OH8: Negligent dispatcher reported car as stolen that wasn’t; dispatcher’s negligence not attributable to searching officer

A negligent dispatcher reported the vehicle the juvenile was in as stolen, and it was stopped and searched. The information turned out to be wrong. Still, the search of the car was in the officer’s good faith reliance on the negligent dispatcher, and that’s still good enough to deny exclusion. In re G.H., 2014-Ohio-2269, 2014 Ohio App. LEXIS 2212 (8th Dist. May 29, 2014):

[*P26] Here, the record reveals that, while Officer Cicero was discussing the traffic stop with Moore and before anyone was asked to leave the vehicle, the CMSD dispatch notified Officer Cicero that its system identified the vehicle as stolen. Ordinarily, a report of a stolen vehicle reasonably justifies a further detention to allow the officer to investigate. The question here, however, is whether Officer Cicero reasonably and in good faith relied on this information, which ultimately proved to be incorrect, to justify an exception to the exclusionary rule. We find that he did.

[*P27] In United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 918, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984), the court recognized that the exclusionary rule is aimed at police procedures and designed to produce systematic deterrence. State v. Scott, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 99889, 2014-Ohio-392, ¶ 18. The court explained: …

…

[*P30] Contrary to G.H.’s assertion, there is no evidence in the record that Officer Cicero knew that the dispatcher was relying solely on a partial VIN hit. Further, there is no evidence in the record that the CMSD dispatch regularly reports vehicles as being stolen based on partial VIN hits, resulting in the unlawful detention of people. While the record does contain evidence that the system often identifies a vehicle as being stolen based on a partial VIN hit, the testimony revealed that the bottom of the screen clarifies whether the vehicle is actually stolen. Although the dispatcher was negligent in reporting the vehicle as stolen, we find no basis to conclude that Officer Cicero unreasonably relied on the dispatcher’s report in this single instance. Accordingly, we find that a “good-faith” exception to the exclusionary rule applies.

Note: I just can’t accept case this as valid authority, and hopefully the Ohio Supreme Court will take it up. It is departmental negligence. The SCOTUS cases on good faith reliance on a database involve other agencies. Now the police in Ohio have no incentive to keep their records accurate. They have carte blanche to search on any erroneous report of a stolen car. How about the cases where they actually decide to report a car as stolen that’s not and plead dispatcher negligence when it was a conspiracy? If the dispatcher goes along, it would never be proved otherwise, and the search would still be valid.