Case Title: Middletown v. Flinchum

Citation: 2002-Ohio-1625

Docket Number: 

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2002-04-10T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as Middletown v. Flinchum, 95 Ohio St.3d 43, 2002-Ohio-1625.] 
 
 
CITY OF MIDDLETOWN, APPELLEE, v. FLINCHUM, APPELLANT. 
[Cite as Middletown v. Flinchum (2002), 95 Ohio St.3d 43.] 
Criminal law — Search and seizure — When officers, having identified 
themselves, are in hot pursuit of a suspect who flees to a house to avoid 
arrest, police may enter without a warrant, regardless of whether offense 
for which suspect is being arrested is a misdemeanor. 
__________________ 
SYLLABUS OF THE COURT 
When officers, having identified themselves, are in hot pursuit of a suspect who 
flees to a house in order to avoid arrest, the police may enter without a 
warrant, regardless of whether the offense for which the suspect is being 
arrested is a misdemeanor. 
(No. 01-233 — Submitted November 28, 2001 — Decided April 10, 2002.) 
CERTIFIED by the Court of Appeals for Butler County, No. CA99-11-193. 
__________________ 
 
ALICE ROBIE RESNICK, J.  The facts of this case are not in dispute.  On 
April 23, 1999, Middletown police officers observed appellant Thomas 
Flinchum’s car stopped at a red traffic light.  When the light changed, appellant 
spun the car’s tires.  The officers then observed appellant stopping his car and 
then rapidly accelerating, causing the car to fishtail as it made a right turn.  At this 
point, the officers decided to follow appellant.  The officers attempted to approach 
appellant’s vehicle twice, but on both attempts, appellant fled from the police. 
 
Finally, the officers observed appellant standing on the driver’s side of his 
parked car.  When appellant observed the officers stop their cruiser in front of his 
car, he ran towards the rear entrance of a house.  One of the officers, Officer 
Wayne Birch, pursued appellant, yelling “Stop” and “Police” several times, to no 
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avail.  As the pursuit continued, Officer Birch heard a rear screen door slam open 
on a house that was later determined to be appellant’s.  The officer then observed 
appellant standing in his kitchen approximately five feet inside his home.  
Without appellant’s permission, Officer Birch entered the home and arrested him.  
Appellant was charged under Middletown ordinances with reckless operation, 
DUI, and resisting arrest. 
 
Before trial, appellant filed a motion to suppress evidence obtained as a 
result of the warrantless entry into his home at the time of arrest.  The trial court 
denied the motion, finding that the officer was in hot pursuit of appellant, thereby 
making the entry permissible.  Appellant was ultimately convicted of reckless 
operation and DUI but acquitted on the charge of resisting arrest.  The appellate 
court affirmed the trial court’s judgment. 
 
This cause is now before the court as a certified conflict from the Court of 
Appeals for Butler County. 
 
We are asked to consider whether the Fourth Amendment to the United 
States Constitution is contravened by a warrantless home entry to effect an arrest 
for a misdemeanor.  We hold today that it is not and, therefore, affirm the 
judgment of the court of appeals. 
 
The Fourth Amendment states, “The right of the people to be secure in 
their person, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and 
seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable 
cause * * *.”  Furthermore, in United States v. United States Dist. Court for the E. 
Dist. of Michigan (1972) 407 U.S. 297, 313, 92 S.Ct. 2125, 2134, 32 L.Ed.2d 752, 
764, the court noted that the “physical entry of the home is the chief evil against 
which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed.” 
 
Appellant contends that the Middletown police officers were precluded 
from entering his home because probable cause and exigent circumstances were 
absent, since the violation was simply a misdemeanor.  We find, however, that 
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3 
appellant’s argument is without merit and, if adopted, would create the illusion 
that flight from police officers is justified and reasonable as long as no felony 
offense has been committed. 
 
In United States v. Santana (1976), 427 U.S. 38, 96 S.Ct. 2406, 49 
L.Ed.2d 300, the court made it clear that a suspect may not avoid arrest simply by 
outrunning pursuing officers and finding refuge in her home.  The court noted that 
hot pursuit “need not be an extended hue and cry ‘in and about [the] public 
streets.’ “  Id. at 43, 96 S.Ct. at 2410, 49 L.Ed.2d at 305, quoting the trial court.  
Moreover, the court went on to conclude that “a suspect may not defeat an arrest 
which has been set in motion in a public place * * * by the expedient of escaping 
to a private place.”  Id. at 43, 96 S.Ct. at 2410, 49 L.Ed.2d at 306. 
 
In the case at bar, the officers observed appellant engage in the reckless 
operation of his vehicle on more than one occasion.  Once the officers attempted 
to approach appellant to arrest him, he not only ignored their commands to stop 
after they had identified themselves as police officers, but he also fled to his home 
in order to avoid arrest.  Although Santana deals with the issue of warrantless 
home arrests in the context of a felony suspect, we see no reason to differentiate 
appellant’s offense and give him a free pass merely because he was not charged 
with a more serious crime.  The basic fact remains that appellant fled from police 
who were in lawful pursuit of him and who had identified themselves as police 
officers. 
 
Similar conclusions have already been reached in other jurisdictions.  In 
Nebraska v. Penas (1978), 200 Neb. 387, 263 N.W.2d 835, paragraph two of the 
syllabus, in which the defendant was convicted of DUI, the court held, “When a 
citizen has knowingly placed himself in a public place, and valid police action is 
commenced in that public place, the citizen cannot thwart police action by fleeing 
into a private place.”  Further, in Minnesota v. Paul (Minn.1996), 548 N.W.2d 
260, syllabus, that court held, “A police officer in hot pursuit of a person 
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suspected of the serious offense of driving under the influence of alcohol may 
make a warrantless entry into the suspect’s home in order to effectuate an arrest.” 
 
We therefore hold today that when officers, having identified themselves, 
are in hot pursuit of a suspect who flees to a house in order to avoid arrest, the 
police may enter without a warrant, regardless of whether the offense for which 
the suspect is being arrested is a misdemeanor.  In so holding, we do not give law 
enforcement unbridled authority to enter a suspect’s residence at whim or with a 
blatant disregard for the constraints of the Fourth Amendment, but rather limited 
to situations present in today’s case. 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
MOYER, C.J., F.E. SWEENEY and LUNDBERG STRATTON, JJ., concur. 
 
DOUGLAS and COOK, JJ., concur in judgment. 
 
PFEIFER, J., dissents. 
__________________ 
 
PFEIFER, J., dissenting.  Our inquiry in this type of case should not be 
how to effectuate the conviction of someone who did wrong.  Instead, we should 
ask ourselves how what we decide affects our core freedoms.  Our Bill of Rights 
contains a mere ten ideas.  Any time we chip away at one of those ten we had 
better have a good reason.  We do not have one in this case. 
 
The United States Supreme Court thought it had a good reason to limit 
Fourth Amendment freedoms in United States v. Santana (1976), 427 U.S. 38, 96 
S.Ct. 2406, 49 L.Ed.2d 300.  Whether the court’s decision in that case was right is 
debatable, but the case is also so different from this one as to be irrelevant.  In 
Santana, police officers had arranged a heroin buy.  Officers paid one suspect in 
marked bills to purchase the heroin.  The suspect went into a house, and then 
came out and entered an officer’s car with the heroin.  Officers arrested the 
suspect, and then returned to the house where the heroin had been purchased to 
retrieve the marked money.  The suspect told police that “Mom Santana” had the 
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money.  Police saw Mom Santana standing in the doorway of the house.  When 
they announced they were police, Santana retreated into the house.  Officers 
followed and caught her just inside the doorway.  Packets of heroin fell from a 
bag she was holding, and when she emptied her pockets, she produced $70 worth 
of the marked money. 
 
As the Supreme Court pointed out, the police in Santana were faced with 
“a realistic expectation that any delay would result in destruction of evidence.”  
Santana, 427 U.S. at 43, 96 S.Ct. 2406, 49 L.Ed.2d 300.  They were also dealing 
with a felony.  The Supreme Court was willing to limit Fourth Amendment 
protections in a case where a serious crime was committed and where evidence of 
that crime was liable to be compromised.  Here, we are asked to weaken the 
Fourth Amendment in exchange for an arrest on a minor traffic offense where 
there was no threat of the destruction of evidence. 
 
We are dealing in this case with a fundamental part of a fundamental right.  
“It is axiomatic that the ‘physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which 
the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed.’ “  Welsh v. Wisconsin (1984), 
466 U.S. 740, 748, 104 S.Ct. 2091, 80 L.Ed.2d 732, quoting United States v. 
United States Dist. Court for the E. Dist. of Michigan (1972), 407 U.S. 297, 313, 
92 S.Ct. 2125, 32 L.Ed.2d 752.  It is nearly as axiomatic that “the Court has 
recognized, as ‘a “basic principle of Fourth Amendment law[,]” that searches and 
seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable.’ “  Id. 
at 749, 104 S.Ct. 2091, 80 L.Ed.2d 732, quoting Payton v. New York (1980), 445 
U.S. 573, 586, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639.  The Welsh court recognized 
exceptions for exigent circumstances, but emphasized that “exceptions to the 
warrant requirement are ‘few in number and carefully delineated’ * * * and that 
police bear a heavy burden when attempting to demonstrate an urgent need that 
might justify warrantless searches or arrests.”  466 U.S. at 749-750, 104 S.Ct. 
2091, 80 L.Ed.2d 732, quoting United States v. United States Dist. Court, supra, 
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407 U.S. at 318, 92 S.Ct. 2125, 32 L.Ed.2d 752.  In Welsh the court was quick to 
point out that the exception carved out by Santana concerns “hot pursuit of a 
fleeing felon.” (Emphasis added.) Id. at 750, 104 S.Ct. 2091, 80 L.Ed.2d 732. 
 
The gravity of tinkering with the protections of the Fourth Amendment is 
appreciated by the Supreme Court, and that court emphasizes that the 
circumstances of a particular situation must be grave enough to merit a lifting of 
those protections:  “Our hesitation in finding exigent circumstances, especially 
when warrantless arrests in the home are at issue, is particularly appropriate when 
the underlying offense for which there is probable cause to arrest is relatively 
minor. * * * When the government’s interest is only to arrest for a minor offense, 
that presumption of unreasonableness is difficult to rebut, and the government 
usually should be allowed to make such arrests only with a warrant issued upon 
probable cause by a neutral and detached magistrate.” (Footnote omitted.) Id. at 
750, 104 S.Ct. 2091, 80 L.Ed.2d 732. 
 
The government could not rebut the presumption of unreasonableness in 
this case because it involved only a minor traffic offense.  The majority 
breathlessly depicts the pursuit and detention of Finchum in the manner of a 
television police drama.  They should have given it the Dragnet approach—the 
facts, and only the facts.  Finchum spun his tires when a traffic light turned green, 
later fishtailed his car when making a right turn, and again spun his tires when 
accelerating from a stop sign.  Judging from the charge eventually brought against 
him, it appears that Flinchum did not squeal his tires, did not cross a center line, 
did not speed, did not make an illegal left turn, did not fail to use his blinker, did 
not fail to stop at a stop sign, did not fail to update his license tags, did not 
illegally park.  The Middletown police officers, on the other hand, upon viewing 
Finchum’s acts, did not activate their flashing lights, or their siren.  After 
Flinchum had parked his car, he ran toward his house when he saw the 
Middletown police cruiser stop in front of his parked vehicle.  No one disputes 
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that Finchum was already running toward his house before an officer said 
anything to him.  The ten to fifteen yards between Finchum’s car and his back 
door is the length of what the city calls “hot pursuit.” 
 
The whole chase of Flinchum was more lukewarm amble than hot pursuit.  
In any event, no recitation of the facts can change the truth that the police officer 
in this case burst into Finchum’s house to arrest a mere tire spinner.  What do we 
gain by the majority’s opinion?  Police can enter the homes of tire spinners 
without a warrant, without knocking, without asking the spinner to please step 
outside.  What do we lose?  From a practical standpoint, we place homeowners 
and police officers in dangerous situations.  From a jurisprudential standpoint, we 
give up part of a right that has been jealously guarded for over two hundred years. 
__________________ 
 
Bruce E. Fassler, Middletown City Prosecutor, for appellee. 
 
Repper & Powers and Christopher J. Pagan, for appellant. 
 
Betty D. Montgomery, Attorney General, and David M. Gormley, State 
Solicitor, for the state of Ohio. 
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