State v. Miller

345 N.E.2d 82, 45 Ohio App. 2d 301, 74 Ohio Op. 2d 476, 1975 Ohio App. LEXIS 5820
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 10, 1975
Docket9-75-3
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 345 N.E.2d 82 (State v. Miller) 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. Miller, 345 N.E.2d 82, 45 Ohio App. 2d 301, 74 Ohio Op. 2d 476, 1975 Ohio App. LEXIS 5820 (Ohio Ct. App. 1975).

Opinion

GrUERNSEy,- J.

On April 7, 1971,. defendant, appellant herein, commenced two concurrent sentences;in the Mans-

*302 field Reformatory of one to fifteen years and one to twenty years for the commission of two felonies. On June 30,1971, he was admitted to shock probation upon certain pertinent conditions including the following:

“ (5) Conduct himself in a proper manner at all times, keep reasonable hours * * *
“(6) Refrain completely from the use of intoxicating liquors * * *, and refrain from entering places where intoxicating liquors are sold or dispensed * * *
“(16) Be in his home by 11:00 o’clock P. M. each evening, unless his employment requires otherwise, or unless in the company of his family * *

On December 2, 1974, the defendant’s probation officer ordered his arrest for being involved in felonious assault charge and “[a]Iso being intoxicated at time of arrest.”

On December 16,1974, notice was issued and thereupon served on defendant that “a hearing on the probation violation of Harold Daniel Miller, having been found in a state of intoxication and other matters as may be pertinent, will be heard at the Court of Common Pleas, Marion County, Ohio, on Tuesday, December 17, 1974 at 1:00 P. M.” The hearing took place as scheduled, defendant was in court with counsel, and evidence was adduced that he was seen by a police officer leaving a bar after midnight of November 30, 1974, during the early morning hours of December 1, 1974, and by several police officers later in the morning (between the hours of three and four o’clock), when answering a complaint that two elderly residents of a rest home had been’ beaten, who found him on the living room floor of his home at the rear of the rest home in an intoxicated condition. There was also the testimony of a pregnant employee of the rest home that the defendant and his wife owned the rest home, that he appeared there about 1 A. M. on December 1, 1974, in an intoxicated condition, passed out a couple of times, cursed, tore a pipe entering a fire alarm box off the wall, and so conducted himself as to frighten the employee into leaving the home for the protection of herself and her unborn child. The defendant offered no evidence.

*303 The trial judge announced his decision at the end of the hearing revoking probation for violation of the above quoted conditions and found in his journal entry filed on December 24, 1974, that the defendant “did violate the conditions of his probation in the following respects; he did fail to conduct himself in a proper manner at all times, he did fail to refrain completely from the use of alcoholic beverages and refrain from entering places where alcoholic beverages are sold or dispensed and he did' fail to be in his home by 11:00 P. M. each evening, unless his employment requires otherwise, and that by reason thereof said probation should be terminated.” He was then resentenced and returned to prison.

It is from this judgment of revocation of probation that the defendant appeals assigning as error that he was deprived of the constitutional safeguards of due process guaranteed to him by the case of Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 92 S. Ct. 2593.

Appellant’s first claim is, in effect, that the findings that the defendant ‘ ‘ did fail to conduct himself in a proper manner at all times [condition 5 of his probation], and he did fail to refrain completely from the use of alcoholic beverages and refrain from entering places where alcoholic beverages are sold or dispensed [condition 6 of his probation] and he did fail to be in his home by 11:00 P. M. each evening, unless his employment requires otherwise [condition 16 of his probation],” are not permissible findings when the notice on which the revocation hearing was held merely specified that the hearing would be on the probation violation of defendant “having been found in a state of intoxication and other matters as may be pertinent.”

Morrissey v. Brewer, supra, as applicable to probation revocation under Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U. S. 778, 93 S. Ct. 1756, contemplates a hearing “in the nature of a ‘preliminary hearing’ to determine whether there is probable cause or reasonable ground to believe that the arrested parolee [probationer] has committed acts which would constitute a violation of parole [probation] conditions,” with a notice thereof which “should state what parole [probation] violations have been alleged.” Morrissey v. Brewer, *304 pp. 485-487, 2602-2603. On the other hand, by the same authority, pp. 487-489, 2603-2604, a revocation hearing is also contemplated which “must be the basis for more than determining probable cause; it must lead to a final evaluation of any contested relevant facts and consideration of whether the facts as determined warrant revocation, ” and must be pursuant to a “written notice of the claimed violations of parole [probation].”

It will be observed that the notice requirements are not for a notice of the conditions of probation which have been violated. The probationer is well aware, or is at least charged with a full awareness, of the conditions of his probation and, in our opinion, the notice for either the preliminary hearing or the revocation hearing merely requires, in this respect, a statement of the acts which are claimed to be violations of the probation conditions. Thus, the notice here related to the probationer “having been found in a state of intoxication and other matters as may be pertinent. ’ ’ Fairly construed, th e ‘ other matters as may be pertinent” are matters relating to his having been found in a state of intoxication, including his departure and the time of his departure from a bar shortly beforehand, where it may be reasonably inferred that he had been drinking, and his intoxicated presence in the nursing home between the time he departed from the bar and the time he was found on the floor of and arrested in the living room of his nearby home. Thus the notice gave notice to the defendant of every act which the court found to be violative of the conditions of his probation.

The defendant would have the trial court and this court distinguish between the finding of the court that the defendant failed “to refrain completely from the use of alcoholic beverages and refrain, from entering places where alcoholic beverages are sold or dispensed” (emphasis added), and the phraseology of the conditions of probation that he “refrain from the use of intoooicating liquors * * * and refrain from entering places where intoxicating liquors are sold or dispensed” (emphasis added), would have the condition made applicable only to intoxicating liquors as defined by R. C. 4301.01 and thus include in the operation *305 of such condition only the drinking of anything with more than 3.2% of alcohol by weight.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
345 N.E.2d 82, 45 Ohio App. 2d 301, 74 Ohio Op. 2d 476, 1975 Ohio App. LEXIS 5820, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-miller-ohioctapp-1975.