CITY OF MIDDLETOWN, APPELLEE, v. FLINCHUM, APPELLANT.
No. 01-233
Supreme Court of Ohio
April 10, 2002
95 Ohio St.3d 43 | 2002-Ohio-1625
Criminal law—Search and seizure—When officers, having identified themselves, are in hot pursuit of a suspect who flees to a house to avoid arrest, police may enter without a warrant, regardless of whether offense for which suspect is being arrested is a misdemeanor.
When officers, having identified themselves, are in hot pursuit of a suspect who flees to a house in order to avoid arrest, the police may enter without a warrant, regardless of whether the offense for which the suspect is being arrested is a misdemeanor.
(No. 01-233—Submitted November 28, 2001—Decided April 10, 2002.)
CERTIFIED by the Court of Appeals for Butler County, No. CA99-11-193.
ALICE ROBIE RESNICK, J.
{¶ 1} The facts of this case are not in dispute. On April 23, 1999, Middletown police officers observed appellant Thomas Flinchum‘s car stopped at a red traffic light. When the light changed, appellant spun the car‘s tires. The officers then observed appellant stopping his car and then rapidly accelerating, causing the car to fishtail as it made a right turn. At this point, the officers decided to follow appellant. The officers attempted to approach appellant‘s vehicle twice, but on both attempts, appellant fled from the police.
{¶ 2} Finally, the officers observed appellant standing on the driver‘s side of his parked car. When appellant observed the officers stop their cruiser in front of his car, he ran towards the rear entrance of a house. One of the officers, Officer
{¶ 3} Before trial, appellant filed a motion to suppress evidence obtained as a result of the warrantless entry into his home at the time of arrest. The trial court denied the motion, finding that the officer was in hot pursuit of appellant, thereby making the entry permissible. Appellant was ultimately convicted of reckless operation and DUI but acquitted on the charge of resisting arrest. The appellate court affirmed the trial court‘s judgment.
{¶ 4} This cause is now before the court as a certified conflict from the Court of Appeals for Butler County.
{¶ 5} We are asked to consider whether the
{¶ 6} The
{¶ 7} Appellant contends that the Middletown police officers were precluded from entering his home because probable cause and exigent
{¶ 8} In United States v. Santana (1976), 427 U.S. 38, 96 S.Ct. 2406, 49 L.Ed.2d 300, the court made it clear that a suspect may not avoid arrest simply by outrunning pursuing officers and finding refuge in her home. The court noted that hot pursuit “need not be an extended hue and cry ‘in and about [the] public streets.’ ” Id. at 43, 96 S.Ct. at 2410, 49 L.Ed.2d at 305, quoting the trial court. Moreover, the court went on to conclude that “a suspect may not defeat an arrest which has been set in motion in a public place * * * by the expedient of escaping to a private place.” Id. at 43, 96 S.Ct. at 2410, 49 L.Ed.2d at 306.
{¶ 9} In the case at bar, the officers observed appellant engage in the reckless operation of his vehicle on more than one occasion. Once the officers attempted to approach appellant to arrest him, he not only ignored their commands to stop after they had identified themselves as police officers, but he also fled to his home in order to avoid arrest. Although Santana deals with the issue of warrantless home arrests in the context of a felony suspect, we see no reason to differentiate appellant‘s offense and give him a free pass merely because he was not charged with a more serious crime. The basic fact remains that appellant fled from police who were in lawful pursuit of him and who had identified themselves as police officers.
{¶ 10} Similar conclusions have already been reached in other jurisdictions. In Nebraska v. Penas (1978), 200 Neb. 387, 263 N.W.2d 835, paragraph two of the syllabus, in which the defendant was convicted of DUI, the court held, “When a citizen has knowingly placed himself in a public place, and valid police action is commenced in that public place, the citizen cannot thwart police action by fleeing into a private place.” Further, in Minnesota v. Paul (Minn.1996), 548 N.W.2d 260,
{¶ 11} We therefore hold today that when officers, having identified themselves, are in hot pursuit of a suspect who flees to a house in order to avoid arrest, the police may enter without a warrant, regardless of whether the offense for which the suspect is being arrested is a misdemeanor. In so holding, we do not give law enforcement unbridled authority to enter a suspect‘s residence at whim or with a blatant disregard for the constraints of the
Judgment affirmed.
MOYER, C.J., F.E. SWEENEY and LUNDBERG STRATTON, JJ., concur.
DOUGLAS and COOK, JJ., concur in judgment.
PFEIFER, J., dissents.
PFEIFER, J., dissenting.
{¶ 12} Our inquiry in this type of case should not be how to effectuate the conviction of someone who did wrong. Instead, we should ask ourselves how what we decide affects our core freedoms. Our Bill of Rights contains a mere ten ideas. Any time we chip away at one of those ten we had better have a good reason. We do not have one in this case.
{¶ 13} The United States Supreme Court thought it had a good reason to limit
{¶ 14} As the Supreme Court pointed out, the police in Santana were faced with “a realistic expectation that any delay would result in destruction of evidence.” Santana, 427 U.S. at 43, 96 S.Ct. 2406, 49 L.Ed.2d 300. They were also dealing with a felony. The Supreme Court was willing to limit
{¶ 15} We are dealing in this case with a fundamental part of a fundamental right. “It is axiomatic that the ‘physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed.’ ” Welsh v. Wisconsin (1984), 466 U.S. 740, 748, 104 S.Ct. 2091, 80 L.Ed.2d 732, quoting United States v. United States Dist. Court for the E. Dist. of Michigan (1972), 407 U.S. 297, 313, 92 S.Ct. 2125, 32 L.Ed.2d 752. It is nearly as axiomatic that “the Court has recognized, as ‘a “basic principle of Fourth Amendment law[,]” that searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable.’ ” Id. at 749, 104 S.Ct. 2091, 80 L.Ed.2d 732, quoting Payton v. New York (1980), 445 U.S. 573, 586, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639. The Welsh court recognized exceptions for exigent circumstances, but emphasized that “exceptions to the warrant requirement are ‘few in number and carefully delineated’ * * * and that police bear a heavy burden when attempting to demonstrate an urgent need that might justify warrantless searches or arrests.” 466 U.S. at 749-750, 104 S.Ct. 2091, 80 L.Ed.2d 732, quoting United States v. United States Dist. Court, supra, 407 U.S. at 318, 92 S.Ct. 2125, 32 L.Ed.2d 752. In Welsh the court was quick to point out that the exception carved out by Santana concerns “hot pursuit of a fleeing felon.” (Emphasis added.) Id. at 750, 104 S.Ct. 2091, 80 L.Ed.2d 732.
{¶ 16} The gravity of tinkering with the protections of the
{¶ 17} The government could not rebut the presumption of unreasonableness in this case because it involved only a minor traffic offense. The majority breathlessly depicts the pursuit and detention of Flinchum in the manner of a television police drama. They should have given it the Dragnet approach—the facts, and only the facts. Flinchum spun his tires when a traffic light turned green, later fishtailed his car when making a right turn, and again spun his tires when accelerating from a stop sign. Judging from the charge eventually brought against him, it appears that Flinchum did not squeal his tires, did not cross a center line, did not speed, did not make an illegal left turn, did not fail to use his blinker, did not fail to stop at a stop sign, did not fail to update his license tags, did not illegally park. The Middletown police officers, on the other hand, upon viewing Flinchum‘s acts, did not activate their flashing lights, or their siren. After Flinchum had parked his car, he ran toward his house when he saw the Middletown police cruiser stop in
{¶ 18} The whole chase of Flinchum was more lukewarm amble than hot pursuit. In any event, no recitation of the facts can change the truth that the police officer in this case burst into Flinchum‘s house to arrest a mere tire spinner. What do we gain by the majority‘s opinion? Police can enter the homes of tire spinners without a warrant, without knocking, without asking the spinner to please step outside. What do we lose? From a practical standpoint, we place homeowners and police officers in dangerous situations. From a jurisprudential standpoint, we give up part of a right that has been jealously guarded for over two hundred years.
Bruce E. Fassler, Middletown City Prosecutor, for appellee.
Repper & Powers and Christopher J. Pagan, for appellant.
Betty D. Montgomery, Attorney General, and David M. Gormley, State Solicitor, for the state of Ohio.