State v. Jordan

166 Ohio St.3d 339

185 N.E.3d 1051

The STATE of Ohio, Appellee

v.JORDAN, Appellant.

No. 2020-0495

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted March 31, 2021

Decided November 9, 2021.

Joseph T. Deters, Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney, and Philip R. Cummings, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.

Raymond T. Faller, Hamilton County Public Defender, and Sarah E. Nelson, Assistant Public Defender, for appellant.

Ron O'Brien, former Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney, and Steven L. Taylor, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, urging affirmance for amicus curiae Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association.

Timothy Young, Ohio Public Defender, and Patrick T. Clark, Assistant Public Defender, urging reversal for amicus curiae Office of the Ohio Public Defender.

O'Connor, C.J. {¶ 1} Appellant, LeAndre Jordan, challenges the constitutionality of his warrantless arrest, which ultimately led to his convictions for multiple drug offenses. He asks this court to hold that a police officer is constitutionally required to secure an arrest warrant before conducting an arrest anytime the circumstances demonstrate that it is practicable to do so.

{¶ 2} R.C. 2935.04, Ohio's felony-arrest statute, authorizes a warrantless arrest "[w]hen a felony has been committed, or there is reasonable ground to believe that a felony has been committed" and there is "reasonable cause to believe" that the person being arrested is guilty of the offense. This court has held, consistently with United States Supreme Court precedent, "A warrantless arrest that is based upon probable cause and occurs in a public place does not violate the Fourth Amendment" to the United States Constitution. State v. Brown , 115 Ohio St.3d 55, 2007-Ohio-4837, 873 N.E.2d 858, ¶ 66, citing United States v. Watson , 423 U.S. 411, 96 S.Ct. 820, 46 L.Ed.2d 598 (1976). Today, we reiterate that holding and further hold that neither a showing of exigent circumstances nor a showing of the impracticability of obtaining an arrest warrant is necessary to sustain the constitutionality of a warrantless arrest under either the United States Constitution or the Ohio Constitution.

Facts and procedural background

{¶ 3} This appeal stems from Jordan's convictions in the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas for various drug offenses, but Jordan's drug charges arose as a result of his arrest for an unrelated crime with which he was ultimately not charged. The investigation of that unrelated offense is the focus of our analysis.

{¶ 4} On December 12, 2016, someone broke into James and Emiko Locke's Cincinnati home through a bedroom window and stole a safe that contained $40,000. Cincinnati Police Detective Mark Longworth, who investigated the burglary, characterized it as "unusual in that really only the safe was taken," as only a few people knew of the safe's location and contents. James Locke told Detective Longworth that other than Locke and his wife, only his son Michael and his godson knew about the safe.

{¶ 5} The Lockes suspected that Michael had been involved in the burglary. They told Detective Longworth that they had thrown Michael out of the house but that he had "recently come back around." They were suspicious of Michael because he had telephoned them around the time of the burglary to determine whether they were home. Michael then arrived at his parents’ home shortly after they discovered the burglary, "fishing around for information about what had happened" and what they knew. When a neighbor stopped by and reported that he had seen a suspicious vehicle—a cream-colored Chrysler 300—parked near the Lockes’ house around the time of the burglary, Michael became upset and told the neighbor to leave.

{¶ 6} The Lockes believed that the vehicle the neighbor had described belonged to Michael's friend "Dre"—appellant, LeAndre Jordan—whom they described to Detective Longworth and characterized as "trouble." They told Detective Longworth that Jordan worked at a barbershop near the Kroger store on Warsaw Avenue. Detective Longworth located a cream-colored Chrysler parked in the Kroger parking lot, across the street from the barbershop; it was registered to Jordan's mother.

{¶ 7} Detective Longworth interviewed Michael a couple of days after the burglary, and Michael confirmed that Jordan drove the car that Detective Longworth had located in the Kroger parking lot. Michael's cell-phone call log confirmed calls to his parents at 4:23 p.m. and 4:29 p.m. on December 12, 2016, shortly before the burglary, as well as multiple calls between Michael and Jordan around the time of the burglary.

{¶ 8} As a result of his investigation, Detective Longworth believed that Jordan was involved in the burglary. For several days, he observed Jordan coming and going between the cream-colored Chrysler, parked in the Kroger parking lot, and the barbershop. On December 20, eight days after the burglary, Detective Longworth and another officer arrested Jordan as he exited a cell-phone store.

{¶ 9} At the time of his arrest, Jordan was carrying his girlfriend's identification and keys that had an apartment number on them. Detective Longworth determined that Jordan was staying with his girlfriend at that apartment. Based on that information, Detective Longworth obtained a warrant to search the apartment for evidence related to the burglary. The search did not uncover evidence that could be definitively linked to the burglary, but officers found and seized approximately $2,100 in cash, as well as heroin, cocaine, an electronic scale, and a handgun. Jordan's drug charges stemmed from the evidence seized.

{¶ 10} Jordan filed a motion to suppress. He argued that his arrest was unconstitutional and that the evidence should be suppressed as the fruit of that constitutional violation. Jordan admitted in his motion, "An arrest without a warrant is constitutionally valid if, at the moment the arrest is made, the arresting officer has probable cause to make it," but he argued that his arrest was not supported by probable cause. At the suppression hearing, Jordan's attorney primarily repeated the argument that the police lacked probable cause to arrest Jordan, but he also stated more broadly that "there was no warrant" even though eight days had elapsed during which Detective Longworth could have obtained one.

{¶ 11} The trial court denied the motion to suppress, and the case proceeded to a jury trial. Jordan was convicted of trafficking in heroin, aggravated trafficking in drugs, possession of heroin, aggravated possession of drugs, and possession of cocaine. After merging allied offenses, the trial court sentenced Jordan to an 11-year prison term and imposed a driver's license suspension.

{¶ 12} Jordan appealed his convictions to the First District Court of Appeals, challenging the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress. The First District held that the trial court did not err by denying Jordan's motion to suppress, and it affirmed his convictions.¹ It rejected Jordan's argument that the information known to Detective Longworth at the time of Jordan's arrest did not establish probable cause. It also rejected Jordan's argument, which Jordan had not raised in his motion to suppress, that his arrest was unlawful because there were no exigent circumstances to justify a warrantless arrest. 2020-Ohio-689, 145 N.E.3d 357, ¶ 21.

{¶ 13} This court accepted Jordan's discretionary appeal to consider a single proposition of law: "Under R.C. 2935.04, once probable cause is established, a warrantless arrest is unconstitutional if there is unreasonable delay in effecting the arrest. Whether the delay is reasonable depends upon the circumstances surrounding the delay and the nature of the offense." Jordan frames his proposition of law in terms of unreasonable delay, but he also variously casts his argument in terms of a requirement of exigent circumstances or of the impracticability of securing an arrest warrant. Essentially, he asks this court to hold that a police officer is constitutionally required to secure an arrest warrant before conducting an arrest whenever the circumstances demonstrate that it is practicable to do so.

Analysis

{¶ 14} The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures."

Article I, Section 14 of the Ohio Constitution contains virtually identical language. With respect to felony cases, this court has interpreted Article I, Section 14 of the Ohio Constitution as providing the same protections as the Fourth Amendment. State v. Jones , 143 Ohio St.3d 266, 2015-Ohio-483, 37 N.E.3d 123, ¶ 12, citing State v. Smith , 124 Ohio St.3d 163, 2009-Ohio-6426, 920 N.E.2d 949, ¶ 10, fn. 1.² Although the Ohio Constitution may provide greater protections than the United States Constitution, we have "harmonize[d] our interpretation" of Article I, Section 14 with the Fourth Amendment "unless there are persuasive reasons" for not doing so. State v. Robinette , 80 Ohio St.3d 234, 239, 685 N.E.2d 762 (1997). Jordan offers no basis for treating the provisions differently here. We therefore review and address Jordan's arguments through the lens of the Fourth Amendment.

A warrantless arrest based on probable cause and conducted in public is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment

{¶ 15} Jordan frames his proposition of law as presenting a constitutional question that arises upon application of R.C. 2935.04, which states: "When a felony has been committed, or there is reasonable ground to believe that a felony has been committed, any person without a warrant may arrest another whom he has reasonable cause to believe is guilty of the offense, and detain him until a warrant can be obtained."

{¶ 16} Contrary to the premise of the proposition of law this court accepted, the dissent reasons that R.C. 2935.04 is a citizen's-arrest statute that does not apply to law-enforcement officials who are acting within the course...