William W. Young

In State v. Dugan, the defendant was charged with operating a vehicle under the influence after a traffic stop for a center-line violation and subsequent breath tests on an Intoxilyzer 8000 that recorded BAC levels above the legal limit. She moved to suppress the test results, citing discrepancies between the Subject Test Report and ODH database records showing multiple sample attempts that the administering officer did not observe. The trial court partially granted the motion to suppress, but the Twelfth District Court of Appeals reversed, concluding that the state demonstrated substantial compliance with Ohio Department of Health regulations through officer and ODH administrator testimony explaining how the machine registers attempts without audible indicators. The court held that any minor procedural variations did not render the results inadmissible and that statutory presumptions of reliability applied absent contrary evidence presented at the suppression hearing.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved a travel nurse who contracted with Advantage RN, LLC to work at a North Carolina hospital for 13 weeks but was terminated after failing a required Performance Based Development System test; the nurse sued the company and two employees for breach of contract, misrepresentation, and fraud, seeking reimbursement for preparation and travel expenses. The trial court granted summary judgment to the defendants on the misrepresentation and fraud claims, dismissed the individual defendants, and later granted summary judgment on the breach of contract claim after receiving evidence that the plaintiff did not meet the hospital's test expectations. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the contract permitted termination based on the traveler's actions, that employees acting within the scope of employment could not be held personally liable, and that there was no evidence supporting fraud or misrepresentation claims; the court also found no abuse of discretion in denying a motion to vacate under Civ.R. 60(B).

labor & employmentbusiness & regulatoryprocedure

In State v. Marshall, the defendant was convicted after a jury trial of felonious assault with firearm specifications for his alleged role in a September 2007 shootout at a Middletown housing complex that injured multiple people. The defendant appealed, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence identifying him as a shooter and arguing that the presence of two victims (Jerrel and Jeremy) during trial testimony violated his fair trial rights. The court affirmed the conviction, finding that multiple eyewitness accounts placed the defendant at the scene firing an automatic weapon and that victims have constitutional and statutory rights to attend proceedings under Ohio law unless their presence demonstrably prejudices the defendant, which was not shown here.

criminal lawprocedure

The case was about Shadeed Barnett's appeal of his conviction for felonious assault with a firearm specification after a jury trial in the Butler County Court of Common Pleas, arising from a shootout in a Middletown, Ohio housing complex on September 19, 2007, that injured multiple people including Demarco Conley. The Court of Appeals of Ohio affirmed the conviction. The court reasoned that, although much of the evidence against Barnett was circumstantial, when viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution it was sufficient for a rational trier of fact to find the elements of felonious assault proven beyond a reasonable doubt, based on witness testimony placing Barnett at the scene with a weapon, identifications of him shooting, and physical evidence such as shell casings and a bullet recovered from his apartment.

criminal lawguns

In Koop v. Speedway Superamerica, LLC, the plaintiff sued the defendant convenience store for negligence after she slipped and fell while walking toward the checkout counter shortly after a coffee spill had been mopped, claiming the store failed to properly clean the area. The trial court granted summary judgment to the defendant, and the court of appeals affirmed that decision. The appellate court held that the plaintiff's proffered incident report and witness statements lacked proper authentication or certification and thus were inadmissible on summary judgment, while the store manager's testimony about possible dampness on the floor amounted to speculation without personal knowledge of the fall's cause and therefore could not establish proximate cause.

torts & liabilityprocedure

The case involved Gregory Gellenbeck appealing his conviction for speeding in violation of R.C. 4511.21(D) after a state trooper visually estimated his speed at 80 m.p.h. and recorded 83-84 m.p.h. via Python radar on Interstate 71. Gellenbeck argued that his statutory speedy trial rights under R.C. 2945.71(A) were violated because trial occurred after the original 30-day limit and challenged the sufficiency of the evidence based on the trooper's testimony. The appellate court affirmed the conviction, reasoning that Gellenbeck's own motion to continue his arraignment tolled the speedy trial period by seven days under R.C. 2945.72(H), placing the August 6 trial date within the extended limit, and that the trooper's detailed testimony on visual estimation, radar calibration, and operation constituted sufficient evidence of guilt.

criminal lawprocedure