Update: On November 18, 2021 the Supreme Court of Ohio handed down a merit decision in this case. Read the analysis here

Read an analysis of the oral argument here.

On March 3, 2021, the Supreme Court of Ohio will hear oral argument in State of Ohio v. Jacob R. LaRosa, 2020-0337. At issue in this case is whether the seizure of personal items from a suspect’s hospital room without a warrant violates the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution and Art. I, Section 14 of the Ohio Constitution.

Case Background

On March 31, 2015, Jacob LaRosa was released from a juvenile detention center after serving time for a probation violation. He was fifteen years old. Later that day, he began drinking excessively with his friends. Purportedly telling his friends he was going to get more alcohol, LaRosa entered the home of 94-year-old Marie Belcastro, who lived directly across the street from LaRosa. Ms. Belcastro was later found dead, beaten savagely, and naked from the waist down.

Before Ms. Belcastro was discovered, LaRosa arrived home, covered in blood and incoherent. He claimed that he had been attacked by other juveniles, and his mother called the police. An officer and paramedics arrived. As LaRosa was being loaded into the ambulance, the responding officer, Officer Mobley, was waved down by one of Ms. Belcastro’s daughters, who had noticed that her mother’s house had been broken into. Officer Mobley and the daughter discovered Ms. Belcastro’s body.

At the hospital, LaRosa was examined and no discernible injuries were found to explain the blood on his person. His blood alcohol level was nearly three times the legal limit for an adult. While LaRosa was in the hospital, another officer collected LaRosa’s clothing from the hospital room to take into evidence. A nurse also gave the officer a bloody washcloth that had been used to clean LaRosa up.

On April 9, 2015, LaRosa was charged in a complaint of delinquency with four counts, including breaking into Ms. Belcastro’s home, attempting to rape her, and murdering her. The State filed a motion to transfer the case from the juvenile division to the common pleas court, seeking to try LaRosa as an adult. After an amenability hearing, the juvenile court judge found that LaRosa was not amenable to care or rehabilitation, and therefore should be tried as an adult.

Following the transfer to the Trumball Court of Common Pleas, LaRosa was indicted by a grand jury on four counts: aggravated murder, aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery, and attempted rape. At trial, before Judge Wyatt W. McKay, LaRosa filed a motion to suppress various evidence obtained during the investigation, including fingernail scrapings conducted at the hospital, LaRosa’s clothing taken from the hospital room, and a washcloth used to wipe his groin at the hospital. Judge McKay denied the motion and found that LaRosa had no expectation of privacy in his hospital room or the items removed after he “voluntarily presented there purporting to be the victim of an assault.” LaRosa entered a plea of no-contest and was sentenced to life in prison without parole for aggravated murder, and a combined 30 years for the other charges, to be served consecutively.

The Appeal

On the issue pertinent to the Supreme Court appeal, LaRosa argued that the trial court had failed to prohibit items seized by the police from his hospital room from being presented at trial, and this had violated his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights of the U.S. Constitution, and his rights under Article I, Section 14 of the Ohio Constitution. In a unanimous decision written by Judge Timothy Cannon and joined by Judges Cynthia Westcott Rice and Mary Jane Trapp, the Eleventh District affirmed the trial court’s judgment.

The appeals court held that because LaRosa’s socks, underwear and the washcloth were seized by the nurse, a private person, and not by a police officer, they were not unlawfully seized because there was no governmental action. Additionally, LaRosa had no reasonable expectation of privacy because he came to the hospital purporting to be a victim, and no expectation of privacy in the washcloth, which was the property of the hospital.

As for the fingernail scrapings, the court held that the words “hand swabs,” as written in the warrant, encompasses “fingernail scrapings.” Because the warrant authorized the police to search and retrieve evidence from LaRosa’s hands, this reasonably included his fingernails.

Votes to Accept the Case*

Yes: Chief Justice O’Connor and Justices Kennedy, French, Fischer, DeWine, Donnelly, and Stewart.

*Case accepted on Proposition of Law 4 only

LaRosa’s Proposition of Law Accepted for Review

The seizure of personal items from a hospital room, without consent and without warrant, violates the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Ohio Const., Art. I §14.

 Key Statutes and Precedent

U.S. Constitution, Amend. IV (“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”)

US. Constitution, Amend. XIV (“. . . No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”)

Ohio Constitution, Art. I, Sec. 14. (“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and possessions, against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated; and no warrant shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, particularly describing the place to be searched and the person and things to be seized.”)

Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U.S. 91 (1990) (The Fourth Amendment is implicated when an accused person “has a legitimate expectation of privacy in the invaded place,” and this “subjective expectation of privacy is legitimate if it is one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable.”)

Marron v. United States, 275 U.S. 192 (1927) (“The requirement that warrants shall particularly describe the things to be seized makes general searches under them impossible and prevents the seizure of one thing under a warrant describing another. As to what is to be taken, nothing is left to the discretion of the officer executing the warrant.”)

Leech v. Ohio State Univ. Hosp., 579 N.E.2d 320 (Ct. of Cl. 1989) (The removal of personal items and placement into a bag at the hospital creates a bailment relationship between the hospital and patient.)

State v. Drain, Franklin No. 95APA03-351 (10th Dist. 1995) (There is no expectation of privacy that persists in “clothing or personal effects cut away from a purported robbery victim in a hospital emergency room to which he has voluntarily presented himself.”)

State v. Dalpiaz, 2002-Ohio-7346 (11th Dist.) (The standard for sufficiency of the description in a search warrant is that “the description is such that the officer with a search warrant can, with reasonable effort ascertain and identify the place intended.”)

Burneson v. Ohio State Racing Comm., 2004-Ohio-3313 (10th Dist.) (“[I]f a person has no reasonable expectation of privacy in the property searched, then the Fourth Amendment protections do not apply.” Seizure by a private person is not prohibited by the Fourth Amendment because “[t]he Fourth Amendment only provides protection against governmental action.”)

State v. Funk, 2008-Ohio-4086 (4th Dist.) (People “reasonably expect increased privacy during hospitalization.”)

State v. Bangera, 2016-Ohio-4596 (11th Dist.) (The particularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment “ensures that the search will be carefully tailored to its justifications, and will not take on the character if the wide-ranging exploratory searches the Framers intended to prohibit.”)

State v. Jackson, 2020-Ohio-2677 (12th Dist.) (The existence of blood on the clothing combined with the appellant’s presence at the hospital as a gunshot victim necessarily meant that the clothing was evidence of criminal activity, and thus, seizure did not violate the Fourth Amendment.)

LaRosa’s Argument

The denial of LaRosa’s motion to suppress was improper. The trial court and the appeals court ignored the fact that Officer Biddlestone testified he was sent to the hospital not just to secure LaRosa but also to gather evidence. As a result, the trial court’s factual findings were incomplete, and not entitled to deference.

Additionally, LaRosa’s clothing was not “discarded.” When clothing is taken from a person in a hospital and placed into a bag, this creates a bailment relationship between the hospital and the person. Therefore, the hospital possessed the clothing as a bailee, and LaRosa’s clothing was not discarded. Further, LaRosa did have an expectation of privacy in the hospital because society recognizes an expectation of privacy in hospital rooms.

Finally, the nail scrapings taken from LaRosa were not particularly authorized by the warrant, and their taking thus violate the Fourth Amendment. The scrapings went beyond the scope of the warrant and, along with the clothing and washcloth seized, should have been suppressed at trial.

State’s Argument

The clothing and washcloth were not seized by an agent of the government, but rather a private person (the nurse), and therefore could not be an unlawful seizure. The removal of the clothing was for medical treatment. There was no seizure at the direction of the state. The washcloth was used to wipe LaRosa’s groin because he had urinated on himself, not to collect evidence. The nurse noticed the blood afterwards and presented it to the officer then. In addition, the washcloth belonged to the hospital, not LaRosa, and the police obtained a warrant for a penile swab shortly after, so the evidence from the washcloth would have been secured from the penal swab.

When a person presents at the hospital as a victim of a crime, there is no expectation of privacy. LaRosa’s bloody clothing, which was in plain view, was evidence of criminal activity, and therefore could be seized lawfully.

Even if the court determined that the seizure was unlawful, it was harmless error. LaRosa entered a plea of no contest, and therefore must show that absent the trial court’s denial of the motion to suppress, he would not have changed his plea. LaRosa did not address this in his brief. Nor was bailment addressed by the lower courts.

As for the nail scrapings, a medical professional conducted the scraping and swabbing of the hands, and the warrant authorized retrieval of evidence from LaRosa’s hands, which includes his fingernails.

The trial court did not err when it overruled LaRosa’s motion to suppress this evidence. There was overwhelming evidence of LaRosa’s guilt in this case.

Student Contributor: Liam McMillin