State v. Iacona
| Decision Date | 29 August 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. 00-495.,00-495. |
| Citation | 93 Ohio St.3d 83,752 NE 2d 937 |
| Parties | THE STATE OF OHIO, APPELLEE, v. IACONA, APPELLANT. |
| Court | Ohio Supreme Court |
Dean Holman, Medina County Prosecuting Attorney, and Joseph F. Salzgeber, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.
Gold & Schwartz Co., L.P.A., Niki Z. Schwartz and Orville E. Stifel II, for appellant.
Appellant, Audrey Iacona, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and other crimes in connection with the death of her child.1 We have reviewed the record and fully considered her contentions of trial error. Having done so, we acknowledge that Iacona was not afforded a perfect trial. She did, however, receive a fair trial. We therefore affirm the judgment of the court of appeals, which affirmed her convictions but remanded to the trial court for resentencing.
On May 1, 1997, then seventeen-year-old Iacona went into the basement of her parents' home and gave premature birth to Baby Boy Iacona.
After cutting the umbilical cord, she returned upstairs. Iacona then called Lynn Scherma, a friend, and informed her that she had given birth and that the baby was dead.
After speaking with Iacona, Scherma called her father, who called the local police department. He informed the police that there was a possibly dead newborn in the basement of the home of Iacona's parents, Mark and Angela Iacona.
Upon arriving at the Iacona home, an officer informed Iacona's parents about the phone call and was invited into the foyer. After receiving permission from Angela Iacona to look around the basement, the officer went downstairs. While in the basement, the officer observed two wet spots on the floor he suspected might be blood. Returning upstairs, the officer asked Iacona and her parents to remain on the main floor until the other officers arrived.
Shortly thereafter, a number of Medina County sheriff deputies arrived and conducted a fuller search of the Iacona residence. During the search, a second officer noticed the wet spots on the floor and identified them as drops of blood measuring about four or five inches in diameter. Another officer estimated that there were as many as nine blood spots on the floor. He also discovered scissors with a bloodstain on the blades in the basement. The upstairs bathroom had blood spots on the floor, and there was blood found in the toilet. Eventually, the officers found bloody clothes and towels, as well as a recently used sanitary napkin.
While the search was progressing, officers spoke with Iacona and her parents. Iacona explained that the spots in the basement were menstrual blood. In response to direct questions, Iacona denied being or having ever been pregnant.
In the basement, one of the officers found a pink blanket covering the top of a white plastic bag. The officer removed the blanket from the bag. He then opened the bag, which had been "tucked closed." Inside this bag was a second bag, also tucked closed. The officer opened the second bag and discovered a bloodstained blue towel. He opened the towel and discovered that it contained a newborn child. The baby was dead.
The state thereafter initiated juvenile proceedings against Iacona, alleging in a two-count complaint that she was a delinquent child by virtue of having committed murder, in violation of R.C. 2903.02, or involuntary manslaughter, in violation of R.C. 2903.04(A). The prosecuting attorney moved for transfer of jurisdiction over Iacona to the Medina County Court of Common Pleas pursuant to the mandatory bindover provisions of R.C. 2151.26(B)(3)(a).2 Approximately four days before the bindover hearing, appellant's counsel served the prosecutor with a demand for discovery. The demand specifically referenced "[t]he report or results of any physical or mental examination or scientific tests or experiments made in connection with this matter" as authorized by Juv.R. 24(A)(4).3
At the bindover hearing in June 1997, the state introduced an autopsy report prepared by Dr. Chistin Rolf, a pathologist employed by the Cuyahoga County Coroner's Office, to whom the Medina County Coroner had sent the body for autopsy. Dr. Rolf described the child as being a "male fetus of 32 weeks estimated gestational, postnatal death." The autopsy report characterized the baby's cause of death as "asphyxia by insertion of body into plastic bag." Dr. Rolf testified that her conclusion as to the cause of death was based largely on the reported circumstances surrounding the discovery of the body, i.e., that the baby was found wrapped in a towel and inserted into two plastic bags. She indicated that she had found no purely medical explanation for the child's death.
Dr. Neil Grabenstetter, the Medina County Coroner, testified that he ruled the death a homicide, based on the Cuyahoga County autopsy report and the results of the police investigation. Dr. Grabenstetter further testified that as far as he knew, no blood cultures had been conducted in connection with the autopsy of Baby Boy Iacona.
In fact, although apparently unknown to Dr. Grabenstetter, Dr. Rolf had taken a blood sample from the interior of the baby's heart during autopsy, and sent it to a laboratory for testing. Within approximately a week after the baby's death, and well before the juvenile bindover hearing, the laboratory completed its report and sent it to the Cuyahoga County Coroner's Office. The report indicated that the blood sample, when analyzed, disclosed the presence of a potentially deadly bacterium, group A streptococcus. The report had not been provided to the defense prior to the bindover hearing.
Following the hearing, the juvenile court entered judgment, without written opinion, that probable cause existed to believe that Iacona had committed murder and was sixteen years of age or older at the time of the commission of the act charged. The juvenile court therefore relinquished its jurisdiction over her and transferred the case to the Medina County Court of Common Pleas.
The Medina County Grand Jury subsequently indicted Iacona on one count of murder, in violation of R.C. 2903.02; two counts of involuntary manslaughter, in violation of R.C. 2903.04(A); and two counts of endangering children in violation of R.C. 2919.22.4 Iacona was also charged with one count of abuse of a corpse, a violation of R.C. 2927.01(B).
After Iacona unsuccessfully moved to suppress evidence obtained during the search and of any statements made without the benefit of Miranda warnings, the matter proceeded to a jury trial.
The jury found Iacona guilty of both involuntary manslaughter counts, both child-endangering counts, and the abuse-of-a-corpse count. It could not reach a verdict as to the murder count. The trial court sentenced Iacona to eight years' imprisonment on each count of involuntary manslaughter, to three years' imprisonment on each count of child endangering, and to six months on the abuse-of-a-corpse count. The court ordered the sentences to run concurrently.5 Iacona thereafter moved for a new trial pursuant to Crim.R. 33(A)(1), (3), and (6), claiming "irregularities in the proceedings, surprise production of discoverable exculpatory evidence late in the trial and the withholding of discoverable evidence material to the defense, which evidence came to defendant's knowledge by way of inadvertent exposure by the prosecutor during the cross-examination of [a] defense medical expert." Iacona asserted that as a result of the withholding of evidence she was denied a fair trial and denied the effective assistance of counsel. The motion was overruled.
Iacona appealed her convictions to the Ninth District Court of Appeals, which affirmed all of the convictions, but found sentencing error in that the trial court had failed to make R.C. 2929.14(B) findings on the record. Such findings are required if a first-time offender is to receive more than the minimum term. See State v. Edmonson (1999), 86 Ohio St.3d 324, 715 N.E.2d 131. Accordingly, the court of appeals reversed Iacona's sentence and remanded for resentencing.
The cause is now before this court upon our allowance of a discretionary appeal.
We address Iacona's assertions of reversible error in chronological order.
Iacona challenges the validity of the search of her parents' home and the admissibility of statements made during that search.
As did the court of appeals, we find that the trial court did not err in refusing to suppress evidence obtained pursuant to this search. The record fully supports the finding of the trial court that Mr. and Mrs. Iacona voluntarily gave the investigating officers consent to search their home, and did not thereafter withdraw that consent. Moreover, "a parent who owns or controls the premises in which a child resides has the right to consent to a search thereof even though such search may produce incriminating evidence against the child." State v. Carder (1966), 9 Ohio St.2d 1, 10, 38 O.O.2d 1, 6, 222 N.E.2d 620, 627.
In the landmark case of Brady v. Maryland (1963), 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215, the United States Supreme Court held that a criminal defendant may claim denial of due process where the state fails to disclose the existence of potentially exculpatory evidence. "[T]he suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution." Id. at 86, 83 S.Ct. at 1196-1197,10 L.Ed.2d at 218. But, ...
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