U.S. justices decline Toledo case
10/12/2012WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the case of a Toledo man whose child rape and pornography convictions were reinstated by the Ohio Supreme Court after initially being overturned by an appellate court.
Dennis Gould, 48, is serving two concurrent life sentences in the Toledo Correctional Institution for rape plus additional time for pornography. He was found guilty in 2008 by a Lucas County Common Pleas Court jury.
The 6th District Court of Appeals in Toledo threw out his convictions in July, 2010, finding that a computer hard drive that depicted sex acts with a 7-year-old girl had been illegally searched.
The case was appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court, which in 2011 overturned the court’s findings. The high court found that Gould had abandoned his hard drive and had no expectation of privacy for what was on it.