State v. Gravely

937 N.E.2d 136, 188 Ohio App. 3d 825
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedJuly 20, 2010
DocketNos. 09AP-440 and 09AP-441
StatusPublished
Cited by41 cases

This text of 937 N.E.2d 136 (State v. Gravely) 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. Gravely, 937 N.E.2d 136, 188 Ohio App. 3d 825 (Ohio Ct. App. 2010).

Opinion

Klatt, Judge.

{¶ 1} Defendant-appellant, Michael T. Gravely, appeals from a judgment of conviction and sentence entered by the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas. For the following reasons, we affirm that judgment.

{¶ 2} On April 28, 2008, Officer Ronald Branham of the Columbus Police Department Narcotics Bureau Intac Unit1 sent a confidential informant to make [830]*830a controlled buy of drugs at a house located on East Rich Street in Columbus, Ohio. The police had received a number of complaints that drugs were being sold from this house. The informant went to the rear door of the house and purchased crack cocaine from a man inside the house. As a result of the buy, Officer Branham obtained a search warrant (“the first search warrant”) to find evidence of drugs in the house. Specifically, the warrant sought to search:

1781 E. RICH STREET (Two story white sided and brown brick house, buy came from 1st floor rear door; 2nd house east of the 1st alley east of Fairwood Avenue on the south side of E. Rich Street)

{¶ 3} On the evening of April 30, 2008, officers of the Intac Unit attempted to execute the first search warrant. They approached the rear door of the house, where the drug buy had occurred, in a single-file line. Officer John Kifer’s role that night was to provide armed cover for the other officers, who would attempt to gain entrance to the house. He stood to the side of the back porch to allow the next officer, Anthony Garrison, to get to the door. Garrison’s role was to breach the back door. Garrison first attempted to open the door, but it was locked. He then knocked on the door and announced that the police were there to serve a search warrant. Garrison heard people scurrying inside the house, so he hit the door with his battering ram to break down the door. The door did not move.

{¶ 4} After Garrison hit the door, Kifer heard and saw gunshots coming though the door. Garrison was shot in the hip but continued to hit the door with his battering ram until he was shot a second time, this time in the arm. Garrison dropped the battering ram and left the porch. Kifer returned fire to provide cover for Garrison. Officer John Gillis, who had been standing to the side of the door, picked up the battering ram and hit the door. The door still would not open. Shots were again fired from inside the house. One shot hit Gillis in the leg. He fell down and rolled off the porch. Kifer and another officer returned fire to provide cover for Gillis.

{¶ 5} The injured officers left the scene to receive medical treatment, and the remaining officers found cover in the house’s backyard. The officers ordered the people inside the house to come out. Shortly thereafter, several people exited the house through the rear door. Officer Kevin Tilson, who was performing containment of the scene, saw a person trying to leave the house through a basement window. That person, later identified as Derrick Foster, crawled out of the window and told Tilson that he had a gun. Tilson took the gun, threw it on the ground, and placed Foster under arrest.

{¶ 6} Other officers entered the first floor of the house to secure it and to search for suspects or any injured people. Once the house was secured, Detective James McCoskey, who was called to the scene after the shooting, [831]*831obtained a search warrant (“the second search warrant”) to search for evidence of felonious assault in the house. The warrant sought to search:

1781 E. Rich street, a light colored, vinyl siding covered two-story house located on the south side of the street facing north and curtilage

{¶ 7} Shortly thereafter, Columbus Police Crime Scene Search Unit officers arrived at the house. Outside the house, the officers found a Smith & Wesson Model SW .40F handgun that contained six .40 caliber rounds. Inside the house, the officers recovered two more guns: a Glock Smith & Wesson .40 caliber found inside the home’s furnace, and a Springfield Armor USA XP .45 found in the home’s basement. The Springfield Armor .45 was a two-tone gun, green on the bottom and black on the top. The officers also found a number of spent bullet casings inside the house. Specifically, they found two .40 casings and five .45 casings inside the house.

{¶ 8} Columbus Police Officer Detective William Gillette, the lead detective in this investigation, arrived at the scene later that morning and entered the house. As he walked through the house, he discovered steps leading up to a second-floor apartment. He and another officer knocked on the door of that apartment and told the people inside to come out. No one responded. Police later learned from Foster that people could still be inside that second-floor apartment. Based on that information, Detective McCoskey obtained another search warrant (“the third search warrant”) to search for those individuals. The warrant sought to search:

1779 E. Rich street, Columbus, Ohio, located on the second floor of a two-story, light colored, vinyl sided house, setting on the south side of the street facing north and curtilage

{¶ 9} Shortly thereafter, the Columbus Police Department’s SWAT team entered the house’s second-floor apartment. They found two people in the apartment: appellant and another man.

{¶ 10} After discovering that the second-floor apartment had a separate address from the first-floor apartment, Branham obtained another search warrant (“the fourth search warrant”) to search for evidence of drugs in the second-floor apartment. The warrant sought to search:

1781 EAST RICH STREET (Two story, white sided and brown brick house. Second house east of the first alley east of Fairwood Avenue on the south side of East Rich Street. Target is second floor only.)

Pursuant to the fourth search warrant, officers from the Crime Scene Search Unit entered the second-floor apartment and found drugs and drug paraphernalia.

[832]*832{¶ 11} As a result of these events, on May 29, 2008, a Franklin County Grand Jury indicted appellant in case No. 08CR05-3601 with two counts of felonious assault in violation of R.C. 2903.11 with firearm specifications, one count of having a weapon while under disability in violation of R.C. 2923.13, one count of possession of cocaine in violation of R.C. 2925.11, and one count of trafficking in cocaine in violation of R.C. 2925.03. Appellant entered a not-guilty plea to those charges.

{¶ 12} On January 14, 2009, another Franklin County Grand Jury indicted appellant in case No. 09CR01-275 with one count of possession of cocaine in violation of R.C. 2925.11, another count of possession of cocaine that included a major-drug-offender specification pursuant to R.C. 2941.1410, one count of possession of heroin in violation of R.C. 2925.11, and one count of having a weapon while under disability in violation of R.C. 2923.13. Appellant again entered a not-guilty plea to the charges and proceeded to trial.

{¶ 13} Before trial, appellant sought to suppress the evidence police obtained from their searches of 1779 and 1781 East Rich Street. Appellant argued that the evidence should be suppressed because the first three search warrants listed an incorrect address for the portion of the house searched. Specifically, the house contained two units with different addresses: 1779 East Rich Street is the address for the downstairs unit, and 1781 East Rich Street is the address for the upstairs unit.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
937 N.E.2d 136, 188 Ohio App. 3d 825, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-gravely-ohioctapp-2010.