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State v. Grimmett1/14/2005
{ } Charles Grimmett is appealing the decision of the Fairborn Municipal Court which affirmed a magistrate's decision denying his motion to suppress evidence resulting from his traffic stop, detention and subsequent arrest for driving while under the influence of alcohol.
{ } On May 3, 2003, at approximately 8:20 p.m., Sergeant Mark Stannard of the Fairborn Police Department received a dispatch concerning a call from a concerned citizen about an erratic driver. When Sgt. Stannard responded to the area in which the driver was spotted, he encountered the citizen who had made the call to dispatch. The caller identified himself to Sgt. Stannard and reiterated the story that a full-size gold Honda pick-up truck with a truck cap had swerved left of center several times on State Route 235, subsequently turning into the American Legion parking lot. When Sgt. Stannard was unable to locate the vehicle in the area, he proceeded to the address of the registered owner after running the license plate number provided by the caller. The vehicle was not present at the address, so Sgt. Stannard proceeded southbound on Central Avenue.
{ } As Sgt. Stannard approached Xenia Drive he spotted the vehicle. He quickly made a U-turn and fell in behind the vehicle. As the vehicles approached Whittier Street, Sgt. Stannard observed the vehicle swerve into the left lane across the divider by two feet, and then swing right onto Whittier. Sgt. Stannard activated his overhead lights and stopped Grimmett.
{ } Upon approaching Grimmett's vehicle, Sgt. Stannard immediately noticed Grimmett's "watery, bloodshot eyes" and "a moderate odor of an alcoholic beverage upon his breath." When Sgt. Stannard asked if he had been drinking, Grimmett stated that he had had "two beers." Sgt. Stannard requested that Grimmett exit the vehicle to perform field sobriety tests. Grimmett failed the horizontal gaze nystagmus test, the walk-and-turn test, and the one-leg stand test. Based upon his performance of these tests, Sgt. Stannard arrested Grimmett.
{ } Grimmett was cited for driving under the influence and failure to negotiate a proper right turn. Grimmett filed a motion to suppress evidence, and a hearing was held on October 14, 2003. A magistrate denied his motion to suppress and the trial court eventually overruled the motion. On March 8, 2004, Grimmett entered a no contest plea to the driving while under the influence of alcohol charge; the remaining charges were dismissed. The trial court found Grimmett guilty of the charge and sentenced him to a fine of $450 and 180 days in jail, with 160 days suspended.
{ } Grimmett now appeals his conviction and sentence, asserting the following assignment of error:
{ } "The trial court erred and violated Appellant's Fourth Amendment rights when it refused to order the evidence suppressed, because the evidence showed that the officer lacked a reasonable basis for making the traffic stop[.]"
{ } In the first portion of this assignment of error, Grimmett asserts that because the dispatch itself was not issued on proper reasonable suspicion, his stop was unconstitutional. In the latter portion of his assignment of error, Grimmett argues that the alleged traffic violation did not provide reasonable suspicion for a stop, as the State failed to meet its burden to provide evidence that Grimmett violated the traffic offense for which he was charged.
{ } At a hearing on a motion to suppress, the trial court acts as the trier of fact. State v. Mills (1992), 62 Ohio St.3d 357, 366, 582 N.E.2d 972. As the trier of fact, the trial court evaluates the evidence and judges the credibility of the witnesses. Id. at 366, citin
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