State v. Wood

Citations

• 2023 Ohio 2788

Syllabus

The trial court properly overruled appellant's motion to suppress evidence flowing from a traffic stop. The officer who conducted the traffic stop had reasonable suspicion that warranted investigating appellant for operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol (OVI) and probable cause to arrest appellant for OVI. In addition, the trial court did not err by failing to suppress appellant's blood-alcohol test results where appellant failed to establish that he was prejudiced by the delay in refrigerating his blood sample. Appellant's constitutional right to confrontation was not violated by the admission of a laboratory report containing his blood-alcohol test results where the State presented the laboratory report through the testimony of a forensic toxicologist who had independently reviewed all the testing data, checked the data for errors, and authored the laboratory report. Appellant's assignments of error challenging his guilty verdict for OVI under R.C. 4511.19(A)(2) as being unconstitutional and his guilty verdict for OVI under R.C. 4511.19(A)(1)(a) as being against the manifest weight of the evidence fail because those offenses merged into his OVI conviction under R.C. 4511.19(A)(1)(b). Judgment affirmed.