Because a Lake Township police officer did not have the authority to stop a driver on I-280 for a traffic violation, the drugs found in the car must be excluded as evidence in his case.

Because a Lake Township police officer did not have the authority to stop a driver on I-280 for a traffic violation, the drugs found in the car must be excluded as evidence in his case.

A traffic stop for a minor misdemeanor made by a township police officer without statutory jurisdiction or authority violates the protection against unreasonable searches and seizures in the state constitution, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled today.

In affirming the appeals court decision, the Supreme Court concluded that a Lake Township police officer was not authorized by state law to enforce a marked-lane traffic law on an interstate highway and that the officer’s subsequent stop and search of the vehicle were unreasonable. As a result, the appeals court properly suppressed the drug evidence found in the car, Justice Terrence O’Donnell wrote in the 5-2 decision.

Township Officer Stops Driver on Interstate Highway
The night of March 16, 2011, township patrol officer Kelly Clark saw a car on Interstate 280 briefly cross the white line on the side of the highway. She stopped the driver, Terence Brown, a couple miles after the violation. With the help of her drug-sniffing dog, the officer found 120 oxycodone pills and a small plastic bag of marijuana.

However, under state law, the officer was not permitted to stop drivers for this type of traffic infraction on an interstate highway – a fact that is not disputed in the case. The trial court denied Brown’s request to suppress the drug evidence, deciding that Clark had probable cause to justify the traffic stop. Brown pled no contest to aggravated possession of drugs and was sentenced to a three-year prison term.

He then appealed, and the Sixth District Court of Appeals determined that the stop, search, and arrest did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures. The stop, search, and seizure did infringe, however, on Brown’s rights in the parallel provision of the Ohio Constitution because no extenuating circumstances required the officer to make the traffic stop outside her jurisdiction, the Sixth District ruled in reversing the conviction.

Court Examines Search-and-Seizure Law
The Ohio legislature does not allow township police officers to enforce all traffic laws on state highways. Justice O’Donnell explained that R.C. 4513.39 bars township police officers who are not commissioned peace officers from enforcing traffic laws involving violations of marked lanes, speed limits, and the use of turn signals, headlights, and brake lights on a state highway. And commissioned peace officers serving a township with fewer than 50,000 people, such as Lake Township, may not enforce these laws on state highways included in the interstate highway system.

Justice O’Donnell noted that in a different State v. Brown case, in 2003, the Ohio Supreme Court held that “an arrest made in violation of a statute limiting the police officer’s authority to make the arrest infringes on ‘[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and possessions, against unreasonable searches and seizures’ as guaranteed by Article I, Section 14 of the Ohio Constitution.” That court ruled that the state constitution provides more protection than the U.S. Constitution when a warrantless arrest involves a minor misdemeanor. The court also reaffirmed a balancing test from State v. Jones (2000) that weighs the government’s legitimate interests against the individual’s right to liberty and privacy, Justice O’Donnell pointed out.

In today’s decision, Justice O’Donnell reiterated that the state constitution “affords greater protection than the Fourth Amendment against searches and seizures conducted by members of law enforcement who lack authority to make an arrest” and concluded that “a traffic stop for a minor misdemeanor offense made by a township police officer without statutory authority to do so violates Article I, Section 14 of the Ohio Constitution.”

 “The government’s interests in permitting an officer without statutory jurisdiction or authority to make a traffic stop for a minor misdemeanor offense in these circumstances is minimal and is outweighed by the intrusion upon the individual’s liberty and privacy that necessarily arises out of the stop,” he wrote. “Accordingly, the traffic stop and the ensuing search and arrest in this case were unreasonable and violated Article I, Section 14 of the Ohio Constitution, and the evidence seized as a result should have been suppressed.”

Votes
Joining the majority opinion were Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor and Justices Paul E. Pfeifer, Judith Ann Lanzinger, and William M. O’Neill.

Justice Judith L. French wrote a dissenting opinion joined by Justice Sharon L. Kennedy.

Dissent Focuses on Probable Cause
Noting that the search-and-seizure language in the state constitution is nearly identical to that in the Fourth Amendment, Justice French saw no “compelling reason” to differentiate between state and federal law in this case. While she agreed that the state constitution may offer more protection of individual rights and civil liberties than the U.S. Constitution, she found no persuasive basis for providing a greater level in this case.

Justice French also disputed the majority’s reliance on the 2003 Brown decision. In that case, the court revisited the balancing test set out in Jones based on a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court decision. While the Brown majority noted that the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a balancing test similar to that in Jones when probable cause is shown, the Brown court decided that the Jones balancing test meant the Ohio Constitution search-and-seizure provision gives greater protection than the Fourth Amendment, Justice French explained. But, in her view, the Brown majority offered no justification for creating that distinction.

“The majority [in this case] offers no compelling reason, other than blind reliance on Brown, for applying a balancing test to determine whether a stop based upon probable cause is reasonable under Article I, Section 14 of the Ohio Constitution when the existence of probable cause conclusively demonstrates the reasonableness of the stop under the Fourth Amendment,” she wrote.

She concluded the officer’s traffic stop was reasonable and the evidence should not be suppressed.

2014-0104. State v. Brown, Slip Opinion No. 2015-Ohio-2438.

View oral argument video of this case.

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