State v. Terrell involved allegations of trafficking in cocaine and other drugs.

State v. Terrell involved allegations of trafficking in cocaine and other drugs.

The Second District Court of Appeals has found that probable cause did not exist to execute a 2010 search warrant on a suspected Springfield drug house. Accordingly, the appeals court ruled that the trial court erred in denying a suspect’s motion to suppress the evidence found during the search.

Andre Terrell was convicted and sentenced on charges of possession of cocaine, crack cocaine, and ecstacy resulting from a search of 239 East Grand Avenue. Dayton policed searched the home after a judge approved the search warrant based on an officer’s affidavit and information provided by a confidential source.

Judge Michael T. Hall authored the unanimous decision, which quotes extensively from the affidavit “because the adequacy of the search-warrant affidavit is central to the outcome of the second assignment of error (overruling of the pre-trial suppression motion).”

The appeals court found, that “the issuing judge lacked a substantial basis for finding probable cause to believe drugs or related contraband would be found inside 239 East Grand Avenue. The problem, from a probable-cause perspective, is that CS#1 (confidential source No. 1) provided almost no information establishing the likely presence of drugs inside the East Grand Avenue residence when the warrant was issued.”

“When the search-warrant affidavit is distilled, the facts about 239 East Grand Avenue are these: 1)Three drug traffickers are distributing cocaine, primarily in Dayton but also in Springfield, Ohio; 2) On May 14, 2010, a confidential informant, who had been inside two of the identified Dayton houses, but who was never inside the Springfield residence, indicated that the three locations were used for storage and distribution of narcotics; 3) Over a 9 month period (without any reference to the timing, recency or frequency) of a specific location, the informant said he picked up drugs and returned money to the combined three locations. That’s it.”

In conclusion, Judge Hall wrote: “Without any corroboration whatsoever related to the Springfield address, and without any sense of the timeliness of the information, the averred facts provided almost no evidence to support a finding that drugs likely would be found inside 239 East Grand Avenue when the warrant was issued on June 1, 2010. In our view, these facts did not provide a substantial basis for finding probable cause to believe drugs likely were present when the warrant was issued.”

Judges Jeffrey E. Froelich and Frank D. Celebrezze, sitting by assignment from the Eighth District Court of Appeals, concurred in the January 18 opinion that reversed the judgment of the trial court and remanded it for further proceedings.

State v. Terrell, 2013-Ohio-124
Opinion: http://www.sconet.state.oh.us/rod/docs/pdf/2/2013/2013-ohio-124.pdf
Criminal Appeal From: Clark County Common Pleas Court
Judgment Appealed From Is: Reversed and Remanded
Date of Judgment Entry on Appeal: January 18, 2013

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