State v. Mathis

2024 Ohio 5707, 259 N.E.3d 824

• Court: Ohio Court of Appeals
• Decided: December 5, 2024
• Docket: 113678 & 113862
• Status: Published

Opinion

[Cite as State v. Mathis, 2024-Ohio-5707.]

COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO

EIGHTH APPELLATE DISTRICT COUNTY OF CUYAHOGA

STATE OF OHIO, :

Plaintiff-Appellant, : Nos. 113678 and 113862 v. :

RASHEED MATHIS, :

Defendant-Appellee. :

JOURNAL ENTRY AND OPINION

JUDGMENT: AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, AND REMANDED RELEASED AND JOURNALIZED: December 5, 2024

Criminal Appeal from the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Case No. CR-23-678251-A

Appearances:

Michael C. O’Malley, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Frank Romeo Zeleznikar and Erica Sammon, Assistant Prosecuting Attorneys, for appellant.

Cullen Sweeney, Cuyahoga County Public Defender, and Thomas T. Lampman, Assistant Public Defender, for appellee.

KATHLEEN ANN KEOUGH, A.J.:

Plaintiff-appellant, the State of Ohio, appeals from the trial court’s

judgment granting defendant-appellee Rasheed Mathis’s motion to suppress and dismissing the case. We reverse the trial court’s dismissal of the case, affirm its grant

of the motion to suppress, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this

decision.

I. Background

A Cuyahoga County Grand Jury indicted Mathis in a three-count

indictment with having weapons while under disability in violation of R.C.

2923.13(A)(3), carrying a concealed weapon in violation of R.C. 2923.12(A)(2), and

improperly handling firearms in a motor vehicle in violation of R.C. 2923.16(B). The

charges arose after Euclid police stopped and searched Mathis’s vehicle on January

28, 2023.

At the hearing on Mathis’s motion to suppress, Euclid police officer

Brandon Moore testified on direct examination that he works in the City of Euclid’s

Community Response Unit. Moore said that because the Unit is tasked with getting

guns and drugs off the street, police officers in the Unit make “proactive traffic stops”

that they think will lead to the recovery of guns and drugs.

Joint exhibit No. 1, footage from Moore’s body camera that was

played during the hearing, reflects that Moore drove behind Mathis for a short while

and after Mathis pulled into a parking space in the apartment complex where he

lived, three police cruisers, including Moore’s, surrounded Mathis’s vehicle. One

officer used a vehicular public address system to order Mathis to lower all the

windows in his vehicle. On cross-examination, Moore testified that when he stopped Mathis

on January 28, 2023, he was aware that an armed robbery in Euclid had occurred

two days earlier. The police report associated with that robbery stated that the

robbery had occurred at 11:28 a.m. on January 26, 2023, and “four suspects fled the

area in a gold or tan in color Dodge or Chrysler minivan after stealing a dishwasher.

Officers were told the plate started possibly with TWL.” Moore initially testified that

before he stopped Mathis, he did not have a physical description of the suspects but

was aware of the color of the van involved in the robbery and knew that the license

plate began with TWL. Later, on cross-examination, Moore equivocated and said

he did not know that the suspected vehicle was gold or tan, although he also testified

that “the witness saw a tan car.”

Moore testified that he decided to stop Mathis because of the illegally

dark window tint on his van. However, footage from Moore’s body camera reflects

that after stopping Mathis and upon getting out of his cruiser, Moore radioed

dispatch and stated that he was investigating a suspect in an armed robbery. Moore

made no mention to dispatch of any alleged window-tint violation.

Moore’s body camera footage reflects that when he approached the

driver’s side window of Mathis’s vehicle, Mathis asked, “What’d I do?” and Moore

responded, “Not gonna lie, your vehicle matches the description of a suspect vehicle

used in an armed robbery.” Moore made no mention of any window-tint violation

to Mathis and told him, “I’m just gonna grab some information from you and

hopefully send you on your way.” Moore then asked Mathis if there were any weapons in the vehicle, which Mathis denied; Mathis also denied smoking

marijuana that day after Moore told him that he smelled marijuana in the vehicle.

Moore asked Mathis for his identification, which Mathis gave to him. Mathis said,

“A robbery?” and Moore said, “It’s probably nothing,” and walked back to his

cruiser.

Moore’s partner, who was standing next to the driver’s side of the

vehicle, then told Mathis, “We’re just talking to you because the vehicle matches the

description of a robbery vehicle and there’s not a lot of this particular type of van

rolling around. You might not be involved.”

When Moore returned to Mathis’s car, he asked him to step out of his

vehicle. When Moore’s partner advised that he had observed marijuana roaches in

the ashtray of Mathis’s vehicle, Moore frisked Mathis and found a firearm in his

pocket. The police handcuffed Mathis, and Moore put him in the backseat of his

Moore admitted on cross-examination that as he approached

Mathis’s van before he spoke with him, he observed that Mathis was driving a light

blue van with a license plate number of JWL635 and that he was aware before he

interacted with Mathis that the vehicle did not match the description of the van used

in the robbery. He also agreed that, as reflected on the body camera footage, in at

least the first five minutes of the police interaction with Mathis, neither he nor any

other officer on the scene said anything to Mathis about a window-tint violation. In

fact, Moore’s body camera footage reflects that Moore did not mention the alleged window-tint violation until the seven-minute mark of the footage, after Mathis had

been arrested and as he was being placed in the backseat of Moore’s cruiser, when

Mathis told Moore that he still did not understand why he had been stopped. The

footage reflects that the police searched Mathis’s vehicle after the arrest and that

Moore did not measure Mathis’s windows for illegal window-tint until

approximately the 15-minute mark of the body camera footage, well after Mathis

had been arrested and placed in Moore’s cruiser.

Moore agreed that he and the other officers muted their body cameras

for a short time at approximately the twelve minute mark in the footage but said he

did not know the reason why.

In its closing argument, the State argued that as long as the police

have probable cause to believe a traffic violation has occurred, the stop is

constitutionally valid, even if the officer has an ulterior motive for stopping the

vehicle. The State argued that Moore’s stop of Mathis was therefore valid in that the

police stopped Mathis because of the illegal window tint on his van, even if they also

wanted to investigate whether he was involved in the earlier robbery.

Defense counsel argued that this was not a pretextual traffic stop, as

argued by the State, and that the sole reason for the stop was because the police

suspected that Mathis was involved in the armed robbery that had occurred two days

earlier. Counsel argued that the stop should have ended as soon as the justification

for the stop ended, i.e., the police should have terminated the encounter when

Moore became aware that the vehicle color and license plate of Mathis’s van did not match the van used in the robbery, because, at that point, they could not have

reasonably suspected that Mathis was involved in the robbery.

At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial judge said that she would

render a decision after the hearing but that it was “pretty clear from the testimony

that he was not stopped for a tinted window. The question is whether or not how

long he could have been stopped for suspicion of the robbery.” The court

subsequently issued a journal entry granting the motion to suppress. The State then

filed a motion asking the court to issue findings of fact and conclusions of law

pursuant to Crim.R. 12(F).

Before the trial court ruled on the State’s motion, the State filed an

appeal of the trial court’s ruling granting the motion to suppress. It then filed a

motion asking this court to order the trial court to issue the findings required by

Crim.R. 12(F). This court granted the State’s motion and remanded the case to the

trial court, stating in its journal entry that “[t]he appeal is remanded for the trial

court to rule on the state’s pending request for findings of fact and conclusions of

law regarding the court’s granting [of] the motion to suppress.” The journal entry

further stated that “Crim.R. 12(F) requires a court to making findings of fact ‘[w]here

factual issues are involved in determining a motion.’”

Upon remand, the trial court held a hearing on the record. It denied

the State’s motion for findings of fact and conclusions of law, ruling that Crim.R.

12(F) requires the trial court to list its “essential findings” but does not require it to issue findings of fact and conclusions of law. The trial court then stated its findings

on the record.

The trial court said that it granted the motion to suppress because the

stop in this case “wasn’t about tinted windows. It was about this looked like a vehicle

that was involved in a robbery.” The trial court found that “[o]nce the police officer

determined that this was not a vehicle or individual that was involved in the robbery,

then at that point in time their inquiry should have stopped, but it did not.” The

court stated that although the police told Mathis after his arrest when he was in the

police cruiser that he was stopped because his windows were tinted, “certainly that

was not the reason for the stop.”

The trial court’s subsequent journal entry denied the State’s motion

for findings of fact and conclusions of law and stated that “pursuant to Crim.R.

12(F), the court stated its essential findings on the record and reaffirmed its

February 22, 2024 decision granting defendant’s motion to suppress.” The journal

entry also ordered “case is dismissed.”

The State then filed an appeal from the trial court’s judgment

dismissing the case. The State’s appeals were consolidated for briefing, hearing, and

disposition.

II. Law and Analysis

A. The trial court’s dismissal of the case

In its first assignment of error, the State contends that the trial court

did not have jurisdiction to dismiss the case because the matter was before the trial court on a limited remand to rule on the State’s motion for findings of fact and

conclusions of law. We agree.

A trial court lacks jurisdiction to exceed the scope of an appellate

court’s remand, and actions beyond the scope are void. Grissom v. Ohio Dept. of

Job & Family Servs., 2020-Ohio-1608, ¶ 11 (8th Dist.), citing State v. Teagarden,

2015-Ohio-2563, ¶ 24 (5th Dist.), and State v. Carsey, 2014-Ohio-3682, ¶ 11 (4th

Dist.).

This court’s limited remand directed the trial court to rule on the

State’s motion for findings of fact and conclusions of law pursuant to Crim.R. 12(F).

Any action by the trial court beyond that limited remand would exceed the scope of

the remand. Accordingly, the trial court had no jurisdiction to dismiss the case, and

the dismissal is therefore void. The first assignment of error is sustained.

B. The trial court’s grant of the motion to suppress

In its second assignment of error, the State contends that the trial

court erred in granting Mathis’s motion to suppress.

Appellate review of a motion to suppress presents a mixed question

of law and fact. State v. Burnside, 2003-Ohio-5372, ¶ 8. The trial court assumes

the role of the trier of fact when presented with a motion to suppress and is in the

best position to analyze the evidence and evaluate the credibility of the witnesses.

Id. Accordingly, an appellate court must defer to the trial court’s findings of fact if

they are supported by competent, credible evidence. Id. However, an appellate

court must independently determine as a matter of law, without deference to the trial court’s conclusion, whether the facts meet the applicable legal standard. State

v. Hill, 2005-Ohio-3155, ¶ 12 (8th Dist.).

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects

“the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,

against unreasonable searches and seizure.” The basic purpose of this Amendment

“‘is to safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary invasions

by governmental officers.’” State v. Hicks, 2023-Ohio-4126, ¶ 34, quoting

Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296, 303 (2018). Accordingly, warrantless

searches and seizures are per se unreasonable unless an exception to the warrant

requirement applies. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357 (1967).

An investigative stop, or “Terry stop,” is a common exception to the

Fourth Amendment warrant requirement. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968). A

law enforcement officer may properly stop an individual under the Terry-stop

exception if the officer possesses the requisite suspicion based on specific and

articulable facts that the person is, was, or is about to be engaged in criminal activity.

Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 653 (1979). “Limited in both duration and

purpose, the Terry stop may last only as long as it reasonably takes a police officer

to confirm or dispel suspicion of criminal activity.” State v. Hall, 2016-Ohio-783,

¶ 17 (1st Dist.), citing Terry at 30. See also Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 500

(1983) (If the police initiate a lawful Terry stop, they must be careful not to exceed

the scope of the stop’s underlying justification, and the length of the stop cannot last

longer than is necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stop.). The State contends that the trial court granted the motion to suppress

“on an improper legal analysis”; specifically, that it “improperly focused on the

officer’s subjective purpose of the stop, rather than whether there was reasonable,

articulable suspicion or probable cause to initiate the stop.” (Appellant’s brief,

p. 12.) The State contends that Moore had a reasonable suspicion to stop Mathis

because he testified that he saw Mathis operating a vehicle with suspected illegal

window tint. It argues that the stop was therefore valid, even if the police also

wanted to investigate Mathis as a suspect in the earlier robbery, because, as the Ohio

Supreme Court held in Dayton v. Erickson, 76 Ohio St.3d 3, 11 (1996),

where 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 Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, even if the officer had some ulterior motive for making the stop, such as whether the violator was engaging in more nefarious criminal activity.

The State contends that because it is undisputed that the windows on Mathis’s

vehicle were illegally tinted, Moore had probable cause to stop him for that traffic

violation, and therefore, the trial court’s focus on determining why Moore actually

stopped Mathis was error.

The State’s argument misses the mark. In considering a motion to

suppress, the trial court is the factfinder and must evaluate the credibility of the

witnesses and resolve factual questions. State v. Mills, 62 Ohio St.3d 357, 366

(1992). Here, in doing so, the trial court found that Moore’s testimony that he

stopped Mathis for a window-tint violation was not credible and that, in fact, the police stopped Mathis to investigate him as a possible suspect in the earlier armed

robbery. The trial court’s determination of the factual basis for the stop was within

its authority when ruling on a motion to suppress. Accepting the State’s argument

that the court was required to believe Moore’s testimony that he stopped Mathis for

a window-tint violation simply because that was the reason Moore gave as the

reason for the stop would eviscerate the trial court’s role as the finder of fact.

Furthermore, contrary to the State’s argument, the trial court did not

find that the stop itself was illegal. Rather, it found that the police improperly

extended the duration of the stop because the stop should have ended when Moore

determined that the color of Mathis’s vehicle and his license plate number did not

match the vehicle used in the earlier robbery, which Moore knew well before the

police frisked Mathis, discovered a firearm on his person, and arrested him.

We find that the trial court’s determination of the facts — that Moore

did not stop Mathis for a window-tint violation but rather to investigate him as a

suspect in the earlier robbery — is supported by competent, credible evidence. As

demonstrated by the footage from Moore’s body camera, Moore made no mention

whatsoever of any window-tint violation when he first approached Mathis and told

him why the police had stopped him. Moore’s partner also told Mathis the police

were investigating him as a suspect in the robbery. Significantly, Moore never

mentioned anything about a window-tint violation until he was putting Mathis in

the backseat of his cruiser after he had been arrested. We are also troubled by

Moore’s muting of his body camera for a short time during the encounter with Mathis and his assertion at the suppression hearing that he does not know why the

camera was muted.

Accepting the trial court’s factual determination as true, we must then

determine whether the facts meet the applicable legal standard. Under Terry’s

framework, an investigative stop must be both justified at its inception due to

reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and reasonably related in scope to the

circumstances that justified the interference in the first place. Terry, 392 U.S. at 20.

Thus, “a vehicle stop is limited in scope and degree of intrusion by its purpose and

may last no longer than reasonably necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stop.”

State v. Rogers, 2022-Ohio-4535, ¶ 22 (1st Dist.), citing State v. Rodriguez, 575 U.S.

348, 354 (2015), and United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675 (1985).

The purpose of the stop in this case was to determine if Mathis’s

vehicle was involved in the earlier robbery. Moore admitted that when he walked

up to Mathis’s van he knew that the color of the van and the license plate number

did not match that of the suspected vehicle in the robbery. Accordingly, at that point

the police no longer had a reasonable suspicion that Mathis was involved in the

robbery and should have sent him on his way. See State v. Shelton, 2011-Ohio-4408

(8th Dist.) (where officer stopped defendant because his license plate was partially

obscured by snow in violation of R.C. 4503.21(A) but was able to read the license

plate when he approached the defendant’s car, officer lacked reasonable suspicion

of any violation and defendant “should have been free to continue on his way

without any further detention or investigation”). Because the police improperly extended the stop even after they no

longer had a reasonable suspicion to detain Mathis, the search violated the Fourth

Amendment. Evidence derived from a search or seizure that violates the Fourth

Amendment is subject to exclusion at trial. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 655 (1961).

Accordingly, the trial court properly granted the motion to suppress. The second

assignment of error is overruled.

Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for proceedings

consistent with this opinion.

It is ordered that appellee and appellant split the costs herein taxed.

The court finds there were reasonable grounds for this appeal.

It is ordered that a special mandate issue out of this court directing the

common pleas court to carry this judgment into execution.

A certified copy of this entry shall constitute the mandate pursuant to Rule 27

of the Rules of Appellate Procedure.

KATHLEEN ANN KEOUGH, ADMINISTRATIVE JUDGE

MARY J. BOYLE, J., and ANITA LASTER MAYS, J., CONCUR