Title: Cleveland v. Oles

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
Cleveland v. Oles, Slip Opinion No. 2017-Ohio-5834.] 
 
NOTICE 
This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in an 
advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports.  Readers are requested to 
promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 65 
South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or other 
formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be made before 
the opinion is published. 
 
SLIP OPINION NO. 2017-OHIO-5834 
THE CITY OF CLEVELAND, APPELLANT, v. OLES, APPELLEE. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as Cleveland v. Oles, Slip Opinion No. 2017-Ohio-5834.] 
Constitutional law—Fifth Amendment to United States Constitution—Article I, 
Section 10 of Ohio Constitution—Placement of a suspect in front seat of a 
police vehicle during a traffic stop does not alone determine whether 
suspect has been subjected to custodial interrogation such that Miranda 
warnings were required—Relevant inquiry is whether, under totality of 
circumstances, a reasonable person in suspect’s position would have 
understood himself to be in custody—Appellee was not subjected to 
custodial interrogation because intrusion by trooper was minimal, 
questioning and detention were brief, and interaction was nonthreatening 
and nonintimidating—Judgment affirming suppression of appellee’s 
statements reversed and cause remanded. 
(Nos. 2016-0172 and 2016-0282—Submitted March 1, 2017—Decided July 19, 
2017.) 
APPEAL from and CERTIFIED by the Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County,  
No. 102835, 2016-Ohio-23. 
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______________________ 
O’CONNOR, C.J. 
{¶ 1} In this consolidated appeal, we address whether the Fifth 
Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 10 of the Ohio 
Constitution require a law-enforcement officer to provide Miranda warnings to a 
suspect who is placed in the front seat of a police vehicle for questioning during a 
traffic stop.  We hold that the placement of a suspect in the front seat of a police 
vehicle during a traffic stop is not alone determinative of whether the suspect has 
been subjected to a custodial interrogation.  The relevant inquiry is whether, under 
the totality of the circumstances, a reasonable person in the suspect’s position 
would have understood himself or herself to be in custody.  Accordingly, we answer 
the certified-conflict question in the negative.  We also reverse the judgment of the 
Eighth District Court of Appeals because the circumstances here do not indicate 
that appellee, Benjamin S. Oles, was subjected to a custodial interrogation. 
RELEVANT BACKGROUND 
{¶ 2} On the night of September 19, 2014, an Ohio State Highway Patrol 
trooper was monitoring traffic on Interstate 90 in Cleveland with a laser speed-
measuring device.  He was standing outside his patrol car, which was parked at the 
divergence of two highways in a gore—a triangular area with hash marks indicating 
that traffic is not permitted—when he saw Oles’s vehicle cut across the gore and 
nearly strike his patrol car.  The trooper pursued the vehicle and initiated a traffic 
stop.  He approached the driver’s side of the vehicle, advised Oles of the reason he 
had been stopped, and asked where he was coming from.  Oles responded that he 
was coming from a wedding.  The trooper noticed the odor of alcohol but was 
unsure whether it came from Oles himself or from somewhere in the vehicle.  The 
trooper then asked Oles to step out of the car and sit in the front seat of the patrol 
car.  During their interaction, the trooper observed Oles moving slowly and 
deliberately. 
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{¶ 3} In the front seat of the patrol car, the trooper again asked Oles where 
he was coming from and asked him how much alcohol he had consumed that 
evening.  Oles responded that he had consumed four mixed drinks while at the 
wedding. 
{¶ 4} The trooper then asked Oles to step out of the patrol car to perform 
field sobriety tests.  Because Oles failed the tests, the trooper believed that he was 
under the influence of alcohol.  He arrested Oles and placed him in the back seat of 
the patrol car.  Oles was cited with two counts of operating a motor vehicle while 
under the influence (“OVI”) under R.C. Chapter 4511 and a marked-lanes violation.  
At no time was Oles administered Miranda warnings. 
{¶ 5} In the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, Oles moved to 
suppress evidence obtained during the stop, including his statements made to the 
trooper while he sat in the front seat of the patrol car and the results of his 
subsequent field sobriety tests.  Oles challenged the admissibility of his statements 
on the grounds that they were obtained in violation of his privilege against self-
incrimination under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and 
Article I, Section 10 of the Ohio Constitution and without the procedural safeguards 
established in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 
(1966).  The court granted the motion to suppress. 
{¶ 6} The city appealed, and the Eighth District affirmed the trial court’s 
judgment.  The Eighth District concluded that “[u]nder the totality of the 
circumstances presented in this case, we find that a reasonable person, removed 
from his or her own vehicle and questioned about their alcohol consumption in the 
passenger seat of a police cruiser would not feel free to leave.”  2016-Ohio-23, 45 
N.E.3d 1061, ¶ 19. 
{¶ 7} The Eighth District, sua sponte, certified that a conflict existed 
between its decision and decisions of the First, Second, Fifth, Seventh, and 
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Eleventh District Courts of Appeals.  We accepted the following certified-conflict 
question:   
 
“[I]n the course of a traffic stop, d[o] the Fifth Amendment 
to the United States Constitution and Section 10, Article I of the 
Ohio Constitution require a law enforcement officer to provide 
Miranda warnings to a suspect who is removed from his vehicle and 
placed in the front seat of a police vehicle for questioning?” 
 
(Brackets sic.)  145 Ohio St.3d 1455, 2016-Ohio-2807, 49 N.E.3d 319, quoting the 
court of appeals’ journal entry.  We also asserted jurisdiction over Cleveland’s 
discretionary appeal and consolidated the two cases.  145 Ohio St.3d 1457, 2016-
Ohio-2807, 49 N.E.3d 320. 
ANALYSIS 
{¶ 8} In Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. at 444, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 
694, the United States Supreme Court established procedural safeguards for 
securing the privilege against self-incrimination guaranteed by the Fifth 
Amendment to the United States Constitution.  The Fourteenth Amendment to the 
United States Constitution makes the privilege against self-incrimination applicable 
to a witness in a state proceeding.  Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 3, 84 S.Ct 1489, 
12 L.Ed.2d 653 (1964).  A similar privilege is recognized in Article I, Section 10 
of the Ohio Constitution. 
{¶ 9} What are now commonly known as Miranda warnings are intended 
to protect a suspect from the coercive pressure present during a custodial 
interrogation.  Miranda at 469.  A custodial interrogation is “questioning initiated 
by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise 
deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way.”  Id. at 444.  If a suspect 
provides responses while in custody without having first been informed of his or 
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her Miranda rights, the responses may not be admitted at trial as evidence of guilt.  
Id. at 479. 
{¶ 10} In Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 82 L.Ed.2d 
317 (1984), the Supreme Court addressed whether the scope of Miranda extended 
to the roadside questioning of a motorist during a routine traffic stop.  In that case, 
an Ohio State Highway Patrol trooper initiated a traffic stop after observing a 
vehicle weave in and out of a highway lane.  The trooper asked the driver to get out 
of the vehicle.  When the driver had difficulty standing, the trooper asked him to 
perform a field sobriety test, which the driver failed.  When asked whether he had 
been using intoxicants, the driver, in slurred speech, said that he had consumed two 
beers and had smoked several marijuana joints.  The trooper then arrested the driver 
and transported him to jail, where he was administered a blood-alcohol test and 
asked additional questions.  At no time were Miranda warnings provided.  
Berkemer at 424. 
{¶ 11} In Berkemer, the Supreme Court recognized that although a traffic 
stop “significantly curtails the ‘freedom of action’ of the driver and passengers, if 
any, of the detained vehicle,” the stop alone does not render a suspect “in custody” 
and therefore does not trigger the need for Miranda warnings.  Id. at 436, 440.  The 
court explained that “[i]f a motorist who has been detained pursuant to a traffic stop 
thereafter is subjected to treatment that renders him ‘in custody’ for practical 
purposes, he will be entitled to the full panoply of protections prescribed by 
Miranda.”  Id. at 440. 
{¶ 12} The court specifically noted the noncoercive aspects of a traffic stop 
that “mitigate the danger that a person questioned will be induced ‘to speak where 
he would not otherwise do so freely.’ ”  Id. at 437, quoting Miranda, 384 at 467, 
86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694.  For example, in contrast to a stationhouse 
interrogation, traffic stops are generally temporary and brief, involving a short 
period of questioning and possibly a citation before the driver is free to go.  
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Berkemer at 437-438.  Additionally, an ordinary traffic stop is less “ ‘police 
dominated’ ” than interrogations that require Miranda warnings because the law-
enforcement officer’s “aura of authority” over the driver is offset by the public 
nature of the stop and the typical one-to-one ratio of officer to motorist.  Id. at 438-
439. 
{¶ 13} Ultimately, in Berkemer, the court held that the only relevant inquiry 
is how a reasonable person in the suspect’s position would have understood his or 
her situation.  468 U.S. at 442, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 82 L.Ed.2d 317.  Because the 
motorist in Berkemer was not able to demonstrate that he had been subjected to 
“restraints comparable to those associated with a formal arrest,” the court 
concluded that he had not been taken into custody for purposes of Miranda.  Id. at 
441-442. 
{¶ 14} We applied Berkemer in State v. Farris, 109 Ohio St.3d 519, 2006-
Ohio-3255, 849 N.E.2d 985, in which a trooper questioned the subject of a traffic 
stop while the subject was seated in the front seat of a police vehicle.  In Farris, the 
trooper smelled marijuana in a vehicle after initiating a traffic stop for speeding.  
The trooper then asked the driver to step out of the car, performed a pat-down search 
of the driver, took the driver’s keys, and asked the driver to sit in the front seat of 
his police vehicle.  In the front seat, the following occurred: 
 
[The trooper] told Farris that he had smelled marijuana in the car.  
Without administering a Miranda warning or seeking consent to 
search the car, [the trooper] asked Farris about the smell of 
marijuana.  Farris told [the trooper] that his housemates had been 
smoking marijuana when he left the house.  [The trooper] told Farris 
that he was going to search the car and then specifically asked 
whether there were any drugs or drug devices in the car.  Farris 
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admitted that there was a “bowl,” i.e., a marijuana pipe, in a bag in 
his trunk. 
 
Id. at ¶ 3.  After this admission, the trooper administered Miranda warnings and 
then repeated the same questions.  Id. at ¶ 4. 
{¶ 15} Citing Berkemer, we concluded that a reasonable person in Farris’s 
position would have understood himself or herself to be in custody while sitting in 
the police vehicle.  Id. at ¶ 14.  Specifically, the trooper’s treatment of Farris—
patting him down, taking his keys, instructing him to sit in the police vehicle, and 
telling Farris that he was going to search the car due to the smell of marijuana—
permitted a reasonable belief that Farris could not leave and would be detained long 
enough for the officer to conduct the vehicle search.  Id.  Therefore, Farris’s 
statements obtained without Miranda warnings were inadmissible.  Id. at ¶ 13-14. 
{¶ 16} Since Farris, decisions of our courts of appeals, including the 
conflict cases identified by the Eight District Court of Appeals, have distinguished 
Farris and concluded that officers who questioned suspects in the front seat of 
police vehicles during traffic stops did not engage in custodial interrogations. 
{¶ 17} In State v. Brocker, 11th Dist. Portage No. 2014-P-0070, 2015-
Ohio-3412, ¶ 18, the Eleventh District held that the questioning of a driver inside a 
police vehicle did not rise to the level of a custodial interrogation because the 
detention in the front seat was brief, the questioning was not intimidating, and the 
trooper neither took the driver’s keys nor searched the driver’s vehicle.  See also 
State v. Serafin, 11th Dist. Portage No. 2011-P-0036, 2012-Ohio-1456, ¶ 38 (no 
custodial interrogation when the driver was subjected to a pat-down search before 
the trooper questioned him in the front seat of the police vehicle). 
{¶ 18} In State v. Kraus, 1st Dist. Hamilton Nos. C-070428 and C-070429, 
2008-Ohio-3965, ¶ 13-14, the First District held that a driver’s questioning in the 
front seat of a police vehicle was not a custodial interrogation because the intrusion 
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was minimal in that the driver was not searched or handcuffed, was permitted to 
keep his keys, and was not subjected to a lengthy period of questioning.  See also 
State v. Leonard, 1st Dist. Hamilton No. C-060595, 2007-Ohio-3312, ¶ 17-23 (no 
custodial interrogation of driver in front seat of police vehicle because intrusion 
was minimal in that neither the driver nor his vehicle was subjected to a search, the 
driver was not handcuffed, the driver retained his keys, and the detention was brief). 
{¶ 19} In State v. Crowe, 5th Dist. Delaware No. 07CAC030015, 2008-
Ohio-330, ¶ 35, the Fifth District distinguished Farris, noting that the driver in 
Crowe was not subjected to a pat-down search before being placed in the front seat 
of the cruiser, was not handcuffed, was permitted to keep his keys, and was not 
subjected to a vehicle search or a lengthy detention.  See also State v. Mullins, 5th 
Dist. Licking No. 2006-CA-00019, 2006-Ohio-4674, ¶ 30. 
{¶ 20} And in State v. Coleman, 7th Dist. Mahoning No. 06 MA 41, 2007-
Ohio-1573, ¶ 37, the Seventh District distinguished Farris and determined that an 
officer who asked a driver seated in the front seat of the officer’s police vehicle 
how much alcohol the driver had consumed had not conducted a custodial 
interrogation. 
{¶ 21} These decisions illustrate that determining whether front-seat 
questioning during a traffic stop is a custodial interrogation requiring Miranda 
warnings demands a fact-specific inquiry that asks whether a reasonable person in 
the suspect’s position would have understood himself or herself to be in custody 
while being questioned in the front seat of the police vehicle.  Farris, 109 Ohio 
St.3d 519, 2006-Ohio-3255, 849 N.E.2d 985, at ¶ 14; Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 442, 
104 S.Ct. 3138, 82 L.Ed.2d 317. 
{¶ 22} Determining whether the totality of the circumstances in a particular 
case indicates that a custodial interrogation occurred requires a more exacting 
inquiry by the courts than the simple application of a bright-line rule of law.  Indeed, 
the Supreme Court in Berkemer acknowledged that its decision would leave lower 
January Term, 2017 
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courts with occasional difficulty in deciding whether a suspect was “in custody” for 
Miranda purposes.  Berkemer at 441.  But the court warned against the lure of 
establishing a bright-line rule that Miranda applies to all traffic stops or that 
Miranda does not apply until a formal arrest.  Id. 
{¶ 23} Similarly, here, we decline to adopt the bright-line rule that 
questioning a suspect in the front seat of a police vehicle during a traffic stop rises 
to the level of a custodial interrogation.  In some cases, such as Farris, the totality 
of the circumstances will demonstrate that questioning a suspect in the front seat of 
a police vehicle is a custodial interrogation that requires Miranda warnings.  But 
front-seat questioning, by itself, does not necessarily constitute a custodial 
interrogation. 
{¶ 24} Drawing from Berkemer, Farris, and subsequent decisions of our 
courts of appeals, we identify the following factors that may provide guidance: 
questioning a suspect during a traffic stop in the front seat of a police vehicle does 
not rise to the level of a custodial interrogation when (1) the intrusion is minimal, 
(2) the questioning and detention are brief, and (3) the interaction is nonthreatening 
or nonintimidating. 
{¶ 25} We apply these factors here. 
{¶ 26} The trooper in this case asked Oles to sit in the front seat of his patrol 
car and did not perform a pat-down search.  Unlike the officer in Farris, the trooper 
here did not indicate that he wanted to search Oles’s vehicle and permitted Oles to 
keep the vehicle keys during the traffic stop.  The setting was in public view on the 
highway shoulder, and the trooper performed procedures typical of a traffic stop.  
Thus, we find that the intrusion was minimal. 
{¶ 27} Second, the record demonstrates that Oles’s questioning and his 
detention in the patrol car were both short in duration.  The trooper had a brief 
conversation with Oles to discern whether the odor of alcohol originated from Oles 
himself or from somewhere else in his car.  Once Oles revealed how many drinks 
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he had consumed that evening, the trooper began the field sobriety tests.  The 
brevity of the interaction underscores the ordinary nature of the traffic stop and the 
noncoercive nature of the questioning. 
{¶ 28} Third, the interaction between Oles and the trooper was 
nonthreatening and nonintimidating.  Oles was not handcuffed.  There is no 
indication that the questioning was overly repetitive or that Oles objected to any of 
the trooper’s requests or questions.  In the vehicle, the trooper asked Oles the kind 
of general, on-the-scene questions that are typical of a routine traffic stop in which 
alcohol is suspected to be a factor.  This differs from the kind of interrogation—
designed to pressure a suspect to confess to illegal conduct—that was of particular 
concern to the Supreme Court in Miranda.  And it differs from the interaction in 
Farris, in which the trooper made it known that he suspected illegal conduct (i.e., 
that he smelled marijuana), told Farris that he would search the car, and then asked 
about illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia that he might find in the car. 
{¶ 29} When viewing the totality of the circumstances in this case, we find 
that a reasonable person in Oles’s position would not have understood himself or 
herself to be in custody.  The trooper’s questioning of Oles in the front seat of the 
patrol car did not rise to the level of a custodial interrogation requiring Miranda 
warnings. 
{¶ 30} Oles contends that his belief that he was not free to leave should be 
dispositive.  The court of appeals also articulated the test this way, finding that a 
reasonable person would not have felt free to leave.  But the relevant inquiry is 
whether a reasonable person in the suspect’s position would have understood 
himself or herself to be in custody.  This nuance is important and well reasoned.  If 
the inquiry were whether the driver felt free to leave, then every traffic stop could 
be considered a custodial interrogation because “few motorists would feel free 
either to disobey a directive to pull over or to leave the scene of a traffic stop 
without being told they might do so,” Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 436, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 
January Term, 2017 
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82 L.Ed.2d 317.  And a law-enforcement officer, in the midst of investigating a 
traffic stop and performing all its attendant procedures, would not consider a driver 
free to leave unless given permission.  But “not free to leave” and “in custody” are 
distinct concepts. 
{¶ 31} For purposes of the constitutional privilege against self-
incrimination, the test is not whether the individual feels free to leave but whether 
the situation “exerts upon a detained person pressures that sufficiently impair his 
free exercise of his privilege against self-incrimination to require that he be warned 
of his constitutional rights.”  Id. at 437.  Considering the totality of the 
circumstances here, we conclude that no constitutional violation occurred.1 
{¶ 32} Because we reverse the judgment affirming the suppression of 
Oles’s statements and the results of the field sobriety tests, we need not reach the 
city’s second proposition of law, regarding the independent-source doctrine. 
CONCLUSION 
{¶ 33} The placement of a suspect in the front seat of a police vehicle 
during a traffic stop is not alone determinative of whether the suspect has been 
subjected to a custodial interrogation.  The relevant inquiry is whether, under the 
totality of the circumstances, a reasonable person in the suspect’s position would 
have understood himself or herself to be in custody.  Accordingly, we answer the 
                                                          
 
1    In Farris, we determined that Article I, Section 10 of the Ohio Constitution provides greater 
protection to criminal defendants than the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution with 
respect to the admissibility at trial of physical evidence seized as a result of unwarned statements 
made in custody without the benefit of Miranda warnings.  109 Ohio St.3d 519, 2006-Ohio-3255, 
849 N.E.2d 985, at ¶ 48.  We held in Farris that such evidence is inadmissible under Article I, 
Section 10, whereas a plurality of the United States Supreme Court had agreed that the admission 
of such evidence does not violate the Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth Amendment, United 
States v. Patane, 542 U.S. 630, 637, 124 S.Ct. 2620, 159 L.Ed.2d 667 (2004).   
 
Here, however, that issue is not present because we conclude that Oles was not subjected 
to a custodial interrogation, and therefore, the need for Miranda warnings was not triggered.  We 
decline to extend our holding in Farris regarding the protection offered by the Ohio Constitution 
beyond the scope of that case, particularly without argument from the parties regarding whether the 
Ohio Constitution provides greater protection than the Fifth Amendment in this scenario. 
 
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certified question in the negative, reverse the judgment of the Eighth District Court 
of Appeals, and remand the cause for further proceedings. 
Judgment reversed  
and cause remanded. 
O’DONNELL, KENNEDY, FRENCH, FISCHER, and DEWINE, JJ., concur. 
O’NEILL, J., dissents with an opinion. 
__________________ 
O’NEILL, J., dissenting. 
{¶ 34} I must respectfully dissent.  I would affirm the judgment of the 
Eighth District Court of Appeals and hold that custody began and Miranda 
warnings were required as soon as the trooper directed appellee, Benjamin Oles, to 
sit in the front seat of the patrol car. 
{¶ 35} A reasonable person who has been stopped for any traffic violation 
and asked to have a seat in a police vehicle—whether front seat or back seat, 
whether handcuffed or not—would believe that he or she is in custody at that point.  
He or she would certainly not feel free to leave—and, as the trooper testified in this 
case, Oles was not free to leave. 
{¶ 36} To follow the majority’s logic, one would have to accept the 
proposition that a citizen sitting in the front seat of a police cruiser at the officer’s 
request would be free to state, “Well, I have had enough of this chat” and then 
reach, furtively or otherwise, for the door handle and exit the vehicle.  Common 
sense and the safety of both the officer and the citizen require a wholly different 
conclusion. 
{¶ 37} In fact, technology has completely changed the landscape since 
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), was 
decided back in 1966, over 50 years ago.  Police vehicles are now equipped with 
computers, giving officers access to a world of information while seated inside 
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them.  Every police vehicle is now a police station on wheels.  Being directed to 
have a seat in a police vehicle is akin to being taken to the police station. 
{¶ 38} As the United States Supreme Court stated in Berkemer v. McCarty, 
“the only relevant inquiry is how a reasonable man in the suspect’s position would 
have understood his situation.”  468 U.S. 420, 442, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 
(1984).  The Eighth District was exactly right when it stated that “a reasonable 
person, removed from his or her own vehicle and questioned about their alcohol 
consumption in the passenger seat in a police cruiser would not feel free to leave.”  
2016-Ohio-23, 45 N.E.3d 1061, ¶ 19.  In fact, it would be “unrealistic and 
irrational” for a reasonable person to believe otherwise.  Id. at ¶ 20.  I fail to see 
how any other conclusion is possible. 
{¶ 39} This is a different situation than what occurs during a typical traffic 
stop or a Terry stop.  See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 
(1968).  In those circumstances, the officer has stopped the suspect because of 
observed behavior and is permitted to begin a preliminary investigation by asking 
a few questions.  Once the officer directs the suspect out of his or her car or off the 
sidewalk and into the police vehicle, a fundamental change has occurred.  Once the 
suspect is instructed to enter the police vehicle, that person’s actions are now being 
controlled by the police officer.  A reasonable person in the suspect’s position 
would feel that he or she is, at that point, under the control of the officer and in 
custody.  The suspect’s freedom of action has been curtailed in a significant way. 
{¶ 40} The fundamental question in police-custody cases has always been 
a matter of where we should draw the line.  The result has been the functional 
equivalent of gerrymandering.  Courts have been enabled to draw the line in and 
around the countless fact patterns that have arisen.  It has reached the point at which 
neither the police nor trial courts can safely rely on an established rule of law.  The 
time has come to change that and define an easily articulable rule: if an officer is 
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instructing a suspect to have a seat in a police vehicle, then Miranda warnings are 
required.  Period, end of sentence. 
{¶ 41} Whether the suspect is instructed to sit in the front seat or back seat 
should not matter, nor whether the suspect is patted down, searched, or handcuffed.  
Once that suspect is placed in the police station on wheels, he or she is in custody.  
If the officer wants to ask some preliminary investigative questions, that can be 
accomplished while the suspect is still in his or her own vehicle, or standing outside 
it.  Not only would this be an easily understood rule of law, but it also makes sense. 
{¶ 42} I must dissent. 
__________________ 
 
Barbara Langhenry, Cleveland Director of Law, Kimberly G. Barnett-Mills, 
Interim Chief Prosecutor, and Jonathan L. Cudnik, Assistant Prosecutor, for 
appellant. 
 
Patituce & Associates, L.L.C., Joseph C. Patituce, and Megan M. Patituce, 
for appellee. 
 
Michael C. O’Malley, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Daniel 
T. Van and Anthony T. Miranda, Assistant Prosecuting Attorneys, urging reversal 
for amici curiae Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association and Cuyahoga County 
Prosecutor’s Office. 
 
Russell S. Bensing, urging affirmance for amicus curiae Ohio Association 
of Criminal Defense Lawyers. 
______________________