Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/95-891.ZC.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 14:20:15+00:00

Document:
Today's opinion reversing the decision of the Ohio Supreme Court does not pass judgment on the wisdom of the first tell then ask rule. This Court's opinion simply clarifies that the Ohio Supreme Court's instruction to police officers in Ohio is not, under this Court's controlling jurisprudence, the command of the Federal Constitution. See ante, at 5-6. The Ohio Supreme Court invoked both the Federal Constitution and the Ohio Constitution without clearly indicating whether state law, standing alone, independently justified the court's rule. The ambiguity in the Ohio Supreme Court's decision renders this Court's exercise of jurisdiction proper under Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1040-1042 (1983), and this Court's decision on the merits is consistent with the Court's "totality of the circumstances" Fourth Amendment precedents, see ante, at 5. I therefore concur in the Court's judgment.
I write separately, however, because it seems to me improbable that the Ohio Supreme Court understood its first tell then ask rule to be the Federal Constitution's mandate for the Nation as a whole. "[A] State is free as a matter of its own law to impose greater restrictions on police activity than those this Court holds to be necessary upon federal constitutional standards." Oregon v. Hass, 420 U.S. 714, 719 (1975). [n.*] But ordinarily, when a state high court grounds a rule of criminal procedure in the Federal Constitution, the court thereby signals its view that the Nation's Constitution would require the rule in all 50 States. Given this Court's decisions in consent to search cases such as Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218 (1973), and Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429 (1991), however, I suspect that the Ohio Supreme Court may not have homed in on the implication ordinarily to be drawn from a state court's reliance on the Federal Constitution. In other words, I question whether the Ohio court thought of the strict rule it announced as a rule for the governance of police conduct not only in Miami County, Ohio, but also in Miami, Florida.
The first tell then ask rule seems to be a prophylactic measure not so much extracted from the text of any constitutional provision as crafted by the Ohio Supreme Court to reduce the number of violations of textually guaranteed rights. In Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), this Court announced a similarly motivated rule as a minimal national requirement without suggesting that the text of the Federal Constitution required the precise measures the Court's opinion set forth. See id., at 467 ("[T]he Constitution [does not] necessarily requir[e] adherence to any particular solution" to the problems associated with custodial interrogations.); see also Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 306 (1985) ("The Miranda exclusionary rule . . . sweeps more broadly than the Fifth Amendment itself."). Although all parts of the United States fall within this Court's domain, the Ohio Supreme Court is not similarly situated. That court can declare prophylactic rules governing the conduct of officials in Ohio, but it cannot command the police forces of sister States. The very ease with which the Court today disposes of the federal leg of the Ohio Supreme Court's decision strengthens my impression that the Ohio Supreme Court saw its rule as a measure made for Ohio, designed to reinforce in that State the right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures.
The Ohio Supreme Court's syllabus and opinion, however, were ambiguous. Under Long, the existence of ambiguity regarding the federal or state law basis of a state court decision will trigger this Court's jurisdiction. Long governs even when, all things considered, the more plausible reading of the state court's decision may be that the state court did not regard the Federal Constitution alone as a sufficient basis for its ruling. Compare Arizona v. Evans, 514 U. S. ___, ___ (1995) (slip op., at 4-7), with id., at ___ (slip op., at 10-11) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting).
"While we have devoted considerable time to a lengthy discussion of the application of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, it is to be noted that this holding is also based separately and independently on [the defendant's] right to remain silent pursuant to Article II, Section 25 of the Montana Constitution." State v. Fuller, ___Mont. ___, ___, 915 P. 2d 809, 816, cert. denied, 519 U. S. ___ (1996).
An explanation of this order meets the Court's instruction in Long that "[i]f the state court decision indicates clearly and expressly that it is alternatively based on bona fide separate, adequate, and independent grounds, [this Court] will not undertake to review the decision." Long, 463 U. S., at 1041.
On remand, the Ohio Supreme Court may choose to clarify that its instructions to law enforcement officers in Ohio find adequate and independent support in state law, and that in issuing these instructions, the court endeavored to state dispositively only the law applicable in Ohio. See Evans, 514 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 8-12) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). To avoid misunderstanding, the Ohio Supreme Court must itself speak with the clarity it sought to require of its State's police officers. The efficacy of its endeavor to safeguard the liberties of Ohioans without disarming the State's police can then be tested in the precise way Our Federalism was designed to work. See, e.g., Kaye, State Courts at the Dawn of a New Century: Common Law Courts Reading Statutes and Constitutions, 70 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 1, 11-18 (1995); Linde, First Things First: Rediscovering the States' Bills of Rights, 9 U. Balt. L. Rev. 379, 392-396 (1980).
* Formerly, the Ohio Supreme Court was "reluctant to use the Ohio Constitution to extend greater protection to the rights and civil liberties of Ohio citizens" and had usually not taken advantage of opportunities to "us[e] the Ohio Constitution as an independent source of constitutional rights." Arnold v. Cleveland, 67 Ohio St. 3d 35, 42, n. 8, 616 N. E. 2d 163, 168, n. 8 (1993). Recently, however, the state high court declared: "The Ohio Constitution is a document of independent force. . . . As long as state courts provide at least as much protection as the United States Supreme Court has provided in its interpretation of the federal Bill of Rights, state courts are unrestricted in according greater civil liberties and protections to individuals and groups." Id., at 35, 616 N. E. 2d, at 164 (syllabus).

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