. To assert such a proposition would be ludicrous on its face. No one is seeking to require any further authentication of the document, the defendant is questioning the admissibility of the statements contained therein.

In State v. Schell, supra, the court of appeals excluded a similar document for the reason that it was in the form of an affidavit of a chemist from the Ohio State Highway Patrol Crime Laboratory. Obviously, the clear exclusion of “matters observed by police officers and other law enforcement personnel” in Evid. R. 803(8) applies, and the document in that case could not be offered by the state. Here, however, the document in question was prepared by the Ohio Department of Health, pursuant to a duty to do so, not by law enforcement personnel.

Some of the discussion concerning the “public records” rule, Evid. R. 803(8), is confused by the similarity of this rule to the “shopbook” rule, Evid. R. 803(6). While some of the underlying principles are the same, the rules are substantially different. This difference is best set out in Weissenberger, Ohio Evidence (1982), Section 803.104, which states, in part, at 86-87, as follows:

“The foundational conditions for evidence introduced pursuant to Rule 803(8) are minimal. Unlike the business records exception of Rule 803(6), the official records exception does not require the testimony of the custodian or other qualified witness as a pre-condition to admissibility. Rather, the official records exception often requires no foundation witness at all, since the self-authentication provisions of Rule 902 will usually obviate the necessity for live foundational testimony. Similarly, unlike the business records exception, Rule 803(8) may be invoked even where the record was not created contemporaneously with the event or transaction in question. And, at least with respect to subdivision (a), the record need not even qualify as one which is routinely kept. Subdivision (b), on the other hand, requires merely that the matter contained in the report be one which was observed and recorded pursuant to ah imposed legal duty, although it is difficult to envision satisfying these conditions absent some type of routine or continuing duty.
“Under pre-Rule practice the official, i.e., the declarant, must have possessed firsthand knowledge of the underlying event or transaction, although it was generally deemed sufficient if the record was based upon' information received from a subordinate with personal knowledge. Rule 803(8) is conspicuously silent in this regard, although nothing in Rules 803 and 804 should be construed to dispense with the requirement of personal knowledge by the declarant absent an express contrary indication, and courts should interpret Rule 803(8) in accordance with the fundamental purpose of [19]*19the hearsay rule in excluding untrustworthy evidence. The issue of lack of personal knowledge arises more frequently in the federal system in light of the special provision for investigative reports under Federal Rule 803(8)(C). Under the Ohio Rule, which omits subsection (C) of the cognate Federal Rule, investigative reports are admissible only to the extent that they qualify as setting forth the activities of the agency (subdivision (a)), or matters observed and reported pursuant to a legal duty (subdivision (b)).

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
469 N.E.2d 95, 13 Ohio Misc. 2d 17, 13 Ohio B. 371, 1984 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 180, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-glacken-ohmunicthamilto-1984.