No. 20-1053

Ronald Dewayne Pitts v. Ohio

Lower Court: Ohio
Docketed: 2021-02-03
Status: Denied
Type: Paid
Response Waived
Tags: affidavit credibility-reliability due-process evidence-suppression fourth-amendment judicial-scrutiny probable-cause search-warrant undisclosed-sources
Key Terms:
DueProcess FourthAmendment CriminalProcedure Privacy
Latest Conference: 2021-03-19
Question Presented (AI Summary)

Whether a Search Warrant Affidavit that failed to set forth probable cause can survive meaningful scrutiny

Question Presented (OCR Extract)

QUESTIONS PRESENTED 1. Whether a Search Warrant Affidavit that failed to set forth probable cause can survive meaningful scrutiny where, as here, the Affiant failed to: vouch for the credibility and reliability of her undisclosed sources; reveal, therein, that these people were strangers; document her contacts with these people; and disclose such failures in the Search Warrant Affidavit. 2. Given Franks v. Delaware, makes it clear that if the trial Court is persuaded that an Affiant’s sources should not be revealed, and where the contention is made that they were non-existent, should the prosecution have been ordered to produce these people — at least, in camera? This is especially so when the request is actually made that this be done. 3. Given the Court of Appeals actually determined petitioner “was charged with trafficking based [solely] upon the quantity of drugs . . . found in the various residences. [Indeed he] was not charged with trafficking for any of the individual transactions supposedly observed”: can the prosecutor nonetheless state in his summation, and otherwise inform the Jury, that events supposedly observed by her (Detective Janowiecki), indeed “in advance of the dates when the searches were made, be regarded as ‘drug trafficking’.” (Tr., 1078.) 4. Given the fact that the accused was convicted as charged in the Indictment, solely for being in possession of the contraband found inside his home, indeed on the precise dates: can the prosecution nonetheless argue (with impunity) that events ii that occurred even before those dates, and even elsewhere, involving undisclosed people be regarded as proof of the charged possession offenses. 5. Were the charges as structured in the Indictment constructively amended when the prosecutor, in his summation, indeed totally outside the ambit of the precise scope of the “possession” charges (as they were structured in the Indictment), modified the elements of the charges? ili STATEMENT OF

Docket Entries

2021-03-22
Petition DENIED.
2021-02-24
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 3/19/2021.
2021-02-17
Waiver of right of respondent Ohio to respond filed.
2021-01-28
Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due March 5, 2021)

Attorneys

Ronald Pitts
James R Willis — Petitioner
James R Willis — Petitioner
STATE OF OHIO
Evy Michale JarrettLucas County Prosecutor's Office, Respondent
Evy Michale JarrettLucas County Prosecutor's Office, Respondent