In State v. Brown, 6th Dist. No. WD-12-070, 2013-Ohio-5351, the Sixth District Court of Appeals found that evidence obtained from a traffic stop outside the officer’s jurisdiction had to be excluded pursuant to Art. I, Section 14 of the Ohio Constitution, which prohibits unlawful searches and seizures. The search and seizure did not violate the U.S. Constitution, because the officer had probable cause to stop the defendant, namely, she observed defendant’s tires go outside of the marked lane. A violation of a state statute (ie. the police stopping someone outside their jurisdiction, R.C. 4513.39) does not, without a constitutional violation, invoke the exclusionary rule under the U.S. Constitution.
However, the Ohio Constitution can afford more rights to a defendant than the U.S. Constitution. The Sixth District stated the standard under the Ohio Constitution as follows:
…a stop made in violation of state law is reasonable under Article I, Section 14, of the Ohio Constitution only when probable cause to make the stop exists and the government’s interests in allowing unauthorized officers to make this type of stop outweighs the intrusion upon individual privacy.
In this case, the township officer stopped the defendant on an interstate highway, which was in the exclusive jurisdiction of the state highway patrol, sheriffs, and sheriff deputies. No extenuating circumstances existed which would justify the extraterritorial stop. The Sixth District distinguished cases such as City of Kettering v. Hollen, 64 Ohio St.2d 232, 235, 416 N.E.2d 598 (1980), where the officer observed a traffic offense in his jurisdiction and was in hot pursuit. Under the facts of Hollen, it is reasonable to find that the government’s interests in allowing unauthorized officers to make this type of stop outweighs the intrusion upon individual privacy.
The Ohio Supreme Court will hear oral argument in this case today. See Oral Argument Summary. Attorneys for the State argue that the U.S. and Ohio Constitutions have virtually identical language, so both should be read to have the same standards. The case is State of Ohio v. Terrence Brown, Ohio Supreme Court Case no. 2014-0104.
