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Barberton triple murder conviction affirmed by 9th District

TRACEY BLAIR
Legal News Reporter

Published: April 24, 2018

The admission of GPS tracking data in a Barberton triple murder case was not improper, the 9th District Court of Appeals ruled recently.

Eric D. Hendon was sentenced to life in prison without parole for robbing and killing three people and wounding a fourth.

According to appellate records, the incident occurred at a Seventh Street home on Dec. 31, 2013. Three of the house occupants, J.K., D.C.K. and A.K., were fatally wounded. A fourth, R.B., was shot and stabbed but survived and managed to call 911.

The next day, Deanna Brutto, electronic monitoring program manager for Oriana House, entered the address into the tracking system. It was later determined that Hendon, who had been under supervision for post-release control, had been in the immediate vicinity just prior to the 911 call.

Hendon was then identified as a person of interest, and taken into custody after GPS was used to determine his location.

A Summit County Grand Jury returned a 14-count capital indictment – five counts of aggravated murder, four counts of aggravated robbery, two counts of felonious assault and one count each of attempted murder and weapons under disability.

Hendon was convicted on all counts in March 2016.

On appeal, the defendant argued the GPS tracking data violated his Fourth Amendment rights and was plain error since he was wrongfully subjected to post-release control due to a deficient sentencing entry in a prior case.

He also claimed his GPS monitoring was only supposed to enforce a curfew requirement, not track his movements at all times.

The state argued his previous conviction in 2000 was only part of the record in the murder case for its relevance to the weapons under disability charge.

The appellate court determined the trial court could not have concluded the post-release control sentence was void.

“… Hendon has not articulated any legal basis to establish that the trial judge in the current matter had jurisdiction to review and make an initial determination as to the validity of his sentencing entry from a previous and unrelated conviction,” 9th District Judge Julie Schafer wrote in her 3-0 opinion. “… The single journal entry informs only of his conviction and sentence. It does not, however, indicate whether any other relevant entries were made in Hendon’s previous case.”

Hendon was referred to Oriana House for “active GPS” monitoring with a curfew restriction. Hendon claimed he was not subject to daytime monitoring, and that the murders occurred during a non-curfew timeframe.

The appellate court disagreed.

“The record does not support Hendon’s argument that his active GPS monitoring was limited to the sole purpose of ensuring his compliance with curfew and, therefore, restricted to gathering data for that purpose,” Judge Schafer stated.

The panel rejected Hendon’s argument that his counsel was deficient for not moving to suppress evidence obtained through the warrantless use of GPS tracking data.

Appellate judges Thomas Teodosio and Lynne Callahan concurred.

The case is cited State v. Hendon, 2018-Ohio-1284.


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