State v. Ruby

778 N.E.2d 101, 149 Ohio App. 3d 541
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedOctober 4, 2002
DocketC.A. Case No. 02CA6, 02CA22, T.C. Case No. 01CR114.
StatusPublished
Cited by40 cases

This text of 778 N.E.2d 101 (State v. Ruby) 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. Ruby, 778 N.E.2d 101, 149 Ohio App. 3d 541 (Ohio Ct. App. 2002).

Opinion

Grady, Judge.

{¶ 1} Defendant, Jeffrey J. Ruby, appeals from his conviction and sentences for possessing crack cocaine, possessing drug paraphernalia, and theft. The convictions and sentences were imposed on verdicts of guilty returned by a jury.

{¶ 2} On May 21, 2001, Mechanicsburg police officer Doug Smith received a radio report that the driver of a vehicle approaching Mechanicsburg might be under the influence of alcohol. It was also reported that the vehicle, a Ford Taurus, had a broken taillight.

{¶ 3} Officer Smith spotted the vehicle and followed it. The vehicle drove into a convenience store drive-through, the Burg One, and emerged shortly after. Officer Smith stopped the vehicle after it had traveled a short distance.

{¶ 4} Defendant Ruby was the operator of the vehicle. He had one passenger. Ruby appeared to Officer Smith to be nervous and hyperactive. Ruby, who identified himself as Ronald Hill, was unable to produce a driver’s license, registration, or proof of insurance. Officer Smith saw open and closed alcohol containers in the vehicle, and he smelled an odor of alcohol from inside. He asked Ruby to submit to field sobriety tests.

{¶ 5} When Ruby stepped from the vehicle, he told Officer Smith, “I know what this is about. The woman back at the Burg One Stop gave me too much change back.” Ruby then handed Officer Smith one hundred and fifty dollars in cash and asked him to return it to the cashier at Burg One and to let him go on his way. It was at that point that the police radio dispatcher called Officer Smith to tell him that the cashier at the Burg One had just reported a theft involving a quick-change scheme employed by the driver of a vehicle that had stopped there shortly before.

{¶ 6} Ruby failed the field sobriety tests, and he and his passenger were arrested. Officer Smith returned with Ruby to the Burg One, where the cashier, Lucy Sherman, identified Ruby as the man who had swindled her. Officer Smith then took both men to jail. Ruby was booked under the name he gave Officer Smith, which was Ronald Hill.

{¶ 7} Officer Smith returned to where Ruby’s vehicle was parked and searched it. He found a crack pipe and a small rock of crack cocaine on the floor behind the driver’s seat, from which they apparently had fallen when Officer *548 Smith probed between the seat and seat back. He also discovered a checkbook, belonging to Ruby in the glove box.

{¶ 8} Officer Smith later learned defendant Ruby’s true name. When Officer Smith called the vehicle’s registered owner, Donna Ruby, she confirmed that the driver was her husband, Jeff Ruby. She also said that Ronald Hill is her son’s name.

{¶ 9} Defendant was indicted for possession of crack cocaine, R.C. 2925.11(A), possession of drug paraphernalia, R.C. 2925.14(C)(1), and theft, R.C. 2913.02(A)(3).

{¶ 10} At trial, Lucy Sherman identified Ruby as the man who had cheated her out of $179.42 in the fast-change scheme. Defendant’s wife testified that the car he drove was hers, and that drug users had had access to it that day. Defendant did not testify.

{¶ 11} Both Officer Smith and another witness, Robert DeWitt, testified that Ruby declined to make a statement after being given Miranda warnings. DeWitt testified:

{¶ 12} “Well, he was in the holding cell, meaning Officer Smith went to the holding cell. Mr. Smith yelled, asked him, ‘Mr. Ruby?’ Mr. Ruby turned up because he was lying there looking at us. Then he told him that we had found out his real name and told him the item that we found in the car. Mr. Smith began to read him his Miranda rights and then asked him if he wanted to comment about it and he replied, ‘No, you’re gonna do whatever you want. There’s nothing I can say is gonna change it.’ And then he laid back down.”

{¶ 13} Officer Smith testified:

{¶ 14} “* * * I walked in, and he was laying [sic] with a blanket pulled over his head. I said ‘Mr. Ruby?’ and he pulled his blanket down, looked at me, and asked ‘What.’ I said T understand your name is Jeffrey Ruby.’ And he said ‘Man, leave me alone.’ And I then proceeded to read him his Miranda rights. I asked, I informed him that I had found some other items in his car, including the pipe and the suspected crack cocaine. Asked him if he wanted to tell me anything about that. He said ‘Man, you’re gonna do whatever you’re gonna do. Just leave me alone. Let me go back to sleep.’ And he pulled the blanket back over his head.”

{¶ 15} On cross-examination, Officer Smith conceded that Ruby was merely exercising his constitutional right when he elected not to speak or to deny that the crack and crack pipe found in his car belonged to him. Following that, on redirect of Officer Smith by the prosecutor, the following colloquy ensued:

*549 {¶ 16} “Q. He also had the opportunity at that time to say T don’t know what you’re talking about; that stuff wasn’t mine’?

{¶ 17} “A. That’s correct.”

{¶ 18} The prosecutor exploited the fact of defendant’s silence in his statements to the jury. In his opening statements the prosecutor told the jury:

{¶ 19} “We believe that the evidence will show, and that the defendant will be convicted not only by what he said on May 21st, 2001, but also by what he did not say.”

{¶ 20} In his closing argument the prosecutor said:

{¶ 21} “I told you that the defendant would be convicted on what he said and what he didn’t say.”

{¶ 22} “We know that the defendant, when confronted with the crack pipe and the cocaine, didn’t deny that it was his crack pipe. Didn’t deny that it was his cocaine. The judge will instruct you that — use your common sense, and if, in fact, you’re using your common sense, what are you going to do? You’re going to deny it.”

{¶ 23} The jury returned verdicts of guilty, and defendant was convicted and sentenced. He filed a timely notice of appeal.

FIRST ASSIGNMENT OF ERROR

{¶ 24} “The trial court committed reversible error in allowing the state to use evidence of appellant’s silence after receiving his Miranda warnings as evidence of his guilt in its opening statement, case-in-chief and summation.”

{¶ 25} The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees that no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself. See, also, Section 10, Article I of the Ohio Constitution. This privilege is protected by advising a person who is subject to custodial interrogation that he has the right to remain silent. Miranda v. Arizona (1966), 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694. Miranda warnings contain an implied promise, rooted in the Constitution, that silence will carry no penalty. Doyle v. Ohio (1976), 426 U.S. 610, 96 S.Ct. 2240, 49 L.Ed.2d 91; Wainwright v. Greenfield (1986), 474 U.S. 284, 106 S.Ct. 634, 88 L.Ed.2d 623.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
778 N.E.2d 101, 149 Ohio App. 3d 541, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-ruby-ohioctapp-2002.