Tag Archives: Ohio

DUI Checkpoints – How are They Legal?

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A Breakdown And Basic Understanding Of DUI-Checkpoints

Driving down the highway and seeing an Ohio State Trooper standing on the side of the road with his laser gun pointed directly at me always makes my heart stop. I start to think, “Crap, was I speeding?” Because the last thing anyone needs is to be stopped by a police officer. It is a nerve-racking event that not too many people enjoy. The officer or trooper approaches your vehicle and starts to ask for your license, insurance, registration, etc. Then you sit there and wait while the officer or trooper runs your personal information. Assuming you have no warrants and your license is valid, you get a ticket or a warning.

Overall, not a pleasant experience by any account. But let’s break this down.

  1. A trooper pointed a speed detecting device at your car (laser gun);
  2. Registered your speed to be in excess of the posted speed limit;
  3. Pulled up behind your vehicle;
  4. Activated his overhead lights (informing you that he is conducting a stop);
  5. Stops you;
  6. Investigates not only the speed infraction but anything else he can find;
  7. Then assuming everything with you is good to go, you receive a speeding ticket or a warning.

So, this whole stop was based on the trooper’s Reasonable Suspicion that you were speeding. And that was his sole justification for pulling you over. Okay….that is a typical scenario in the court. But what if there is no Reasonable Suspicion? And that leads us into DUI-Checkpoints.

During a DUI-Checkpoint, a motorist enters into the checkpoint and is given instructions to stop. Once stopped and just like any other traffic stop, the officer asks for the motorist’s license, automobile insurance, and registration. It is during this time, the officer can order the motorist out of the vehicle if he smells alcohol on the motorist’s breath or believes the motorist is impaired from drug use. Well isn’t that a problem? How is the officer not violating the motorist’s Fourth Amendment right to unlawful searches and seizures? After-all, the motorist has not committed any traffic infractions! He is just driving down the road and then being stopped for no particular reason…RIGHT?!?!

Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Texas did not feel the same way. The Court found a three-part balancing test to determine the reasonableness of stops and seizures under the Fourth Amendment relating to sobriety checkpoints. The Court stated, “Consideration of the constitutionality of such seizures involves:

  1. A weighing of the gravity of the public concerns served by the seizure,
  2. The degree to which the seizure advances the public interest, and
  3. The severity of the interference with individual liberty.”

This is a pretty general balancing test without much guidance. The Ohio 2nd Appellate District felt the same way and adopted a test developed by the Iowa Supreme Court in State v. Hilleshiem. The Ohio 2nd District in State v. Goines found that a vehicle may be stopped where there are all of the following:

  1. A checkpoint or roadblock location selected for its safety and visibility to oncoming motorists;
  2. Adequate advance warning signs, illuminated at night, and timely informing approaching motorists of the nature of the impending intrusion;
  3. Uniformed officers and official vehicles in sufficient quantity and visibility to show the police power of the community; and
  4. A predetermination by policy-making administrative officers of the roadblock location, time, and procedures to be employed, pursuant to carefully formulated standards and neutral criteria.

Reading the 2nd District’s test, it seems to me that this test goes to the third prong of the U.S. Supreme Court’s balancing test above. This makes sense, because the severity of the interference with individual liberty is what is truly at stake. Don’t worry though, the U.S. Supreme Court addressed this very issue in a separate case.

Eleven years after developing the three-prong balancing test in Brown v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court was at it again with sobriety checkpoints. In Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, the Court found that individual liberty or privacy can be broken down into objective and subjective intrusions. An objective intrusion is based on “the duration of the seizure and the intensity of the investigation.” A subjective intrusion is based on “the fear and surprise engendered in law-abiding motorists by the nature of the stop.”

Based on those two definitions of objective and subjective intrusion, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a state’s use of sobriety checkpoints does not violate the Fourth Amendment, and that the objective and subjective intrusion of privacy is minimal. The Court went on to say that the fear and surprise of motorists – subjective intrusion – are further lessened because “at traffic checkpoints the motorists can see that other vehicles are being stopped and can see visible signs of the officers’ authority.”

Now, the other two factors to be weighed in the balance test also need to come into play, but I do not believe they are difficult for the state to show. So, there is the gravity of the public concerns served by the seizure and the degree to which the seizure advances the public interest. Okay, I can sum those two up real quick. A State Trooper Captain gets on the News and states, “We are cracking down on impaired driving on Wilmington Avenue from the corners of Patterson to Dorothy Lane. We have statistics that show on this stretch of Wilmington Avenue there has been more OVI arrests in the past two months than any other stretch of roadway. In addition, we have had four accidents involving impaired drivers, one was with a fatality. In order to reduce impaired driving, the Ohio State Patrol along with the Kettering Police Department will be conducting a sobriety checkpoint from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.” BOOM! The public concern is impaired drivers lead to car accidents and the public interest is to stop and get impaired drivers off of the road through the use of sobriety checkpoints. That is good enough for most courts.

Going back to my example of breaking down a stop for speeding, I think it is clear that any stop is intrusive in nature. And that is just with one to two police officers on scene! Sobriety checkpoints have multiple police officers looking into your vehicle, asking questions, demanding to see documentation. But hey, the surprise and fear is gone, at least according to the U.S. Supreme Court, because you see fellow motorists being stopped in front of you and visible signs of police officers’ authority are comforting. Well, NOT FOR THIS GUY!

Now that there is a basic understanding of DUI-Checkpoints, next blog will readdress DUI-Checkpoints and talk about one Florida Attorney’s controversial advice for avoiding contact with police officers during a checkpoint stop.

The Perils of Pleading No Contest

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There are four pleas an Ohio criminal defendant can enter to a complaint or indictment: (1) not guilty, (2) not guilty by reason of insanity, (3) guilty and (4) no contest.  Many people believe the correct thing to do when they are of the belief they have actually committed the crime is to simply plead no contest.  In my experience defendants are not quite sure why this is the case other than perhaps friends and family members advised them that it is the correct course of action.  Hey, your not pleading guilty, and it gets the case over with, right?

Pleading no contest is often the correct thing to do, but an interesting appellate decision in State v. Martin, 2013-Ohio-5050 shows why this might not always be the best idea.  Before delving into the specifics of Martin, let’s first address the theory behind no contest pleas and why defendants may want or need to enter that particular plea.

A plea of no contest is essentially this: you as the defendant are not going to contest the factual allegations as stated on the face of the charging instrument (complaint or indictment), but you are not admitting your guilt, either.  If the face of the complaint or indictment contain all of the necessary elements of the offense, and thus providing a factual basis for the charge, then the court will proceed to find you guilty.  If the charging instrument is deficient for some reason (e.g., it fails to state an essential element of the charge), the court will have to find you not guilty.  Again, in theory, the idea is that you are simply not contesting the allegations, it is not as if you are acquiescing in state’s request to convict you.  While defective indictments/complaints are not necessarily uncommon, they are hardly something criminal defense attorneys encounter daily.  While we always review the indictment or complaint for legal sufficiency, it’s rare that you hit the jackpot.

So, the logical follow-up question for the layperson is, “if the judge is most likely going to find me guilty anyway, what is the purpose in pleading no contest?”  In truth, there are a few important reasons aside from the fact the indictment might fail to adequately charge a crime.  First, if your conduct resulted in damages to another person (e.g. an OVI crash), it is important to plead no contest so that your criminal conviction cannot be introduced against you in a subsequent civil trial.  If you plead guilty, the plaintiff in the civil suit can introduce a certified judgment of conviction at trial to prove that you were in fact driving impaired when you crashed.  Because you admitted guilt in the OVI criminal case, you cannot later deny that you were in fact drunk.  However, by pleading no contest, the plaintiff in the civil suit would retain the burden of having to prove that you were a drunk driver when you caused the accident and damages to the other party.

Another common reason, and perhaps the most important for criminal practitioners, is to preserve for appeal an objection to the trial court’s pre-trial rulings (motion to dismiss, motion to suppress evidence).   For example, if the court overrules a motion to suppress evidence, a defendant must plead no contest in order to appeal that decision.  If the defendant pleads guilty, by making a complete admission of guilt, he or she waives any right to later claim the trial court erred in its decision not to suppress the evidence.  Nobody cares if the cops violated your fourth amendment protections when you freely admit you are guilty.  Remember, when a court suppresses evidence it is not declaring the defendant is innocent of the crime.  Rather, the court merely prohibits the state from using the illegally obtained evidence against you in its effort to prove your guilt.

Now that we’ve engaged in a macro-level refresher on no contest pleas, let’s take a look at the Martin decision and why it may be a bit of a pit fall for criminal practitioners.  The defendant in Martin was charged with felony domestic violence (DV), which essentially requires the accused to “knowing cause or attempt to cause physical harm to a family or household member.”  Martin argued in the trial court that the victim, his step-sister, was not a “family or household member” as that term is defined under statute.  The defendant and the state both submitted briefs to the trial court regarding their respective legal positions.  After considering the arguments of both sides, the trial court issued a written decision stating how it intended to instruct the jury as to the definition of “family or household member,” and without going into the minutia here, let’s just say it was adverse to the defendant.  Based upon the trial court’s written decision, the jury instructions it intended to provide at trial was certainly going to allow the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that a step-sister falls within the definition of a “family or household member.”  Upon seeing the writing on the wall the defendant decided to cut-bait, plead no contest to the DV and have his legal argument decided by the court of appeals.  Or so he thought.

The Second District Court of Appeals quickly overruled his argument that the trial judge erred in finding him guilty of the DV because the victim was not a family or household member under law.  The appellate panel determined that by pleading no contest to the offense of domestic violence, the defendant did not contest the factual allegations in the complaint, including that the victim was a “family or household member.”  The defendant can’t first admit that she is a family or household member at the trial level and then claim she wasn’t when the case is on appeal.  If the defendant wished to contest that issue, he had to have a trial and argue that the state failed to prove that essential element of DV.

So, where does this leave us as criminal practitioners?  Aren’t there many factual allegations contained in indictments that we essentially admit upon a no contest plea after the trial court overrules a pre-trial motion?  The answer is yes, of course.  The difference between this situation and a case where the judge fails to suppress evidence or dismiss a case for violating the right to speedy trial boils down to nature of what was ruled upon by the lower court.  When the court determines the police did not violate the Fourth Amendment, he is ruling on something outside the four corners of the indictment.  The State does not alleged in the charging instrument that police acted constitutionally when they discover a defendant’s heroin.  Therefore, when the Defendant enters a no contest plea to the possession of heroin charge, while not contesting he was in possession of the drug, he is not admitting to the constitutionality of the search, thus preserving that issue for appeal.  The corollary of the Martin case for our heroin hypothetical would be if the defendant was contesting that substance was actually heroin at all.  That is a factual allegation in the indictment.  If the Defendant pleaded no contest to the indictment, he could not later argue on appeal that the court erred in finding him guilty because the substance recovered was not actually heroin.  The no contest plea admitted that fact.

While this was certainly a strange case in some respects, it does make logical and legal sense.  And this case is a helpful reminder that criminal defense attorneys must be aware of what they are preserving on appeal.  If you want to argue a fact that is alleged in the indictment, a no contest plea will foreclose that possibility.

 

Posted by Charles W. Morrison on November 20, 2013.

 

 

 

Police unlawfully searched car passenger’s purse.

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In a great win for the Fourth Amendment, the Second District Court of Appeals upheld a trial court’s ruling that suppressed evidence obtained as the result of the search of a car passenger’s purse.  In State v. Caulfield, the defendant was a front-seat passenger in a car that was pulled over when a member of the Montgomery County, Ohio sheriff’s department noticed the license plate was completely covered in snow and, therefore, obstructed from viewing (which is a no-no).  Upon effectuating the traffic stop, the officer ran the driver’s information through the LEADS system (a database that provides real-time information to law enforcement regarding persons they encounter).  The LEADS system indicated the driver had a suspended license and an active warrant for his arrest.

The officer then arrested the driver on the outstanding warrant and subsequently received his consent to search the vehicle he was driving.  In the meantime, a second officer that had arrived on the scene approached the defendant and instructed her to exit the vehicle so that he may perform the search authorized by the driver’s consent.  When the defendant attempted to bring her purse with her as she exited the car, the officer instructed her to leave the purse inside the car on the passenger seat.  This is common for the police to do, as it is much easier to justify searching objects within a car.

Although the officers testified at the hearing that the defendant had also provided them consent to search her purse, the trial court found the defendant’s contradictory testimony credible, and made a factual finding that she did not consent to the warrantless search.  And, as a lesson to all readers, never provide consent to a search of your property, especially if you know the police are going to find something you would rather they don’t.  And Caulfield’s refusal to provide consent paid off in her case (if she were even asked) – the police ultimately located various drugs and drug paraphernalia in her purse and she was escorted to the pokey in short order.

So, if the trial court found that the defendant had not consented to the search, under what theory did the state appeal the trial court’s ruling?  The state also argued on appeal that the search was lawful as a search incident to arrest of the driver, and that the search was reasonable for “officer safety.”  Under modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, if the police effectuate a lawful custodial arrest, they are permitted to perform a search of the person arrested for weapons or contraband, as well as areas within the immediate vicinity of the arrest to ensure the defendant does not grab a weapon or destroy evidence.

The search-incident-to-arrest exception also extends to cars in which arrested persons are or were recently located.  However, the arrested person must actually be able to reach the interior of the car in order for that exception to apply.  Here, the driver was already handcuffed and placed in the police cruiser before the officers searched the inside of his car. It would have been quite a feat for him to grab a weapon from Caulfield’s purse from the back of the cruiser.  Nonetheless, with a straight face, the government actually argued that the search of the purse was necessary for officer safety as they arrested the driver.  Luckily, the appellate panel here correctly followed the Supreme Court’s decision in Arizona V. Gant, which explains that in order to invoke the search-incident-to-arrest exception, the person arrested must actually be able to reach places officers fear may contain a weapon.  Yes, sometimes logic does win out.

There was one final hurdle for the defendant, though: what effect did the driver’s consent to search his car have on the situation? Could that justify the search of the purse?  The answer was obviously no.  The appellate court found that the driver’s consent to search the interior of his car did not extend to the passenger’s purse located within the car (at officer direction, remember).  In order for consent to be lawful, the person providing the consent must have the authority over the area to be searched.  In other words, just as you can’t consent to the search of your neighbor’s house, the defendant’s male accomplice in this case was without authority to provide police consent to search her purse.

In summation, the Second District properly found that no justification existed for the search of an innocent passenger’s purse.  Just because she was riding around with some guy that had an outstanding warrant and failed to properly display his license plate, police cannot simply decide they are going to search her personal property.  I’m sure this was news to the police as they are not used to being told “no,” whether it’s by citizens or courts.

Published by Charles W. Morrison on August 3, 2013.

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Self-Defense in Ohio Vs. Florida – what is stand your ground anyway?

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Following the George Zimmerman acquittal, there has been a lot of discussion around our nation regarding the use of self-defense and, in particular, whether Florida’s “Stand your ground” law is appropriate or terrible social policy.  Is it a bad law? Would Mr. Zimmerman have been convicted absent the law? The point of this post it to try and educate the public regarding the law of self-defense, the duty to retreat (or not retreat) and how Ohio law may differ from Florida.

Let’s start with the basics.  Self-defense has been a viable affirmative defense to many crimes (assault, felonious assault, murder, etc.) for many, many years.  Since the inception of our great country, the law has recognized that no person is obligated to sit there while an aggressor beats on them; no person must remain idle when he or she has an objectively reasonable belief that they are about to suffer imminent serious harm or death.  We have always had the right to meet force with force.

Currently, the law in Ohio requires a defendant asserting self-defense to prove three things by a preponderance of the evidence (more likely than not):

(1)   That the defendant “was not at fault in creating the situation giving rise to the “affray.” Basically, you can’t start the fight and then claim self-defense when the other guy ends up dead.   A defendant must not have been responsible for causing the altercation in order to validly assert self-defense.

(2)   That the defendant “had a bona fide belief that he was in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and the only means to escape such danger was in the use of such force.” The defendant must have reasonably believed, under the circumstances as he knew them, that he was about to suffer serious physical harm or death, and the use of force was necessary to thwart that imminent harm.

(3)   That the defendant “did not violate any duty to retreat or avoid the danger.”  Astute readers will notice that this third prong is somewhat duplicative to the second prong, because if the only means to escape the danger was the use of force, then obviously the defendant could not otherwise avoid the danger. But let’s not get too bogged down in that minutia. Appellate courts craft “tests” all the time that seem nonsensical.

This test is the classic common law definition of self-defense, and was rearticulated by the Ohio Supreme Court fairly recently in State v. Barnes (2002), 94 Ohio St.3d 21. So, where does Florida’s “stand your ground law” come into all this?  Stand your ground alters the second and third prongs of the test – whether the defendant violated a duty to retreat or to otherwise avoid the danger in deciding inflict harm on the victim rather than run.

In Florida, even if you are capable of retreating safely and avoiding the attack, you may still use whatever force is reasonably necessary in order to thwart the potential harm.  Run to your car? You may, but need not do so.  You are permitted to meet the force with force no matter the available alternatives.

This is fundamentally different than Ohio’s law on self-defense.  If you are out on the street and accosted by someone, but have the means to run away, you must do so.  Only when the use of force is your only alternative will self-defense be found legitimate by a jury.

There is one exception, however, to Ohio’s duty to retreat: the Castle Doctrine, as codified in R.C. 2901.05 and R.C. 2901.09.  Taken together, these sections state that a person has no duty to retreat from their residence or vehicle when confronted with the danger of physical harm. Moreover, there is a rebuttable presumption that the defendant acted in self-defense whenever he inflicted harm on the victim in his residence or car and the victim was unlawfully entering or within the residence or vehicle.  In other words, the state bears the burden of proving that the defendant did not act in self-defense if the circumstances fall within the Castle Doctrine.

In short, the Ohio legislature has determined that persons within their residence may use force, even deadly force, whenever they reasonably believe they are about to suffer serious physical harm or death, regardless of whether they could have run out the back door.   There is no duty to retreat from your “castle” (or carriage, I suppose).  Florida law essentially takes Ohio’s Castle Doctrine to the streets. No one should ever have to retreat, period.

So, with all of this in mind, did Florida’s law on self-defense have any impact on the Zimmerman trial? Absolutely not.  Zimmerman simply asserted the classic version of self-defense, and the jury evidently bought it.  As best I can tell, his argument was basically: (1) he was not the aggressor on that rainy evening in central Florida. Trayvon Martin threw the first punch. (2) He reasonably believed that he was about to suffer serious physical harm or death while his head was repeatedly hitting the pavement, and (3) he had no available option but to shoot young Mr. Martin to avoid serious injuries or possibly death.  Had the Florida legislature never enacted “stand your ground,” the arguments for and against Zimmerman’s use of force would have been the same.

Zimmerman never contended that he had the ability to retreat once the attack started, but wasn’t required to do so under “stand your ground.”  The defense never requested any instruction on “stand your ground” as it was irrelevant to the factual issues the jury was required to sort out.  Zimmerman’s argument was that he simply reacted reasonably under the circumstances, which he did not create, and did what he had to in order to save his life.  Had the trial taken place in Ohio, the ultimate issues would have been very similar.