State v. GoverState v. Gover
{¶ 1} Defendant Taresa Gover is charged with violating
“No person shall authorize or knowingly permit a motor vehicle owned by him or under his control to be driven by any person if * * * (A) The offender knows or has reasonable cause to believe the other person has no legal right to drive the motor vehicle.”1
{¶ 2} The facts in this matter are straightforward. On September 12, 2003, Sergeant Mark Denney of the Cheviot Police Department made a traffic stop of defendant’s vehicle, which was at the time being driven by Reagan Sweat. When stopped, Sweat was on a direct route from the Hildebrandt Nursing Home to defendant’s residence. When Officer Denney determined that Gover owned the car, both the officer and Gover testified that the officer called her at her employment. The woman who answered the telephone identified herself as Taresa Gover and confirmed that she owned the Honda that had been stopped by the officer. The officer testified that he then asked whether she knew where the vehicle was now and Gover stated that it was being driven by her boyfriend,
{¶ 3} The state offered no proof that Sweat’s license was, in fact, under suspension with the exception of the statement made by defendant and the fact that when Officer Denney ran Sweat’s license on the mobile data terminal in his police cruiser, the response indicated that Sweat was suspended.
{¶ 4} Defendant herein asserts in her defense that she cannot be found guilty of wrongful entrustment because the state presented no admissible evidence that Sweat was in fact, suspended, when Officer Denney stopped him. The state asserts in response that defendant’s admission that she knew that Sweat was under suspension obviates the need for proof.
{¶ 5} While this statute, in one form or another, has been part of the law of Ohio since 1935,
{¶ 6} Standard principles of statutory interpretation state that “where the language of a statute is plain and unambiguous and conveys a clear and definite meaning, there is no occasion for resorting to the rules of statutory interpretation. An unambiguous statute is to be applied, not interpreted.” Sears v. Weimer (1944),
{¶ 7} By its plain words,
{¶ 8} Thus, under the “reasonable cause to believe” section of the .statute, a defendant can be found guilty of violating
{¶ 9} Public policy supports this interpretation of
{¶ 10} A similar standard of culpability can be found in other Ohio statutes. For example,
{¶ 11} Thus, the Third Appellate District in State v. Hickey (Sept. 21, 1994), Union App. No. 14-94-1,
“Clearly, the only two elements to be proven by the prosecution are (1) the driver had authorization from the vehicle owner to drive the vehicle, and (2) the owner was not reasonably ignorant of the possibility that the driver was unlicensed to drive.” Id. at * 2.
{¶ 12} More recently, while evaluating whether a police officer acted with probable cause when he pursued prosecution of defendant under
“The record clearly shows that appellant violatedR.C. 4507.33 , when he admitted to Officer Chambers, who wrote the admissions on the back of the*86 citation, that he owned the vehicle at issue, permitted * * * [his mother] * * * to drive his vehicle and knew that * * * [his mother] * * * had no legal right to drive his vehicle.” Id. at ¶ 20.
{¶ 13} A few older cases are sometimes cited for the proposition that the state must prove that the driver did not have legal authority to operate the motor vehicle for the defendant to be convicted of a violation of
{¶ 14} The court therefore finds that proof that the motor vehicle operator has no legal right to drive is not an element that must be proven to sustain a conviction under
{¶ 15} Turning to the facts of this case, the court finds that Officer Denney was credible when he testified that defendant admitted that she permit
{¶ 16} For the above-stated reasons, the court finds defendant Gover guilty of violating
{¶ 17} So ordered this 22nd day of January, 2004.
Judgment accordingly.
Notes
. The statute in question was amended under S.B. No. 123 and recodified from
. She further testified that she had been going with him for three years.
. A similar section first appeared in General Code 6296-28.
. It seems highly unlikely that a person would even be charged with this offense if the driver of the vehicle was legally able to drive it.
. Moreover, since Gulla involved the applicability of the doctrine of respondeat superior in a civil case, the requirements of that doctrine necessarily impact the interpretation the court in Gulla adopted.
. The "reasonable cause to believe” language was inserted into
. The difficulty of proving violations of
. Whether the suspension or other disability was recently imposed or in place for several years may tend to support defendant’s knowledge or demonstrate that the defendant was unlikely to know of the driver's lack of a valid license, for example.
. The reported cases decided under this section demonstrate that, generally, defendant’s knowledge is proven by admissions of the defendant to police.
.