Title: State v. Robinette

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

The State of Ohio, Appellant, v. Robinette, Appellee. 
[Cite as State v. Robinette (1995), --- Ohio St.3d ----.] 
Criminal law -- Motor vehicles -- Continued detention of a 
person stopped for a traffic violation constitutes an illegal 
seizure, when -- Police officer required to inform motorist 
that his legal detention has concluded before the police 
officer may engage in any consensual interrogation. 
1. When the motivation behind a police officer’s continued 
detention of a person stopped for a traffic violation is not related to 
the purpose of the original, constitutional stop, and when that 
continued detention is not based on any articulable facts giving rise to 
a suspicion of some separate illegal activity justifying an extension of 
the detention, the continued detention constitutes an illegal seizure. 
2. The right, guaranteed by the federal and Ohio Constitutions, to 
be secure in one’s person and property requires that citizens stopped 
for traffic offenses be clearly informed by the detaining officer when 
they are free to go after a valid detention, before an officer attempts to 
engage in a consensual interrogation.  Any attempt at consensual 
 
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interrogation must be preceded by the phrase “At this time you legally 
are free to go” or by words of similar import. 
(No. 94-1143 -- Submitted May 24, 1995 -- Decided September 
6, 1995.) 
Appeal from the Court of Appeals for Montgomery County, No. 
14074. 
On August 3, 1992, appellee, Robert  D. Robinette, was driving 
his car at sixty-nine miles per hour in a forty-five miles per hour 
construction zone on Interstate 70 in Montgomery County.  Deputy 
Roger Newsome of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s office, who was 
on drug interdiction patrol at the time, stopped Robinette for a 
speeding violation. 
Before Newsome approached Robinette’s vehicle, he had decided 
to issue Robinette only a verbal warning, as was his routine practice 
regarding speeders in that particular construction zone.  Newsome 
approached Robinette’s vehicle and requested Robinette’s driver’s 
license.  Robinette supplied the deputy with his driver’s license, and 
Newsome returned to his vehicle to check it.  Finding no violations, 
 
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Newsome returned to Robinette’s vehicle.  At that point, Newsome had 
no intention of issuing Robinette a speeding ticket.  Still, Newsome 
asked Robinette to get out of his car and step to the rear of the 
vehicle.  Robinette complied with Newsome’s request and stood 
between his car and the deputy’s cruiser.  Newsome returned to his 
vehicle in order to activate the cruiser’s video camera so that he could 
videotape his interaction with Robinette.  Newsome returned to 
Robinette, issued a verbal warning regarding Robinette’s speed, and 
returned Robinette’ s driver’s license. 
After returning the license, Newsome said to Robinette, “One 
question before you get gone [sic]: are you carrying any illegal 
contraband in your car?  Any weapons of any kind, drugs, anything 
like that?”  Newsome testified that as part of the drug interdiction 
project he routinely asked permission to search the cars he stopped for 
speeding violations.  When Robinette said that he did not have any 
contraband in the car, Newsome asked if he could search the vehicle.  
Robinette testified that he was shocked at the question and 
“automatically” answered “yes” to the deputy’s request.  Robinette 
 
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testified further that he did not believe that he was at liberty to refuse 
the deputy’s request. 
Upon his search of Robinette’s vehicle, Newsome found a small 
amount of marijuana.  Newsome then put Robinette and his passenger 
in the back seat of the cruiser and continued the search.  As a result of 
this extended search, Newsome found “some sort of pill” inside a film 
container.  The pill was determined to be methylenedioxy 
methamphetamine (“MDMA”) and was the basis for Robinette’s 
subsequent arrest and charge for a violation of R.C. 2925.11(A). 
Robinette’s indictment was issued on December 18, 1992.  On 
February 19, 1993, Robinette filed a motion to suppress the evidence 
found in the search of his vehicle.  The trial court overruled the 
motion on March 8, 1993, finding that the deputy made clear to 
Robinette that the traffic matter was concluded before asking to search 
the vehicle.  The court ruled that Robinette’s consent did not result 
from any overbearing behavior on behalf of Newsome. 
Robinette appealed.  The Court of Appeals for Montgomery 
County reversed the trial court, holding that Robinette remained 
 
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detained when the deputy asked to search the car, and since the 
purpose of the traffic stop had been accomplished prior to that point, 
the continuing detention was unlawful and the ensuing consent was 
invalid. 
This matter is before this court upon an allowance of a 
discretionary appeal. 
__________ 
Mathias H. Heck, Jr., Montgomery County Prosecuting Attorney; 
Carley J. Ingram and Michael L. Gebhart, Assistant Prosecuting 
Attorneys, for appellant. 
James D. Ruppert, for appellee. 
Betty D. Montgomery, Attorney General, Richard A. Cordray, 
State Solicitor, and Simon B. Karas, Deputy Chief Counsel, urging 
reversal for amicus curiae, Ohio Attorney General. 
Joseph T. Deters, Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney,  and 
William E. Breyer, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, urging reversal for 
amicus curiae, Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association. 
__________ 
 
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PFEIFER, J.  The issue in this case is whether the evidence used 
against Robinette was obtained through a valid search.  We find that 
the search was invalid since it was the product of an unlawful seizure.  
We also use this case to establish a bright-line test, requiring police 
officers to inform motorists that their legal detention has concluded 
before the police officer may engage in any consensual interrogation. 
In order to justify any investigative stop, a police officer “must 
be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together 
with the rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that 
intrusion.” Terry v. Ohio (1968), 392 U.S. 1, 21, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1880, 
20 L.Ed.2d 889, 906.  Absent any additional articulable facts arising 
after the stop is made, the police officer must tailor his detention of 
the driver to the original purpose of the stop. State v. Chatton (1984), 
11 Ohio St.3d 59, 63, 11 OBR 250, 253, 463 N.E.2d 1237, 1240.. 
In Chatton, the police officer stopped the defendant’s car when 
he noticed it had no license plates.  When he approached the car after 
it had pulled over, the officer saw a valid temporary tag in the car’s 
rear window.  Despite the fact that the original question which gave 
 
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rise to the stop had been resolved, the officer approached the driver 
and asked to see his driver’s license.  A check of the license revealed 
that it was suspended, and the officer ordered the defendant out of his 
vehicle and placed him under arrest for driving with a suspended 
license.  Upon searching the vehicle, the officer discovered a loaded 
revolver under the driver’s seat.  The defendant was charged with 
carrying a concealed weapon. 
This court ruled in Chatton that the evidence resulting from the 
search should have been suppressed.  This court reasoned that the 
officer, upon seeing the valid temporary tag, no longer maintained a 
reasonable suspicion that the defendant’s vehicle was not properly 
licensed, and thus had no articulable reason to further detain the 
defendant to determine the validity of his driver’s license.  As a result, 
any evidence seized upon a subsequent search of the vehicle was 
inadmissible under the Fourth Amendment to the United States 
Constitution. 
In this case, Newsome certainly had cause to pull over Robinette 
for speeding.  The question is when the validity of that stop ceased.  
 
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Newsome testified that from the outset he never intended to ticket 
Robinette for speeding.  When Newsome returned to Robinette’s car 
after checking Robinette’s license, every aspect of the speeding 
violation had been investigated and resolved.  All Newsome had to do 
was to issue his warning and return Robinette’s driver’s license.   
Instead, for no reason related to the speeding violation, and 
based on no articulable facts, Newsome extended his detention of 
Robinette by ordering him out of the vehicle.  Newsome retained 
Robinette’s driver’s license and told Robinette to stand in front of the 
cruiser.  Newsome then returned to the cruiser and activated the video 
camera in order to record his questioning of Robinette regarding 
whether he was carrying any contraband in the vehicle.   
When the motivation behind a police officer’s continued 
detention of a person stopped for a traffic violation is not related to 
the purpose of the original, constitutional stop, and when that 
continued detention is not based on any articulable facts giving rise to 
a suspicion of some separate illegal activity justifying an extension of 
 
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the detention, the continued detention constitutes an illegal seizure. 
Chatton, supra. 
The entire chain of events, starting when Newsome had Robinette 
exit the car and stand within the field of the video camera, was related 
to the questioning of Robinette about carrying contraband.  Newsome 
asked Robinette to step out of his car for the sole purpose of 
conducting a line of questioning that was not related to the initial 
speeding stop and that was not based on any specific or articulable 
facts that would provide probable cause for the extension of the scope 
of the seizure of Robinette, his passenger and his car.  Therefore the 
detention of Robinette ceased being legal when Newsome asked him to 
leave his vehicle. 
However, this case contains a feature not discussed in Chatton: 
Robinette consented to the search of his vehicle during the illegal 
seizure.  Because Robinette’s consent was obtained during an illegal 
detention, his consent is invalid unless the state proves that the 
consent was not the product of the illegal detention but the result of an 
independent act of free will. Florida v. Royer (1983), 460 U.S. 491, 
 
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501, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1326, 75 L.Ed.2d 229, 238.  The burden is on the 
state to prove that the consent to search was voluntarily given. Id. at 
497, 103 S.Ct. at 1324, 75 L.Ed.2d at 236.  The factors used in 
consideration of whether the consent is sufficiently removed from the 
taint of the illegal seizure include the length of time between the 
illegal seizure and the subsequent search, the presence of intervening 
circumstances, and the purpose and flagrancy of the circumstances.  
United States v. Richardson (C.A.6, 1991), 949 F.2d 851, 858. 
In this case there was no time lapse between the illegal detention 
and the request to search, nor were there any circumstances that might 
have served to break or weaken the connection between one and the 
other.  The sole purpose of the continued detention was to illegally 
broaden the scope of the original detention.  Robinette’s consent 
clearly was the result of his illegal detention, and was not the result of 
an act of will on his part.  Given the circumstances, Robinette felt that 
he had no choice but to comply. 
This case demonstrates the need for this court to draw a bright 
line between the conclusion of a valid seizure and the beginning of a 
 
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consensual exchange.  A person has been seized for the purposes of 
the Fourth Amendment when a law enforcement officer, by means of 
physical force or show of authority, has in some way restrained his 
liberty such that a reasonable person would not feel free to walk away.  
United States v. Mendenhall (1980), 466 U.S. 544, 553-554, 100 S.Ct. 
1870, 1877, 64 L.Ed.2d 497, 509. 
The transition between detention and a consensual exchange can 
be so seamless that the untrained eye may not notice that it has 
occurred.  The undetectability of that transition may be used by police 
officers to coerce citizens into answering questions that they need not 
answer, or to allow a search of a vehicle that they are not legally 
obligated to allow. 
The present case offers an example of the blurring between a 
legal detention and an attempt at consensual interaction.  Even 
assuming that Newsome’s detention of Robinette was legal through the 
time when Newsome handed back Robinette’s driver’s license, 
Newsome then said, “One question before you get gone: are you 
carrying any illegal contraband in your car?” (Emphasis added.)  
 
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Newsome tells Robinette that before he leavesNewsome wants to know 
whether Robinette is carrying any contraband.  Newsome does not ask 
if he may ask a question, he simply asks it, implying that Robinette 
must respond before he may leave.  The interrogation then continues.  
Robinette is never told that he is free to go or that he may answer the 
question at his option.   
Most people believe that they are validly in a police officer’s 
custody as long as the officer continues to interrogate them.  The 
police officer retains the upper hand and the accouterments of 
authority.  That the officer lacks legal license to continue to detain 
them is unknown to most citizens, and a reasonable person would not 
feel free to walk away as the officer continues to address him. 
We are aware that consensual encounters between police and 
citizens are an important, and constitutional, investigative tool. 
Florida v. Bostick (1991), 501 U.S. 429, 111 S.Ct. 2382, 115 L.Ed.2d 
389.  However, citizens who have not been detained immediately prior 
to being encountered and questioned by police are more apt to realize 
that they need not respond to a police officer’s questions.  A 
 
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“consensual encounter” immediately following a detention is likely to 
be imbued with the authoritative aura of the detention.  Without a 
clear break from the detention, the succeeding encounter is not 
consensual at all. 
Therefore, we are convinced that the right, guaranteed by the 
federal and Ohio Constitutions, to be secure in one’s person and 
property requires that citizens stopped for traffic offenses be clearly 
informed by the detaining officer when they are free to go after a valid 
detention, before an officer attempts to engage in a consensual 
interrogation.  Any attempt at consensual interrogation must be 
preceded by the phrase “At this time you legally are free to go” or by 
words of similar import. 
While the legality of consensual encounters between police and 
citizens should be preserved, we do not believe that this legality 
should be used by police officers to turn a routine traffic stop into a 
fishing expedition for unrelated criminal activity.  The Fourth 
Amendment to the federal Constitution and Section 14, Article I of the 
 
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Ohio Constitution exist to protect citizens against such an 
unreasonable interference with their liberty. 
Accordingly, the judgment of the court of appeals is affirmed. 
Judgment affirmed. 
MOYER, C.J., WRIGHT and RESNICK, JJ., concur. 
DOUGLAS, F.E. SWEENEY and COOK, JJ., dissent. 
 
FRANCIS E. SWEENEY, SR., J., dissenting.   I am disturbed by the majority’s 
requirement that police officers must now recite certain words before a consensual 
interrogation may begin.  This “bright-line” test appears unique to Ohio and vastly 
undercuts our law enforcement’s ability to ferret out crime.  Furthermore, the 
majority’s test is contrary to well-established state and federal constitutional law. 
 
The United States Supreme Court has made it clear that not every encounter 
between a police officer and citizen is a seizure.  Florida v. Bostick (1991), 501 
U.S. 429, 434, 111 S.Ct. 2382, 2386, 115 L.Ed.2d 389, 398.  Instead, the 
encounter becomes a seizure and is subject to Fourth Amendment scrutiny only 
when the encounter loses its consensual nature.1  Id.  Traditionally, the crucial test 
has always been “whether, taking into account all of the circumstances 
surrounding the encounter, the police conduct ‘would have communicated to a 
 
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reasonable person that he was not at liberty to ignore the police presence and go 
about his business.’”  Id. at 437, 111 S.Ct. at 2387, 115 L.Ed.2d at 400.  In other 
words, “a person has been ‘seized’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment 
only if, in view of all the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable 
person would have believed that he was not free to leave.”  United States v. 
Mendenhall (1980), 446 U.S. 544, 554, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 1877, 64 L.Ed.2d 497, 
509.  See, also, State v. Childress (1983), 4 Ohio St.3d 217, 4 OBR 534, 448 
N.E.2d 155.  The determination of whether consent has been freely given has 
always been a factual one, which, once made, should not be disturbed on appeal.  
Schneckloth v. Bustamonte (1973), 412 U.S. 218, 227, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 2047-2048, 
36 L.Ed.2d 854, 862-863. 
 
The United States Supreme Court has consistently applied this legal 
standard in cases dealing with consensual encounters.  In fact, in Bostick, supra, 
the Supreme Court struck down a per se rule adopted by the Florida Supreme 
Court that all routine bus searches were unconstitutional.  The Supreme Court 
remanded the case to the state court to apply the totality-of-the-circumstances test.  
More to the point of the facts of this case, in Florida v. Jimeno (1991), 500 U.S. 
 
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248, 111 S.Ct. 1801, 114 L.Ed.2d 297, the court applied this legal standard to 
justify a consent to search following a traffic stop. 
 
Indeed, courts from around the nation have had no problem in upholding the 
validity of consensual searches where consent was obtained after a traffic stop.  
See, e.g., State v. C.S. (Fla.App.1994), 632 So.2d 675; State v. Bonham (1993), 
120 Ore.App. 371, 852 P.2d 905; United States v. Werking (C.A. 10, 1990), 915 
F.2d 1404. 
 
Despite this well-established test, the majority now holds that before a 
police officer may engage in consensual interrogation, the officer must inform the 
individual that “at this time you legally are free to go.”  However, the United 
States Supreme Court has ruled that being informed of the right to refuse a search 
is but one factor to be taken into account when determining whether consent was 
freely given; it is not the “sine qua non of an effective consent.”  Schneckloth, 
supra, 412 U.S. at 227, 93 S.Ct. at 2048, 36 L.Ed.2d at 863.  The distinction 
between being informed of the right to refuse a search and being informaed of the 
right to leave the scene is insignificant.  Whether the police officer uttered a 
warning is a relevant consideration, but it does not end the inquiry. 
 
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I would instead apply the totality-of-the-circumstances test to this case.  
Here, appellee was properly stopped and detained for speeding.  After the traffic 
matter was concluded, the officer returned appellee’s license.  Appellee testified 
that he believed he was free to leave.  At this point, the encounter between 
appellee and the police officer became an ordinary consensual encounter between 
a private citizen and a law enforcement officer.  Since appellee’s liberties were not 
curtailed and since he understood that he could leave, there was no “seizure” 
implicating state or federal constitutional guarantees.  Appellee’s consent should 
not be invalidated solely because it followed a traffic stop and simply because the 
police officer failed to warn appellee that he was free to go.  The utterance of these 
“magic words” is but one factor for the fact-finder to consider when making the 
determination as to whether consent was voluntarily given. 
 
In Mendenhall, supra, at 554, 100 S.Ct. at 1877, 64 L.Ed.2d at 509, the 
United States Supreme Court lists other examples of circumstances that might 
indicate a seizure and, consequently, invalid consent:  the threatening presence of 
several officers, display of a weapon, physical touching of the person, and the use 
of language or tone of voice indicating that compliance with the officer’s request 
is compelled.  None of these factors was present in this case.  Appellee testified 
 
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that the officer was nice to him at all times and never drew a weapon.  Although 
appellee may have been intimidated or nervous, the officer’s conduct did not rise 
to such a level as to make him believe he had to agree to the search. 
 
As support for its holding, the majority relies on State v. Chatton  (1984), 11 
Ohio St.3d 59, 11 OBR 250, 463 N.E.2d 1237.  However, Chatton is clearly 
distinguishable from this case.  In Chatton, the police officer stopped the 
defendant for driving without license plates.  Once the officer discovered that the 
vehicle displayed a temporary tag, which made his initial stop improper, the 
officer nevertheless detained the defendant and asked to see his license.  The issue 
in Chatton was whether the police officer had continuing justification to detain the 
defendant.  In this case, the issue is whether an individual who has been validly 
detained pursuant to a traffic stop may, in response to a police request, give a free 
and voluntary consent to search, once the traffic stop has been completed and the 
individual knows he is free to leave.  Even the majority concedes that consent was 
not an issue in Chatton.  However, the instant case turns entirely on the issue of 
consent.  Thus, Chatton has little applicability to this case. 
 
This technique of requesting consent following an initial valid detention is 
employed on a daily basis throughout this nation to interdict the flow of drugs.  
 
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While I certainly do not advocate giving police officers carte blanche in their 
treatment of traffic violators, when the original stop is permissible, the police 
should be permitted to make inquiries that are not coercive.  The majority’s bright-
line test undercuts police authority and severely curtails an important law 
enforcement tool that is sanctioned by state and federal constitutional law. 
 
For all these reasons, I would reverse the court of appeals and reinstate the 
trial court’s judgment. 
 
DOUGLAS and COOK, JJ., concur in the foregoing dissenting opinion. 
Footnote: 
1 Section 14, Article I of the Ohio Constitution is analogous to the Fourth 
Amendment to the United States Constitution.