State v. South, 2014 Ohio 374

December 26, 2012, a car crash occurred when South struck a pole; Washburn observed a person leaving the car and appearing to hold the license plate.
Police tracked footprints from the scene to South’s residence in Summit County, Ohio, where officers found a license plate propped at the basement entry.
South smelled of alcohol; he refused to answer questions and to perform field sobriety testing.
South consented to a breathalyzer at the police station; BAC Datamaster test yielded a BAC of .087 about 80 minutes after the crash.
South had multiple prior OVI convictions and a suspended license; he was indicted on two OVI counts, driving under suspension, and failure to control.
The jury convicted on the OVI counts, the specification, and the driving under suspension, while the court found him guilty of failure to control; sentence totaled eight years, later appealed.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether counsel’s failure to move to suppress BAC results was ineffective	South	State	No ineffective-assistance; suppression not warranted
Whether the sentence was contrary to law	South	State	Partially sustained; remand for resentencing on OVI/specification to conform to law

Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984) (establishes two-prong ineffective-assistance standard)
State v. Bradley, 42 Ohio St.3d 136 (1989) (prejudice prong in Strickland)
State v. Madrigal, 87 Ohio St.3d 378 (2000) (per se ineffectiveness not automatic; suppression must have valid basis)
Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U.S. 365 (1986) (counsel's duties related to suppression strategy)
State v. Flowers, 2012-Ohio-3783 (2012) (necessity of valid basis to suppress evidence)
State v. Vitt, 2012-Ohio-4438 (2012) (sentencing when part of a multi-offense term—remand for proper term)
State v. Saxon, 109 Ohio St.3d 176 (2006) (remand without vacating entire sentence when component is contrary to law)
State v. Fischer, 128 Ohio St.3d 92 (2010) (no authority to impose contrary-to-law sentence)