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74 Ohio App. 3d 535

599 N.E.2d 733

State v. Jetter

Ohio Court of Appeals

Decided June 12, 1991

Ohio Court of Appeals · decided 1991-06-12

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“likely to be viewed by and affront others who are in the person's physical proximity and who are not members of the person's household.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including State v. Sparks

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1991-06-12

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently January 2022

4 state decisions

201991200020102020decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Per Curiam.

¶1 On February 14, 1990, defendant-appellee, Kimberly Jetter, was arrested and charged with public indecency in violation of R.C. 2907.09(A)(1). The complaint, as amended, alleged that the defendant exposed her breast at a Cincinnati bar. The defendant pleaded not guilty and filed a motion to dismiss. Following a hearing on the motion, on June 18, 1990, the trial court granted the defendant’s motion. According to the record of the proceedings, the trial court held that the allegations of the amended complaint with respect to the exposure of the female breast did not, in law, state a violation of R.C. 2907.09(A)(1).

¶2 In its sole assignment of error, the state asserts that the trial court erred in granting the defendant’s motion to dismiss, reasoning that the term “private parts,” as found in R.C. 2907.09(A)(1), includes the female breast. For the reasons discussed below, we must affirm the judgment of the trial court.

¶3 R.C. 2907.09 states in relevant part:

“(A) No person shall recklessly do any of the following, under circumstances in which his or her conduct is likely to be viewed by and affront others, not members of his or her household:
“(1) Expose his or her private parts, or engage in masturbation[.]”

¶4 Although R.C. Chapter 2907 fails to provide a specific definition for “private parts,” 1 we are convinced that, in its commonly understood meaning, the term does not include the female breast. Accordingly, we hold that the trial court properly dismissed the amended complaint on its face because the material allegations contained within it did not, as a matter of law, state a violation of Ohio law with respect to the offense codified in R.C. 2907.09(A)(1). The *537 amended complaint being invalid on its face, we overrule the prosecution’s assignment of error and affirm the judgment of the trial court.

¶5 Judgment affirmed.

Shannon, P.J., Hildebrandt and Utz, JJ., concur.
1

¶6 . It is worth noting that the Ohio jury instruction for R.C. 2907.09 defines "private parts" to mean genitals. 4 Ohio Jury Instructions (1991), Section 507.09.

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