709 N.E.2d 218 | Ohio Ct. App. | 1998
Defendant-appellant, Linda Lou Garber, appeals from her conviction in the Medina Municipal Court for criminal damaging. We affirm.
In July 1996, appellant took a tire iron and knocked out the windows of a new 1996 Dodge pickup truck that her husband, Cary Garber, had leased from Strongsville Dodge, Inc. Mr. Garber filed a criminal complaint for domestic violence and for criminal damaging. As a result of pretrial negotiations, the charge of domestic violence was dismissed.
Appellant filed a motion to dismiss the criminal damaging charges, claiming that she had a "marital property interest" in the vehicle, and, therefore, she could not be criminally charged with causing "physical harm to the property of another." She proposed that it was not a criminal act for a person to damage or destroy property that belonged to the person doing the act.
The trial court denied appellant's motion, and appellant entered a plea of "no contest" to the charge of criminal damaging, R.C.
"The municipal court erred in denying [appellant's] motion to dismiss a complaint for criminal damaging, when no action in domestic relations court and *617 no restraining orders exist as to a determination of ownership of marital property and/or assets."
R.C.
"Clearly, the domestic relations court has the power to award 100% ownership of a vehicle to a spouse not holding official title to the vehicle and does depending upon the totality of circumstances surrounding the termination of the marriage. Therefore, it is entirely possible that Mrs. Garber owned 100% of the vehicle, in which case, she cannot be held criminally liable for damaging her own property, absent other activity, such as insurance fraud and/or endangering the lives of others as in the case of arson!" (Emphasis sic.)
We find appellant's speculative arguments to be without merit. What a domestic relations court may or may not do in the future has no bearing on what occurred t the time appellant criminally damaged the truck. At that time, the truck unequivocally belonged to the leasing agency and was leased exclusively to Mr. Garber.
Marriage does not grant a wife an interest in her husband's real or personal property, except as statutorily granted for support and dower. R.C.
Appellant's attempt to rely upon R.C.
The property interests in the truck belonged to Mr. Garber, as the exclusive lessee, and the leasing agency, as the lessor. Appellant did not have any property interest in the truck. Any "marital interest" that could possibly be awarded to her at some indefinite time in the future, if the parties might divorce, is irrelevant. Moreover, the right of possession alone is a sufficient property interest to protect one against the crime of criminal damaging. State v. Maust (1982),
At the time that the crime occurred, there was no domestic relations case pending, and the property interest that' was damaged was a property interest that inured to Mr. Garber. Appellant's assignment of error is overruled. The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.
BAIRD and DICKINSON, JJ., concur. *619