State v. FritschState v. Fritsch
Raymond T. Faller, Hamilton County Public Defender, and Krista Gieske, Assistant Public Defender, for Defendant-Appellant.
O P I N I O N.
{¶1} Following a bench trial in municipal court, defendant-appellant Jeremy Fritsch was convicted of one misdemeanor count of operating a vehicle while intoxicated (“OVI“) in violation of
Facts and Procedural History
{¶2} Over the course of October 3, 2022, Fritsch had three encounters with Officer Joesph Stone at Delhi Township Park. These interactions culminated in Officer Stone arresting Fritsch for OVI. Fritsch and Officer Stone first interacted in the afternoon when Officer Stone responded to a complaint that Fritsch was sitting by some children and unsettling the other park-goers. Officer Stone told Fritsch to hang out somewhere else.
{¶3} The second encounter came not much later, around 9:00 p.m. Officer Stone was called to help Fritsch because he had locked himself out of his car. Fritsch had gone to a nearby house to try to borrow a phone to call for help. Officer Stone unlocked Fritsch‘s vehicle, but Fritsch refused to go to it, claiming he was concerned about coyotes in the park. Officer Stone testified he has never seen coyotes while patrolling Delhi Park over the previous year.
{¶4} The third encounter began just 30 minutes later. Officer Stone noticed people yelling and waving to get his attention. As he approached, Officer Stone saw those people chase Fritsch away. One of them told Officer Stone that Fritsch had stood on top of the neighbor‘s truck talking about coyotes. Officer Stone caught up with Fritsch and told him he had to leave the park at that time. Officer Stone asked Fritsch if he was okay to drive because,
{¶5} Officer Stone got into his police cruiser and pursued Fritsch through the grass and the adjacent Floral Paradise Park. Officer Stone activated his overhead lights and eventually his siren, but Fritsch continued driving through the grass until he reached a paved driveway abutting Floral Paradise Park. Officer Stone‘s body-worn camera indicated the pursuit lasted about one minute and Officer Stone estimated the pursuit covered 500 to 1,000 feet.
{¶6} At the stop, Officer Stone observed Fritsch to have bloodshot eyes and dilated pupils, but Officer Stone did not smell the odor of an alcoholic beverage. Fritsch‘s speech was slow and sometimes muffled, but not slurred. Officer Stone recovered a marijuana pipe from Fritsch, but did not locate any marijuana. Fritsch denied having “consumed anything.” When asked what he was doing driving through the park‘s grass, Fritsch responded that he was leaving the park as ordered, but wanted to take a shortcut to visit his “garden.” Believing him to be impaired, Officer Stone then conducted standardized field-sobriety tests on Fritsch. While administering the horizontal-gaze-nystagmus test, Officer Stone detected three out of six possible clues of impairment. On the walk-and-turn test, Officer Stone again observed three out of six possible clues of impairment. After instructing Fritsch on the one-leg-stand test, Fritsch reattempted the walk-and-turn test. Officer Stone then readministered the one-leg-stand test and Fritsch displayed two of four possible clues of
{¶7} At the time of the incident, Officer Stone was an eight-year veteran of the Delhi Township Police Department. Based on his observations, his training and his experience, Officer Stone concluded that Fritsch was impaired and arrested him for OVI.
{¶8} After the arrest, Officer Stone and another officer who had just arrived on the scene searched Fritsch‘s vehicle. Inside, Officer Stone found a rolled up sticky note with residue on it tucked in the driver‘s side visor. Laboratory testing later identified the residue as methamphetamine. Fritsch denied any knowledge of the sticky note. After searching the vehicle, Officer Stone transported Fritsch to a nearby police station and interviewed him. Officer Stone testified that Fritch admitted to drinking “a couple beers” and that he began drinking the day before and stopped a few hours earlier. Officer Stone further testified that Fritsch admitted that he was under the influence of alcohol at that time. Officer Stone asked Fritsch to submit to a urine test because he believed he had drugs in his system. But Fritsch refused, citing an inability to use the restroom at the time. Officer Stone testified that he believed Fritsch was under the influence of alcohol or drugs and that he should not be driving. Fritsch was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia, OVI, and failure to maintain reasonable control. Officer Stone sent the sticky note with the residue to the Hamilton County Crime Lab for analysis.
{¶9} Before trial, the drug-paraphernalia charge was dismissed by the state. At trial, Hamilton County Crime Lab analyst Laura Kimble was called to testify. Defense counsel objected to her testimony as irrelevant. Defense
Admission of the Analyst‘s Testimony and Report
{¶10} In Fritsch‘s first assignment of error, he argues the trial court erred in permitting the analyst to testify about the methamphetamine residue on the sticky note and admitting the analyst‘s report. A trial court‘s decision to admit or exclude evidence is reviewed for an abuse of discretion. State v. Morris, 132 Ohio St.3d 337, 2012-Ohio-2407, 972 N.E.2d 528, ¶ 19. An abuse of discretion connotes a judgment that is unreasonable, arbitrary, or unconscionable. Blakemore v. Blakemore, 5 Ohio St.3d 217, 219, 450 N.E.2d 1140 (1983). “[A]s the [Ohio] Supreme Court recently clarified, ‘courts lack the discretion to make errors of law.‘” State v. Austin, 1st Dist. Hamilton Nos. C-210140 and C-210141, 2021-Ohio-3608, ¶ 5, quoting Johnson v. Abdullah, 166 Ohio St.3d 427, 2021-Ohio-3304, 187 N.E.3d 463, ¶ 39. But an error in an evidentiary ruling does not warrant reversal when the error does
{¶11} Fritsch objected to the testimony of the lab analyst under
{¶12} Here, the analyst‘s testimony and report are probative of whether Fritsch operated a vehicle while “under the influence of alcohol, a drug of abuse, or a combination of them.” See
{¶13} Fritsch also argues that the analyst‘s testimony and report are inadmissible as prior-bad-acts evidence. This is a different argument than the grounds objected on at trial and thus appellate review is limited only to plain error. See
{¶15} Because the analyst‘s testimony and report are relevant and were not substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice nor were improper prior-bad-acts evidence, we overrule Fritsch‘s first assignment of error.
Sufficiency of the Evidence
{¶16} In Fritsch‘s second assignment of error, he argues the evidence was legally insufficient to support his conviction. A challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting a conviction requires a court to determine whether the state has met its burden of production at trial. State v. Thompkins, 78 Ohio St.3d 380, 390, 678 N.E.2d 541 (1997) (Cook, J., concurring). The relevant inquiry, when reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, is whether, after viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the offense proved beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Jenks, 61 Ohio St.3d 259, 574 N.E.2d 492 (1991), paragraph two of the syllabus; State v. Ojile, 1st Dist. Hamilton Nos. C-110677 and C-110678, 2012-Ohio-6015, ¶ 48.
{¶17} Fritsch was convicted of a misdemeanor OVI under
{¶18} The state provided sufficient evidence that Fritsch consumed a combination of alcohol and a drug of abuse. Officer Stone had stopped Fritsch, Stone observed Fritsch had bloodshot eyes and dilated pupils, though Fritsch‘s speech was not slurred, and Officer Stone did not smell the odor of an alcoholic beverage. Fritsch admitted to being under the influence of alcohol and drinking “a couple beers,” starting the day before and stopping a few hours prior to the incident. Officer Stone found a marijuana pipe on Fritsch‘s person and a sticky note containing methamphetamine residue in Fritsch‘s car. This physical evidence together with Fritsch‘s statements provided context to Fritsch refusing to climb down from the hood of another person‘s vehicle because he was afraid of coyotes and Fritsch driving through the grass of the park. Fritsch‘s statements of having ingested alcohol, together with his outlandish behavior and the drug paraphernalia found on Fritsch, was
{¶19} Turning to the second part of an OVI charge, the totality of the evidence, if believed, is more than sufficient to establish Fritsch‘s impaired driving. Fritsch‘s erratic driving through the grass of the park was the first indication of his impairment. See Bowden at ¶ 13, citing Richardson at ¶ 18 (both noting a defendant‘s erratic driving is evidence of impairment). Fritsch‘s driving provided context to Officer Stone‘s earlier strange interactions with Fritsch. Based on that evidence of impairment, Officer Stone had Fritch perform standard field-sobriety tests, where Fritch demonstrated approximately half of the possible clues of impairment on each test. See id., citing Richardson at ¶ 18 (both noting a defendant‘s poor performance on the walk-and-turn and one-leg-stand tests as evidence of impairment by narcotics). Fritsch‘s refusal to submit to a urine test further weighs against him. State v. Cohen, 1st Dist. Hamilton No. C-220354, 2023-Ohio-1643, ¶ 14, citing State v. Leasure, 2015-Ohio-5327, 43 N.E.3d 477, ¶ 20 (4th Dist.), and City of Maumee v. Anistik, 69 Ohio St.3d 339, 632 N.E.2d 497 (1994), syllabus (holding a defendant‘s refusal to submit to a chemical test may be considered when evaluating whether a defendant was under the influence of alcohol); see Bowden at ¶ 13, citing State v. Cauthon, 5th Dist. Fairfield No. 18-CA-41, 2019-Ohio-1809, ¶ 19 (both finding sufficient evidence supported defendant‘s OVI conviction, in part, where a defendant refused a drug test). This evidence, when taken together and viewed in the light most favorable to the state, sufficiently establishes Fritsch‘s impaired driving.
{¶21} Viewing the totality of all the evidence against Fritsch in the light most favorable to the state, there was sufficient evidence for a rational finder of fact to find all the elements of OVI proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Accordingly, we overrule Fritsch‘s second assignment of error.
{¶22} In Fritsch‘s third assignment of error, he argues that his conviction is against the manifest weight of the evidence. In contrast to a challenge to the sufficiency of evidence, in a challenge that a conviction is against the manifest weight of the evidence, an appellate court determines whether the state has appropriately carried its burden of persuasion. Thompkins, 78 Ohio St.3d at 390. In reviewing the manifest weight of the evidence, an appellate court must review “the entire record, weigh the evidence and all reasonable inferences, consider the credibility of the witnesses and determine whether, in resolving conflicts in the evidence, the [trier of fact] clearly lost its way and created such a manifest miscarriage of justice that the conviction must be reversed and a new trial ordered.” State v. Bailey, 1st Dist. Hamilton No. C-140129, 2015-Ohio-2997, ¶ 59, quoting Thompkins at 387.
{¶23} Fritsch argues that all this evidence is not indicative of impairment from alcohol or a drug of abuse but of mental-health issues. When conflicting explanations are presented at trial, a conviction is not against the manifest weight of the evidence simply because the trier of fact accepts one explanation over another. See State v. McDaniel, 2021-Ohio-724, 168 N.E.3d 910, ¶ 25 (1st Dist.), quoting State v. Robinson, 12th Dist. Butler No. CA2018-08-163, 2019-Ohio-3144, ¶ 29.
{¶24} There is nothing in the record to suggest that the trial court lost its way when it found Fritsch guilty. See State v. Peters, 9th Dist. Wayne No. 08CA0009, 2008-Ohio-6940, ¶ 13 (concluding that OVI conviction based on a drug of abuse was not against the manifest weight of the evidence when the
Conclusion
{¶25} Having overruled the assignments of error, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.
Judgment affirmed.
ZAYAS, P.J., and BOCK, J., concur.
Please note:
The court has recorded its own entry on this date.