Title: State v. Gardner

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
State v. Gardner, Slip Opinion No. 2012-Ohio-5683.] 
 
 
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. 2012-OHIO-5683 
THE STATE OF OHIO, APPELLEE, v. GARDNER, APPELLANT. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as State v. Gardner, Slip Opinion No. 2012-Ohio-5683.] 
(No. 2011-2134—Submitted September 26, 2012—Decided December 6, 2012.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Montgomery County,  
No. 24308, 2011-Ohio-5692. 
________________ 
 
O’CONNOR, C.J. 
{¶ 1} In this appeal, we consider whether an individual who is the subject 
of an outstanding arrest warrant forfeits all expectations of privacy protected by 
the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Ohio Constitution, Article 
I, Section 19.  We hold that he does not.  We therefore affirm the decision of the 
court of appeals, which had found error in the trial court’s decision denying a 
motion to suppress based solely on the notion that an arrest warrant “cleanses” 
any error by police in seizing an individual later found to be subject to the 
warrant, and we remand to the trial court to consider whether police properly 
detained appellee, Damaad Gardner, before discovering that he was the subject of 
an active arrest warrant. 
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RELEVANT BACKGROUND 
{¶ 2} On March 17, 2010, Officer David House of the Dayton Police 
Department was in an unmarked cruiser patrolling a neighborhood described as “a 
high crime area.” During his patrol, he observed a pick-up truck bearing license 
plates that indicated the vehicle was from outside Montgomery County.  He 
followed the truck because he believed that people from outside Montgomery 
County came to Dayton to buy illegal drugs. 
{¶ 3} After reviewing computerized motor-vehicle-registration records, 
Officer House learned that the truck was registered to someone from Clinton 
County who had a drug-related conviction.  Officer House followed the truck to 
see if the driver was going to an area in which drugs were known to be sold. 
{¶ 4} The truck pulled into the driveway of a residence, and the driver and 
his passenger went into the home.  Officer House watched the house to see if the 
driver would stay for only a brief time, which he believed would indicate that a 
drug sale had taken place.  After 15 minutes, neither the driver nor the passenger 
had returned to the vehicle, and Officer House left the scene.  Three hours later, 
however, he returned. 
{¶ 5} Upon his return, Officer House saw that the truck was still in the 
driveway and that a car was also present.  Officer House checked the registration 
of the car and learned it was registered to Richard Easter, a Caucasian male, 
approximately six feet tall and weighing 160 pounds.  Easter had an outstanding 
warrant for his arrest for failing to appear at a trial in Butler County on a drug 
case.  Officer House began surveillance on the house to determine if Easter was in 
it. 
{¶ 6} Soon thereafter, two African-American men emerged from the house 
and went to the car.  One, appellee Damaad Gardner, got in the car and sat in the 
front passenger seat; the other man got in and sat in the back seat.  Both men 
appeared younger than Easter. 
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{¶ 7} A man who was later identified as Easter then emerged from the 
home and took the driver’s seat.  As he drove away, Officer House followed him 
with the intent to call a marked police cruiser to stop Easter’s vehicle, determine 
if Easter was the driver, and if so, arrest him on the outstanding warrant.  Before 
he could do so, however, Easter pulled into a gas station, parked the car, and 
purchased cigarettes. 
{¶ 8} Officer House, wearing a police-issued vest that bore his badge and 
“DAYTON POLICE” in large letters, approached Easter.  Easter admitted his 
identity.  While standing near the driver’s door of Easter’s car, Officer House 
handcuffed and arrested Easter. 
{¶ 9} As Officer House was arresting Easter, he noticed Gardner was 
moving inside the car, had his hand on the door handle, and appeared to be getting 
ready to exit the vehicle.  Officer House walked Easter around the car in order to 
approach the men inside the car from the passenger side.  Officer House saw 
Gardner rise from the seat and reach into the back of his shorts.  Officer House 
shouted to Gardner to place his hands on the dashboard.  Gardner complied. 
{¶ 10} After ordering Gardner from the car, Officer House, who was the 
only law-enforcement agent at the scene, handcuffed him.  He told Gardner that 
he was not under arrest, but that he was being handcuffed only for the officer’s 
safety. 
{¶ 11} Officer House then patted down Gardner.  Although he did not 
discover weapons, he did detect something he suspected to be crack cocaine in 
Gardner’s buttocks.  Officer House placed Gardner under arrest and removed the 
contraband.  Before Miranda warnings were given, Gardner stated something to 
the effect of “He gave it to me to hide it.” 
{¶ 12} After other officers arrived on the scene, Gardner was taken into 
custody.  Police then determined that he was the subject of an arrest warrant for a 
traffic violation. 
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{¶ 13} Gardner was indicted on one count of possession of crack cocaine.  
He unsuccessfully moved the trial court to suppress the cocaine found in his 
possession.  In denying the motion, the judge described the arrest warrant as “a 
big elephant in the room.”  According to the judge, “If there’s an arrest warrant 
for Mr. Gardner, the ballgame’s over, right?  Then everything’s cleansed.  Even if 
I agree totally with the defense up till [sic] now.”  Ultimately, the judge, citing an 
unreported Second District decision, Dayton v. Click, Montgomery App. No. 
14328, 1994 WL 543210 (Oct. 5, 1994), stated, “Presuming for a moment * * * 
there was an illegal stop or illegal search, it matters not.  I mean, because in this 
case we know Officer House didn’t discover the arrest warrant until after the stop, 
search, pat-down and that had all occurred.  But it makes no difference under this 
authority.”  Based on Click and its progeny, the judge denied the motion to 
suppress. 
{¶ 14} Gardner then pleaded no contest to one count of possession of 
crack cocaine.  Upon his conviction, he appealed.  After characterizing Click and 
its progeny as “labyrinthine, if not desultory,” a divided panel of the Second 
District Court of Appeals reversed, noting that it was not bound by the doctrine of 
stare decisis to apply Click because this case involves a constitutional question.  
State v. Gardner, 2d Dist. No. 24308, 2011-Ohio-5962, ¶ 31.  It also found that 
there was no evidence showing “when and how the officers discovered Gardner’s 
name or that there was a warrant; whether the court found facts justifying—or not 
justifying—a Terry patdown; or whether, if such a patdown were justified, 
whether the seizure of the drugs was within the plain feel exception.”  Id., ¶ 39.  It 
thus remanded to the trial court for further proceedings. 
{¶ 15} We accepted the state’s discretionary appeal, 131 Ohio St.3d 1483, 
2012-Ohio-1143, 963 N.E.2d 824, which presents a single proposition of law:  
“When a person is subject to arrest on an outstanding warrant, he or she has no 
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expectation of privacy that would protect him or her from execution of that 
warrant.”  We reject the state’s assertion and affirm the appellate court’s decision. 
ANALYSIS 
{¶ 16} “ ‘No right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded, by 
the common law, than the right of every individual to the possession and control 
of his own person, free from all restraint or interference of others, unless by clear 
and unquestionable authority of law.’ ”  Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 9, 88 S.Ct. 
1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), quoting Union Pacific Ry. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 
250, 251, 11 S.Ct. 1000, 35 L.Ed. 734 (1891).  Thus, our constitutions forbid 
searches and seizures without warrants, except in a few narrow circumstances.  
See generally Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 
576 (1967) (describing Fourth Amendment protections); State v. Buzzard, 112 
Ohio St.3d 451, 2007-Ohio-373, 860 N.E.2d 1006, ¶ 13 (“If the state wishes to 
intrude on the individual’s right to be secure in his person, house, paper, and 
effects by searching or seizing him or his things, the state must first secure a 
warrant. Section 14, Article I, Ohio Constitution”). 
{¶ 17} As the Supreme Court has explained, 
 
Implicit in the Fourth Amendment's protection from 
unreasonable searches and seizures is its recognition of 
individual freedom. That safeguard has been declared to be 
“as of the very essence of constitutional liberty” the 
guaranty of which “is as important and as imperative as are 
the guaranties of the other fundamental rights of the 
individual citizen * * *.”  Gouled v. United States, 255 U.S. 
298, 304, 41 S.Ct. 261, 263, 65 L.Ed. 647 (1921); cf. 
Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 65-68, 53 S.Ct. 55, 62-64, 
77 L.Ed. 158 (1932). 
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Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 32-33, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 10 L.Ed.2d 726 (1963).  Put 
another way,  
 
The fourth amendment protects the privacy and personal 
security of individuals from arbitrary and oppressive interference 
by limiting the search-and-seizure authority of law enforcement 
officials. The standard against which the fourth amendment 
requires that we judge the validity of a search or seizure is one of 
reasonableness in light of the totality of the circumstances. 
Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 109-110, 98 S.Ct. 330, 332, 
54 L.Ed.2d 331, 335-336 (1977); United States v. Sink, 586 F.2d 
1041, 1047 (5th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 443 U.S. 912, 99 S.Ct. 
3102, 61 L.Ed.2d 876 (1979).  In determining the reasonableness 
of a particular law enforcement practice, a court must weigh the 
public interest promoted by the practice against its intrusion upon 
the personal rights of the individual protected by the fourth 
amendment.  Bell v. Wolfish, 442 U.S 520, 558, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 
1884, 60 L.Ed.2d 447, 481 (1979); Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 
648, 653, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 1396, 59 L.Ed.2d 660, 667 (1979); United 
States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 553, 96 S.Ct. 3074, 3081, 
49 L.Ed.2d 1116, 1125 (1976).  Some of the factors that the court 
should consider are “the scope of the particular intrusion, the 
manner in which it is conducted, the justification for initiating it 
and the place in which it is conducted.”   Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 
at 559, 99 S.Ct. at 1884. 
 
Wanger v. Bonner, 621 F.2d 675, 681 (11th Cir.1980).  Thus, unless it is 
objectively reasonable to do so, no individual may be detained “even 
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momentarily” by the police.  Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 498, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 
75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983); Ker at 33, quoting Go-Bart Importing Co. v. United 
States, 282 U.S. 344, 357, 51 S.Ct. 153, 75 L.Ed. 374 (1931). 
{¶ 18} In its arguments here, the state casts aside these core concepts—
embodied in both the federal and state constitutions and explained by the United 
States Supreme Court and this court—and insists that an individual who is the 
subject of an outstanding arrest warrant has no privacy interests and thus no 
standing to challenge a search by police.  In support of its assertions, the state 
relies almost exclusively on Click and the line of cases that followed Click.  State 
v. Hines, 2d Dist. No. 24346, 2012-Ohio-207, ¶ 14 (describing the line of cases 
that followed Click as “the tortured history” of that precedent). 
{¶ 19} Click is not good law. 
{¶ 20} Click and its progeny stand for the proposition that an individual 
subject to an arrest warrant has “no reasonable expectation of privacy in being 
free from being stopped arbitrarily by police” because the warrant is the 
embodiment of a court’s command to arrest the individual.  State v. Smith, 2d 
Dist. No. 22434, 2008-Ohio-5523, ¶ 11; see State v. Williams, 2d Dist. No. 22535, 
2008-Ohio-6030, ¶ 21.  Under Click, “[t]he mere existence of an outstanding 
warrant, in other words, renders a seizure lawful, whether or not the officer is 
aware of the warrant at the time of the seizure.”  State v. Gray, 2d Dist. No. 
22688, 2009-Ohio-1411, ¶ 12. 
{¶ 21} The state asserts that the rationale in Click is consistent with the 
Fourth Amendment and that “[b]ecause Gardner was subject to being arrested, 
searched, and taken to jail on the warrant, he had no expectation of privacy that 
would protect him from an insufficiently justified Terry stop and frisk.”  And it 
asserts that Steagald v. United States, 451 U.S. 204, 101 S.Ct. 1642, 68 L.Ed.2d 
38 (1981), and Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 602, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 
L.Ed.2d 639 (1980), support its contention.  We disagree. 
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{¶ 22} It is true that a person subject to an arrest warrant does not enjoy 
the full panoply of privacy rights that other individuals enjoy. As the state 
contends, an arrest warrant authorizes the police to enter into an individual’s 
home to seize him.  Payton at 602-603.  But the holding in those cases 
presupposes that the police knew that there was a warrant for the individual’s 
arrest when entering a home to make an arrest.  The state cites no authority, and 
we are aware of none, that supports a conclusion that a person who is the subject 
of an arrest warrant has no privacy protection. 
{¶ 23} We will not condone the notion that the unlawfulness of an 
improper arrest or seizure always can be purged by the fortuitous subsequent 
discovery of an arrest warrant.  As one federal court succinctly stated, “This 
argument is preposterous; the Fourth Amendment does not countenance such post 
hoc rationalization.”  Bruce v. Perkins, 701 F.Supp. 163, 165 (N.D.Ill.1988). 
{¶ 24} In so holding, we recognize that Gardner was the subject of an 
outstanding warrant (albeit for a traffic violation) and that he had possessed crack 
cocaine.  But efforts “to bring the guilty to punishment, praiseworthy as they are, 
are not to be aided by the sacrifice of those great principles established by years 
of endeavor and suffering which have resulted in their embodiment in the 
fundamental law of the land.”  Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 393, 34 
S.Ct. 341, 58 L.Ed. 652 (1914).  There is always a temptation in criminal cases to 
let the end justify the means, but as guardians of the Constitution, we must resist 
that temptation.  See United States v. Mesa, 62 F.3d 159, 163 (6th Cir.1995).  
After all, Fourth Amendment freedoms are not second-class rights; they are 
indispensable to all members of a free society. See Brinegar v. United States, 338 
U.S. 160, 180-181, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 93 L.Ed. 1879 (1949) (Jackson, J., dissenting). 
{¶ 25} Although we have rejected the state’s constitutional claim, we 
intimate no opinion about whether suppression was proper.  We agree with the 
court of appeals that the trial court denied the motion to suppress without finding 
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whether there was a reasonable, articulable suspicion to justify Officer House’s 
patdown of Gardner and whether the contraband seized could be justified.  We 
thus affirm the appellate court’s judgment, including its order to remand this 
cause to the common pleas court to make the necessary findings and for any other 
proceedings that may be necessary after those findings are made. 
Judgment affirmed. 
PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’DONNELL, LANZINGER, CUPP, and 
MCGEE BROWN, JJ., concur. 
______________________________ 
 
Matthias H. Heck Jr., Montgomery County Prosecuting Attorney, and 
Carley J. Ingram and Andrew T. French, Assistant Prosecuting Attorneys, for 
appellant. 
 
Marlow & Neuherz, L.L.C., and Rebekah S. Neuherz, for appellee. 
 
Lewis R. Katz; Timothy Young, Ohio Public Defender, and Stephen 
Hardwick, Assistant Public Defender; and Robert L. Tobik, Cuyahoga County 
Public Defender, and John T. Martin, Assistant Public Defender, urging 
affirmance on behalf of amici curiae, Professor Lewis R. Katz, Office of the Ohio 
Public Defender, and Office of the Cuyahoga County Public Defender. 
______________