State v. Evenson

Citations

• 2022 Ohio 1336

Syllabus

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW/CRIMINAL — FOURTH AMENDMENT — MOTION TO SUPPRESS — WARRANT — PROBABLE CAUSE — SEARCH AND SEIZURE — OPEN-FIELDS DOCTRINE: The trial court did not err in denying defendant's motion to dismiss where credible, competent evidence supported that, prior to obtaining the search warrant, a detective conducted a \knock and talk\ at the residence to find out why the tracking device on stolen equipment would be \pinging\ from defendant's property and, after no one responded at the home, walked along the driveway of the property—which led to the three storage buildings on the property—to find someone to speak to about the signal: Because the driveway is open to the public and it is not a part of the curtilage, and the detective had a right to be on the property pursuant to the investigation of the stolen equipment, the detective's observation from the driveway of \fresh track marks that would be made by a track-type vehicle similar to what had been described as stolen\ leading to the inside of the building was not in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Where the record reflected that there was no \no trespassing\ sign posted on the property, and neither the property, nor the storage buildings, were enclosed by a fence or some other means intended to shield the property from public view or government surveillance, there was no reasonable expectation of privacy for the property. The report of the tracking device pinging from defendant's property—which was confirmed by law enforcement to belong to defendant—and the report of the tracks that were discovered by a detective during the \knock and talk\ provided a substantial basis to believe that there was a fair probability that the stolen equipment would be found on defendant's property, which established sufficient probable cause to obtain a search warrant.