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80 Ohio St. 3d 234

State v. Robinette

Ohio Supreme Court

Decided November 12, 1997

Ohio Supreme Court · decided 1997-11-12

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“'[W]hen the subject of a search is not in custody and the State attempts to justify a search on the basis of his consent, the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments require that it demonstrate that the consent was in fact voluntarily given, and not the result of duress or coercion, express or implied. Voluntariness is a question of fact to be determined from all the circumstances, and while the subject's knowledge of a right to refuse is a factor to be taken into account, the prosecution is not required to demonstrate such knowledge as a prerequisite to establishing a voluntary consent'”

quoted by 8 later decisions, including State v. Terrell, State v. Acy, 91175 (3-12-2009)

“[f]rom the totality of the circumstances, it appears that [the defendant] merely submitted to 'a claim of lawful authority' rather than consenting as a voluntary act of free will. Under Royer , this is not sufficient to prove voluntary compliance.”

quoted by 3 later decisions, including State v. Isaac, State v. Acy, 91175 (3-12-2009)

Relies on Ohio v. Robinette · State v. Robinette

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1997-11-12

How this case has been cited

Cited by 725 later decisions — most recently March 2026 · most notably Ferris v. State (1999), State v. Leak (Slip Opinion) (2016)

3 federal appellate · 720 state decisions — followed in 12 states

31601997200020102020decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Francis E. Sweeney; Sr., J.,

¶1dissenting. In State v. Robinette (1995), 73 Ohio St.3d 650, 653 N.E.2d 695, I rejected the majority’s “bright line” test, which required police officers to recite certain words before instituting a consensual interrogation. Instead, I stated that the correct test to be applied is the totality-of-the-circumstances test, which takes into consideration all of the circumstances surrounding the encounter. Id. at 655-658, 653 N.E.2d at 699-701 (F.E. Sweeney, J., dissenting). The United States Supreme Court also eschewed the bright-line test and stated that voluntariness is a question of fact to be determined from all the circumstances. Ohio v. Robinette (1996), 519 U.S.-,-, 117 S.Ct. 417, 421, 136 L.Ed.2d 347, 355. The Supreme Court reversed the judgment and remanded the cause to this court. Upon remand, the majority now applies the correct test (totality of the circumstances), but, in my opinion, still reaches the wrong result.

¶2*250Based upon the testimony presented, it is clear that Robinette consented to the search of his vehicle. Robinette specifically stated that he thought he was free to leave at the time the police officer asked whether he could search the vehicle. Robinette conceded that the police officer was nice to him during the encounter and acted in a nonthreatening manner. Based upon these facts, I am unwilling to hold that Robinette “merely submitted to ‘a claim of lawful authority’ ” as the majority concludes. Instead, under the totality of the circumstances, I believe that there was no coercion and that Robinette voluntarily consented to the search of the vehicle.

¶3Accordingly, I would reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and reinstate the trial court’s judgment.

Douglas, J., concurs in the foregoing dissenting opinion.
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