Court rules detaining and searching woman returning to van was constitutional

DAN TREVAS
Supreme Court
Public Information Office
Published: November 5, 2024

A woman leaning into a vehicle driven illegally by a known drug trafficker generated enough reasonable suspicion by a police officer to justify detaining her, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled today.
In a 6-1 decision, the Supreme Court ruled the Licking County Common Pleas Court improperly suppressed evidence obtained after law enforcement detained Katrina Hale outside of a minivan at a convenience store. Police suspected the man driving the vehicle did not have a valid driver’s license. The search of Hale eventually turned up illegal drugs and she faced multiple drug-related charges.
The trial court ruled Hale’s statements to and evidence gathered by Detective Benjamin Martens could not be used at trial because the officer had no justification for detaining Hale. The minivan was already parked when Martens arrived at the scene and Terrance Cunningham, who had been driving, was standing outside of the vehicle. Hale was returning to the van from inside the convenience store.
Writing for the Court majority, Justice Michael P. Donnelly wrote that when deciding if Martens’ detention of Hale violated the Constitution, all the circumstances surrounding the stop had to be taken into consideration. This included Cunningham telling the officer Hale asked him to drive, and Hale’s reaching into the van through the passenger’s window to either retrieve or rearrange something. This produced enough reasonable suspicion of criminal activity to warrant questioning Hale, the Court concluded.
“The purpose of the investigatory stop was for Detective Martens to confirm or dispel law enforcement’s reasonable suspicion the minivan was being driven illegally. That was more than enough justification for Detective Martens to detain Cunningham, the suspected driver, and it was enough for Detective Martens to detain Hale once she was identified as a possible driver of the minivan while the detective investigated the suspected criminal activity,” he wrote.
The Fifth District Court of Appeals had overturned the trial court’s ruling to suppress the evidence against Hale. The Supreme Court today affirmed the Fifth District’s decision and returned the case to the trial court for further proceedings.
Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy and Justices R. Patrick DeWine, Melody Stewart, Jennifer Brunner, and Joseph T. Deters joined Justice Donnelly’s opinion.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Patrick F. Fischer wrote the detaining of Hale violated her rights under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He wrote other courts have permitted officers to order passengers from vehicles after stopping the driver for violating the law. However, he stated he has not seen a court other than the Fifth District allow an officer to detain former passengers of a vehicle when the vehicle was already parked.
Justice Fischer stated the majority opinion did not explain what reasonable suspicion the officer had of Hale at the time he arrived at the convenience store parking lot.
“Reaching into a vehicle and then returning to a convenience store is not a crime, nor is it indicative of any crime,” he wrote.
Officer Asked to Question Driver
Martens, a detective with the Licking County Sheriff’s Office, is also a member of the Central Ohio Drug Enforcement Task Force. In August 2021, another member of the task force observed Cunningham driving a gold minivan. He was known to the task force as a suspected drug trafficker.
The officer relayed information about Cunningham and the vehicle to Martens, who confirmed Cunningham did not have a valid driver’s license. Using information from the task force member, Martens located the minivan in a convenience store parking lot. The van was directly in front of the store’s entrance and Cunningham was standing next to the van.
At the time Martens arrived at the convenience store Hale was in the convenience store. As Martens questioned Cunningham, Hale returned to the minivan while and leaned through the passenger’s side window. When asked if he was driving, Cunningham explained the pair had only traveled a short distance and Hale was the driver. As Cunningham was responding to Martens, Hale attempted to go back into the store.
Martens then stopped Hale and asked her for identification. She provided her ID, which was in one of two small purses she was carrying. Hale claimed to be sick and asked to return to the store. Marten instead told her to sit on the bumper of his patrol car, which was parked directly behind her van.
Martens told Hale to put her two purses on the patrol car hood. Hale admitted to the officer she knew Cunningham did not have a license, but asked him to drive her because she was feeling ill.
Martens returned to Cunningham, patted him down, and discovered a bag containing cocaine. Martens questioned Cunningham about what the officer might find if he searched the minivan. Cunningham told him a firearm registered to Hale was in the van. Cunningham was then placed in the patrol car.
Martens returned to Hale and moved the purses out of her reach. He questioned Hale about what might be in the van, and she told him about the gun and also noted there were small amounts of marijuana in the vehicle. Martens then searched the purses and found methamphetamines.
Hale was placed in a second patrol car, which arrived at the scene, and Martens searched the van, where he found the unloaded gun and two loaded magazines. Hale was indicted for three drug-related charges, including aggravated trafficking in methamphetamine, and illegal handling of a firearm in a motor vehicle.
Passenger Sought to Block Evidence
Before her trial, Hale asked the trial judge to suppress the evidence gathered at the stop. She argued Martens did not have reasonable suspicion to stop Cunningham, and anything the officer learned from Cunningham could not be used to detain her and search her purses. The Licking County Prosecutor’s Office maintained the search without a warrant was permissible because there in an exception to the Fourth Amendment allowing for warrantless searches of legally stopped automobiles if probable cause exists to search the vehicle. Hale argued the automobile exception did not apply because she was not a vehicle passenger when she was stopped and searched.
The trial court focused on Hale no longer being physically in the van and noted she was in the convenience store when Martens began to question Cunningham. The trial judge directed the evidence be suppressed. The prosecutor’s office appealed the decision to the Fifth District.
In a 2-1 decision, the Fifth District reversed the trial court’s decision to suppress the evidence, reasoning that Hale returned and reached into the van when Martens was investigating, and she told the officer she had been a passenger. Her status as a passenger allowed for her to be detained, the Fifth District ruled, and the circumstances supported extending the stop.
Hale appealed the Fifth District’s decision to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case.
Supreme Court Analyzed Vehicle Stop
Justice Donnelly explained Hale’s argument to the Supreme Court was Martens violated her Fourth Amendment rights when he detained her in front of the convenience store. Because the initial stop was unconstitutional, everything that flowed from the stop, including discovering the drugs in her purse, was impermissible and should be suppressed, she argued.
Justice Donnelly noted Hale did not raise any additional arguments before the Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of searching her purses.
Citing numerous U.S. Supreme Court decisions, the opinion explained that an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s requirement that law enforcement obtain a warrant before searching or seizing a person allows officers to conduct a brief investigatory stop if they have a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.
The opinion stated the lower courts concluded Hale was detained as part of a legal traffic stop and noted that the parties’ arguments focused on whether Martens’ detention of Hale should be considered part of a traffic stop. The Court stated the facts “cut both ways” on that question. Martens learned from another task force officer Cunningham was driving, and Martens confirmed Cunningham did not have a valid license, which justifies making a stop to investigate a traffic violation. However, the van was stopped, and the occupants were no longer in the vehicle when Martens arrived. Further, the opinion stated, the question whether Hale’s detention was part of a traffic stop did not help answer the constitutional question.
Instead on focusing on whether the incident was a traffic stop, the Court noted the U.S. Supreme Court has treated “traffic stops as a form of an investigatory stop.” By treating the encounter as an investigatory stop, the Court did not have to consider whether Hale was a vehicle passenger, but rather if Martens had “reasonable, articulable suspicion that criminal activity was afoot when he detained Hale,” the opinion explained.
Viewing the situation as a whole, the officer knew Cunningham had been seen driving and did not have a valid license, and he was committing the crime of driving without a license, the opinion stated. Martens had reason to believe Hale was involved in the suspected criminal activity after Cunningham identified Hale as the driver and Martens’ own observations of Hale during the stop.
The Court noted “far from being a dispassionate and unrelated observer to what was going on, Hale actively associated herself with and exercised control over the vehicle that was at the center of the suspected criminal activity.” Her leaning into the van and then attempting to go back into the store supported Martens’ suspicion she was involved in criminal activity. The circumstances provided a reasonable basis for Martens to detain Hale, and he did not violate the Fourth Amendment, the Court stated.
The Court reasoned that Martens’ suspicions of criminal activity were further supported by Hale’s admission that she had asked Cunningham to drive her, despite knowing Cunningham did not have a valid license. State law does not allow persons who own or control vehicles to permit unlicensed persons to drive those vehicles, the opinion stated.
In her appeal, Hale also asserted that Martens’ search of her purses also violated the Fourth Amendment. But Hale’s only argument in support of that claim was that Martens had illegally detained her. Because the investigatory stop did not violate the Fourth Amendment and because Hale provided no “separate basis” to assess the constitutionality of the searches, the Court stated it would make “no other comment about whether the detective’s search of Hale’s purses during the stop was unconstitutional.”
Search Was Unconstitutional, Dissent Maintained
Justice Fischer wrote the officer had no reasonable suspicion Hale was engaging in criminal activity when she exited the convenience store. When Cunningham told Marten it was Hale who drove, there were two possible scenarios; either Hale was driving, which is not a crime, or Cunningham was illegally driving, and Hale was a passenger.
“But it is not a crime to ride in a vehicle being driven by someone with a suspended license,” the dissent stated.
To arrest someone for allowing an unlicensed driver to drive, R.C. 4511.203(A)(2) requires that the “offender knows or has reasonable cause to believe that the other person’s” license has been suspended. Martens had no information to know if Hale knew the status of Cunningham’s license. The only way Hale could be detained was if this was a traffic stop and she was a passenger in the van, Justice Fischer wrote, and this was not a typical traffic stop because the van was parked and both occupants were outside the vehicle when the officer arrived.
The dissent also explained an officer can order vehicle passengers out of the vehicle during a traffic stop to protect the officer’s safety. However, the reasoning has never been extended to people who were recently in the car, but not in it when the officer arrived, the dissent noted. Justice Fischer maintained the majority opinion’s justification for allowing Hale to be searched is flawed. If the officer had the right to search Hale because she was recently in the van, then under the majority’s logic, the officer could justify detaining everyone in the convenience store merely because the officer stopped the van in the parking lot.
“That cannot be and is not the case,” the dissent stated.
Additionally, the officer had no reason to believe Hale’s desire to leave the van and go back into the store would interfere with his safety, the dissent noted. And if the officer believed Hale was meddling with the crime scene by reaching into the van, he could have ordered her to stop without actually detaining her. If she continued, he would have a right to detain her, but not before, the dissent maintained.
“Hale’s detention was not a traffic stop. It was not an investigatory stop. Detective Martens had no reason to believe that allowing Hale to leave the scene would jeopardize officer safety or the integrity of the crime scene. In short, Hale’s detention violated the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” Justice Fischer concluded.
2023-0621. State v. Hale, Slip Opinion No. 2024-Ohio-4866.

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