State v. Nettles (Slip Opinion), 2020 Ohio 768

DEA agents obtained an interception warrant from the Sandusky County Common Pleas Court to monitor Keith Nettles’s cell-phone calls; the application stated calls would be intercepted in Sandusky County and listened to from DEA offices in Toledo (Lucas County).
Verizon, pursuant to federal law requiring carriers to facilitate lawful interception, captured and redirected Nettles’s incoming and outgoing calls across its network to the DEA listening post in real time.
Agents in Lucas County aurally monitored the calls; evidence gathered led to Nettles’s arrest, indictment, and conviction for drug-trafficking offenses.
Nettles moved to suppress, arguing the Sandusky court lacked jurisdiction because the interception occurred where agents listened (Lucas County); the trial court denied suppression and the Sixth District affirmed.
The Ohio Supreme Court took the case to decide whether, under R.C. 2933.53, an interception occurs only at the listening point or also at the location where the phone/user is located; the Court held that interception occurs in both places, so Sandusky County was a proper forum for the warrant.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether under R.C. 2933.53 an "interception" of a cell-phone call occurs only at the listening post or also at the phone/user location	Nettles: interception occurs when agents aurally overhear the call (listening point only)	State: “intercept” includes “aural or other acquisition”; carriers capture/redirect calls at the phone’s location, so interception also occurs there	Interception occurs in both locations: when the carrier captures/redirects the call at the phone and when agents aurally overhear it; Sandusky warrant valid
Whether statutory wording (reference to "the county") limits interception to a single county	Nettles: singular phrasing implies interception must be in one county only	State: statutory construction permits singular to include plural; dual-locus interceptions are possible and contemplated by technology	Court applied R.C. 1.43 to read singular/plural interchangeably and held interception may occur in multiple counties

United States v. Rodriguez, 968 F.2d 130 (2d Cir. 1992) (discusses aural acquisition occurring where call is first heard)
United States v. Jackson, 849 F.3d 540 (3d Cir. 2017) (interception may occur at both tapped phone location and listening site)
United States v. Dahda, 853 F.3d 1101 (10th Cir. 2017) (same)
United States v. Cano-Flores, 796 F.3d 83 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (same)
United States v. Henley, 766 F.3d 893 (8th Cir. 2014) (same)
State v. Ates, 86 A.3d 710 (N.J. 2014) (state-court recognition that interception can be multi-locus)
Davis v. State, 43 A.3d 1044 (Md. 2012) (same)
State v. McCormick, 719 So.2d 1220 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1998) (same)