State v. YuState v. Yu
O P I N I O N
Judgment: Affirmed.
Dennis M. Coyne, City of Chardon Prosecutor, 111 Water Street, Chardon, OH 44024 (For Plaintiff-Appellee).
Aaron T. Baker, 38109 Euclid Avenue, Willoughby, OH 44094 (For Defendаnt-Appellant).
DIANE V. GRENDELL, J.
{¶1} Defendant-appellant, Amy L. Yu, appeals the denial of her Motion to Suppress by the Chardon Municipal Court. The issue before this court is whether eyewitness reports of a motorist‘s reckless operation of а motor vehicle require corroboration by law enforcement before a stop may be initiated. For the following reasons, we affirm the decision of the court below.
{¶3} On the same date, Pаtrolman Dakota Kowalcic filed a Complaint, charging Yu with Open Container, in violation of
{¶4} On March 4, 2014, Yu, through counsel, filed a Motion to Suppress in both cases.
{¶5} On May 7, 2014, a hearing was held on Yu‘s Motion.
{¶6} Sergeant Savage testified on behalf of the State that, on January 21, 2014, he received “a called-in complaint from our dispatcher that a vehicle was going left of center, * * * hit a mailbox and was travelling in the opposite lane towards oncoming traffic.” The vehicle was reported by an eyewitness to have hit a mailbox on East High Street near Glen Valley Drive. Sergeant Savage did not know the identity оf the complainant.
{¶8} Sergeant Savage activated his lights and siren upon receiving the dispatch. Dispatch described the vehicle as a maroon Subaru, traveling east on Route 87. A later dispatch advised that the vehicle might be a Toyota, but still red in color. Sergeаnt Savage pursued Yu for several minutes before sighting her vehicle on Route 87 east of Route 528. After passing several other vehicles (Route 87 is a two-lane road), Sergeant Savage brought his cruiser behind Yu‘s Subaru. The Subaru touched both the cеnter and edge lines before stopping near the intersection with Hayes Road.
{¶9} The municipal court denied Yu‘s Motion to Suppress based on Sergeant Savage‘s observation of Yu‘s driving and damage to her vehicle.
{¶10} Yu entered a plea of no contest to the charges in both cases.
{¶11} Also on May 7, 2014, Yu was sentenced in Chardon Municipal Court. In Case No. 2014 TR C 00352, the court imposed a fine of $350, costs in the amount of $1,110.61, a 180-day jail sentence (150 days suspended), a 180-day OL suspensiоn, and two years of probation. In Case No. 2014 CR B 00056, the court ordered Yu to pay costs in the amount of $116.
{¶12} On May 15, 2014, Yu filed a Notice of Appeal from each case (App. Nos. 2014-G-3209 and 2014-G-3210).
{¶13} On May 16, 2014, the municipal court granted Yu‘s Motion for Stay of Sentence Pending Appeal.
{¶15} On appeal, Yu raises the following assignment of error:
{¶16} “[1.] The trial court erred in denying appellant‘s motion to suppress where law enforcement received an anonymous tip followed by a lack of corroboration of that tip prior to making the traffic stop.”
{¶17} At a suppression hearing, “the trial court is best able to decide facts and evaluate the credibility of witnesses.” State v. Mayl, 106 Ohio St.3d 207, 2005-Ohio-4629, 833 N.E.2d 1216, ¶ 41. Where the trial court‘s factual findings are inadequate to support the judgment, the reviewing court may affirm “if there is sufficient evidence [in the record] demonstrating that thе trial court‘s decision was legally justified and supported by the record.” State v. Scandreth, 11th Dist. Trumbull No. 2009-T-0039, 2009-Ohio-5768, ¶ 50, quoting State v. Brown, 64 Ohio St.3d 476, 482, 597 N.E.2d 97 (1992); State v. Pate, 1st Dist. Hamilton Nos. C-130490 and C-130492, 2014-Ohio-2029, ¶ 11. A reviewing court must then “independently determine, without deference to the conclusion of the trial court, whether the facts satisfy the appliсable legal standard.” State v. Burnside, 100 Ohio St.3d 152, 2003-Ohio-5372, 797 N.E.2d 71, ¶ 8; State v. Korb, 11th Dist. Lake No. 2013-L-126, 2014-Ohio-4543, ¶ 13.
{¶18} “[W]here a police officer stops a vehicle based on probable cause that a traffic violation has occurred or was occurring, the stop is not unreasonable under the
{¶19} Sergeant Savage began pursuing Yu with the determination to stop her based solely on the dispatch. Prior to effecting the stop, he observed erratic driving in that Yu‘s vehiclе touched both the center and edge lines before she complied with the order to stop. The United States Supreme Court acknowledges that “the foremost method of enforcing traffic and vehicle safety regulations . . . is acting uрon observed violations.” (Citation omitted.) Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 817, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.E.2d 89 (1996). Therefore, Sergeant Savage could rely on his own observation of Yu‘s driving as well as the dispatch in effecting the stop.
{¶20} “Where an officer making an investigative stop relies solely upon a dispatch, the state must demonstrate at a suppression hearing that the facts precipitating the dispatch justified a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.” Maumee v. Weisner, 87 Ohio St.3d 295, 720 N.E.2d 507 (1999), paragraph one of the syllabus. “A telephone tip cаn, by itself, create reasonable suspicion justifying an investigatory stop where the tip has sufficient indicia of reliability.” Id. at paragraph two of the syllabus.
{¶21} “Where * * * the information possessed by the police before the stop stems solely from an informant‘s tip, the determinаtion of reasonable suspicion will be
{¶22} “To assess the existence of these factors, it is useful to categorize informants based upon their typical characteristics.” Id. at 300. An anonymous informant is “comparatively unreliable and his tip, therefore, will genеrally require independent police corroboration.” Id. An identified citizen informant is accorded “higher credibility” and, where the informant is a victim or witnesses the crime, his tip “is presumed reliable, particularly if the citizen relates his or hеr basis of knowledge.” (Citation omitted.) Id. at 300-301. The Ohio Supreme Court has emphasized, however, that categorization of the informant is not determinative of the issue, but “is one element of our totality of the circumstances review of [the] informаnt‘s tip.” Id. at 302.
{¶23} Yu‘s position is that the dispatches in the present case were the reports of anonymous informants, in that they were not identified by name, and, consequently, required independent corroboration before they could serve аs the basis for an investigatory stop. We disagree. In the present case, two informants, both eyewitnesses, reported Yu‘s dangerously erratic driving. The informants were identifying a public safety threat. One reported that she had struck a mailbox and the other that she had almost struck oncoming traffic. The reports were made contemporaneously with the events described. The informants were able to identify the make and color of her vehicle and, crucially, its locаtion (without an accurate report of Yu‘s direction Sergeant Savage could not have overtaken her). All these factors establish that the dispatches possessed sufficient indicia of reliability to justify the stop.
{¶25} The Ohio Supreme Court also cited tо the factually similar case of State v. Carstensen, 2d Dist. Miami No. 91-CA-13, 1991 Ohio App. LEXIS 6116 (Dec. 18, 1991), where the “court found a stop based upon a 911 call describing a drunk driver sufficiently justified, although the informant there was unidentified.” Id., citing Carstensen at 5-6. The Ohio Supreme Court further noted the Second District‘s reasoning that “‘information from an ordinary citizen who has personally observed what appears to be criminal conduct carries with it indicia of reliability and is presumed to be reliable.‘” Id. at 300, citing Carstensen at 5, and 302 (“[t]ypically, a personal observation by an informant is due greater reliability than a secondhand description“).
{¶26} Post-Weisner, there have been several appellate decisions confirming that the eyewitness reports of ordinary citizens, otherwise unidentified, are entitled to high credibility. State v. Cisternino, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 94674, 2010-Ohio-6027, ¶ 16 (“[w]hether an informant is ‘anonymous’ depends on whether the informant himself took
{¶27} Other factors identified in Weisner also favor the conclusion that the dispatch provided Sergeant Savage with a reasonable suspicion to stop Yu. Both informants contacted the police contemporaneously with the events observed. Weisner at 302 (“immediacy lends further credibility to the accuracy of the facts being relayed, as it avoids reliance upon thе informant‘s memory“). Both informants were also reporting dangerous erratic driving. As did the court in Weisner, then, it is reasonable to infer that the informants were “not [motivated] by dishonest and questionable goals, but by [the] desire to eliminate a risk to the public‘s safety.” Id.
{¶28} Accordingly, the informants’ tips in the present case were from citizens who based their knowledge of the facts upon their own observations of the events as they were occurring and, as a result, merited a high degree of credibility sufficiеnt to withstand a Fourth Amendment challenge without independent police corroboration.
{¶29} This court determines, based on the dispatch, the corroboration of witnesses and Sergeant Savage‘s observation as well as the Supreme Court case law
{¶30} For the foregoing reasons, the denial of Yu‘s Motion to Suppress by the Chardon Municipal Court is affirmed. Costs to be taxed against appellant.
CYNTHIA WESTCOTT RICE, J.,
THOMAS R. WRIGHT, J.,
concur.