Man charged with meth dealing wants charges dropped based on long wait for trial

LOGAN — In the criminal case of a Cincinnati man who allegedly had two pounds of methamphetamine in his car when he was stopped in Hocking County, there has reportedly been some difficulty in getting the suspected drug tested to see if it’s actually meth. Now, according to a motion filed by the defense attorney for James Toran, delays in getting test results have kept Toran in jail awaiting trial for longer than state law allows, and the entire case against him should be dismissed on speedy trial grounds.

Toran, 49, was pulled over last October on U.S. 33 by a state highway patrol trooper for having too dark a window tint. After allegedly smelling marijuana and observing behavior he thought suspicious, the trooper searched Toran’s vehicle and found a plastic food bin containing what authorities claim is methamphetamine. Toran was then indicted on charges of aggravated drug possession, aggravated drug trafficking and evidence tampering, with the first two charges carrying major drug offender (MDO) specifications.

Complicating the case is the fact that, according to the trooper’s testimony during a court hearing , the suspected methamphetamine had apparently been doused with bleach, of which there was a partially empty bottle in the vehicle.

Defense attorney Jonathan Getson filed a motion in December asking that the defense be given access to the suspected meth. He wanted, first, to have it weighed, as the severity of a drug charge is based in part on the quantity of the drug found in the defendant’s possession. Getson also wanted to have an independent lab test the drug, to check the findings of the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s lab, because he said a report from OHSP did not make clear what part of the contents of the drug “packages” found in Toran’s vehicle were tested.

Getson’s latest motion notes that although the defense and the prosecution agreed to call in the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) to do the independent analysis, this plan ran into delays when BCI balked at testing the bleach-contaminated substance, fearing it would damage their testing equipment. After another defense motion, BCI agreed to test solids from the suspected drug stash after they were separated from the bleach solution. But as of this week, according to Getson, he has still gotten no report on the results of such testing, and “it is unclear whether or not BCI has even begun the testing process.”

Meanwhile, Toran has been in the Southeastern Ohio Regional Jail since last October. Under Ohio law, once a person is charged with a felony the state has 270 days to bring them to trial — though if a defendant is being held in jail in lieu of bond, each day counts as three, making the time allotted to commence a trial only 90 calendar days. The speedy trial rules are further complicated by the various reasons for which the speedy trial clock can be stopped (or “tolled”) and restarted.

Getson points out that with a jail booking date of Oct. 24, 2023, Toran as of Tuesday had been in jail in lieu of bond for 290 days ¬ 200 beyond the legal limit. Though the speedy trial clock was tolled by the filing of two different defense motions, he adds, these together lowered the number of days only by 49, leaving Toran still 151 days past his trial deadline.

Though the motions for independent testing of the drug evidence were filed by the defense, and therefore legitimately stopped the speedy trial clock, Getson argues, this tolling should be only for a “reasonable” amount of time. “The issue here is that the delay (in testing) has been obscene and thus not reasonable,” he contends. “The fact that Mr. Toran is still sitting in jail almost a year after the alleged incident and still does not have the independent results back shows that the delay is unreasonable and thus the case against him should be dismissed.”

Based on his right to a speedy trial as guaranteed by both the Ohio and U.S. Constitutions, and the exceeding of the time limits defined in Ohio law, Getson concludes, Toran should have all charges against him dismissed with prejudice.

Email at jphillips@logandaily.com