Ohio Supreme Court hears local case

By Marc Kovac

The woman claims the trooper did not have probable cause to arrest her.

COLUMBUS — A Mahoning County case was supposed to give the Ohio Supreme Court an opportunity to rule on the reliability of portable breath analyzer devices in drunken-driving convictions.

But the case, heard before the state’s high court Wednesday, left the justices scratching their heads as to whether the devices were relevant to the legal question at hand.

The case involves an Austintown woman, Jessica Derov, who was stopped by a state trooper while driving in a vehicle with invalid license plates in August 2006.

The trooper did not observe Derov driving erratically beforehand but did smell alcohol in the car and noted that Derov’s eyes were red and glassy, according to documents.

Asked whether she had been drinking, Derov said she had had one beer. The trooper subsequently asked Derov to step out of the vehicle and had her perform standard field sobriety tests and a blood-alcohol test on a portable breath analyzer device, according to documents.

The device confirmed that Derov had consumed alcohol, but no blood-alcohol level was produced or included in the court record. Derov was then arrested and taken back to the patrol post, where she registered a blood-alcohol content above the legal limit of .08.

Derov’s lawyers argued the blood-alcohol test and other evidence obtained after her arrest was inadmissible because the trooper did not have probable cause to arrest her for driving while intoxicated.

The trial court denied the motion to suppress that evidence, and Derov, after pleading no contest, was convicted of driving under the influence.

Derov, however, appealed the decision on the motion to suppress, and the appeals court found in her favor, vacating the conviction. That court, in its decision, noted that the trooper erroneously administered the field sobriety tests, thus removing any probable cause for Derov’s arrest. The appeals court also found that the results of the portable breath analyzer were unreliable and not admissible as evidence.

Ralph Rivera, representing the state and the Mahoning County Prosecutor’s office, argued before the Supreme Court that the trooper followed accepted standards in administering the field sobriety tests and had probable cause for the arrest without using the portable breath analyzer unit.

Robert Kokor, representing Derov, countered that the trooper, by his own admission, did not take enough time to properly administer the tests, nor could he name the manufacturer, model number and other details about the portable breath analyzer device that was used at the scene.

Much of the testimony focused on the amount of time taken by the trooper to administer the field sobriety tests, prompting Justice Robert Cupp and others to question how the court could decide on the breath analyzer issue.

“We’re interested in this case because of the field test with the machine,” said Justice Paul Pfeifer. “We wouldn’t have been taking this case to quibble about seconds on one field sobriety test, I don’t think.”

Justices took the case under consideration and will issue a decision at a later date.

mkovac@dixcom.com