State v. Meeker

268 N.E.2d 589, 26 Ohio St. 2d 9, 55 Ohio Op. 2d 5, 1971 Ohio LEXIS 525
CourtOhio Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 31, 1971
DocketNo. 69-838
StatusPublished
Cited by76 cases

This text of 268 N.E.2d 589 (State v. Meeker) 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. Meeker, 268 N.E.2d 589, 26 Ohio St. 2d 9, 55 Ohio Op. 2d 5, 1971 Ohio LEXIS 525 (Ohio 1971).

Opinions

Leach, J.

Defendant has renewed in this court his claim that under the first count of the indictment he may not be tried for armed robbery but can only be tried for unarmed robbery.2 That issue, however, was never before the Court of Appeals. While the ruling of the Common Pleas Court as to count one of the indictment would not appear to be a final order, subject at the time to appeal by defendant, in any event no attempt was made by defendant to cross-appeal as to such ruling.3

Any appellate review of the order of the Common Pleas Court refusing to quash count one of the indictment must await appeal from conviction, if there be a conviction.

Defendant also asks this court to find that the Court of Appeals erred when it “failed to affirm” the decision of the Common Pleas Court that credit for time served must be given on any future sentence. Such a statement was but the expression by the court as to its future intent in the event of conviction. It is not an appealable order, [13]*13nor is the comment by the Court of Appeals that the issue of credit is one for the Adult Parole Authority and not for the trial court an appealable order.4

We turn now to the principal question presented by thip appeal. Should the lower court have dismissed the three counts of the 1969 indictment charging offenses which w^'e not charged in 1963. Defendant asserts that dismissal of those three counts is compelled for two reasons.

The first claim of defendant is that the potentiality of an increased sentence from a multiple-count indictment is violative of the constitutional principles enunciated by the United States Supreme Court in North Carolina v. Pearce (1969), 395 U. S. 711, and that “the fear of an extra barrage of counts at a new trial casts as real a chilling effect on the assertion of constitutional rights [by appeal or by postconviction relief] as the fear of a longer sentence on the same count.”

In Pearce, the court said that:

“Due process of law, then, requires that vindictiveness against a defendant for having successfully attacked his first conviction must play no part in the sentence he receives after a new trial. And since the fear of such vindictiveness may unconstitutionally deter a defendant’s exercise of the right to appeal or collaterally attack his first conviction, due process also requires that a defendant be freed of apprehension of such a retaliatory motivation on the part of the sentencing judge.

“In order to assure the absence of such a motivation, [14]*14we have concluded that whenever a judge imposes a more severe sentence upon a defendant after a new trial, the reasons for his doing so must affirmatively appear. Those reasons must be based upon objective information concerning identifiable conduct on the part of the defendant occurring after the time of the original sentencing proceeding.

Specifically, Pearce was directed at “vindictiveness” or “retaliatory motivation” on the part of the sentencing judge,. For a discussion as to whether its rationale would necessarily invalidate actions taken by others than the sentencing judge where such actions might lead to the possibility of increased sentence, see Aplin, Sentence Increases On Retrial After North Carolina v. Pearce, 39 University of Cincinnati L. Rev. 427, 451.

Pearce does not hold that there is an absolute bar to imposing a more severe sentence on reconviction. Whether “vindictiveness” or “retaliatory motivation” is present would appear to be essentially a question of fact. Here the ruling of the trial court was made without any evidentiary hearing as to such a question of fact. Under these circumstances, and concluding that counts two, three, and four of the indictment must be dismissed for another reason, we express no opinion as to the “chilling effect’’ assertion as applied to the facts before us.

The second claim of defendant as to the constitutional invalidity of counts two, three and four is that to first charge defendant with these offenses in 1969, when the crimes allegedly were committed in 1963, is in violation of the constitutional right of the defendant to a speedy trial. Section 10 of Article I of the Ohio Constitution guarantees such right. The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, also guarantees such right. Klopfer v. North Carolina (1967), 386 U. S. 213; Smith v. Hooey (1969), 393 U. S. 374; Dickey v. Florida (1970), 398 U. S. 30.

A motion to quash, or a motion treated as a motion to quash, is a proper procedure to attack counts of an in[15]*15dictment purporting to commence prosecution of an offense in violation of the constitutional right of defendant to a speedy trial. Thus, where it appears that there has been a violation of a defendant’s constitutional right to a speedy trial as to some of the charges contained in an indictment, a motion to quash the counts of the indictment containing such charges should be sustained.

While the members of the particular Grand Jury which indicted defendant in April 1969 obviously had no knowledge of defendant’s actions on April 26, 1963, until 1969, there is no indication or claim herein that such actions were not fully known to the prosecuting authorities in 1963. Thus, unless there be some other legally justifiable excuse for not proceeding to charge and try defendant on the charges made for the first time in counts two, three and four of the 1969 indictment, it would appear that these new 1969 charges are constitutionally defective—unless the constitutional right of a defendant to a speedy trial does not arise until he is formally charged with the crime.

In the short per curiam opinion of Click v. Eckle (1962), 174 Ohio St. 88, 91, the statement is made that “the right to speedy trial arises after one is charged with a crime.” In that action seeking a writ of habeas corpus the petitioner had been indicted just 24 days prior to his plea of guilty to a crime which had occurred some three years before.

Ashmore v. State (1969), 19 Ohio St. 2d 181, however, involved a case where no indictment had ever been returned. The charge involved was forgery, a felony. A warrant for arrest had been issued from a Municipal Court and pursuant thereto a detainer had been filed with California penal authorities, petitioner being a prison inmate in that state. A writ of habeas corpus ad prosequendum was allowed on the basis of the speedy trial requirements as required by the decisions of the United States Supreme Court in Klopfer v. North Carolina, supra (386 U. S. 213), and Smith v. Hooey, supra (393 U. S. 374).

In Ashmore, supra, a warrant had been issued and not served. In People v. Hryciuk (1967), 36 Ill. 2d 500, 224 [16]*16N. E. 2d 250

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Bluebook (online)
268 N.E.2d 589, 26 Ohio St. 2d 9, 55 Ohio Op. 2d 5, 1971 Ohio LEXIS 525, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-meeker-ohio-1971.