## Facts

- An Ohio deputy sheriff stopped Robert D. Robinette for speeding on Interstate 70.
- After issuing a verbal warning and returning Robinette’s driver’s license, the deputy immediately asked whether Robinette had any illegal contraband, weapons, or drugs.
- Robinette denied having contraband but consented to a search of the vehicle.
- The deputy found a small amount of marijuana and a pill later identified as MDMA; Robinette was arrested and charged with knowing possession of a controlled substance.
- The trial court denied Robinette’s motion to suppress, and he was convicted.
- The Ohio Court of Appeals reversed, concluding the search stemmed from an unlawful detention.
- The Ohio Supreme Court affirmed and adopted a bright-line rule requiring officers, after a valid traffic stop, to clearly state the motorist is “legally free to go” before any consensual questioning or consent search.

## Issues

1. Whether the U.S. Supreme Court had jurisdiction to review the judgment where the state court referenced the state constitution.
2. Whether the Fourth Amendment requires police to advise a lawfully stopped motorist that he is “free to go” before consent to search can be treated as voluntary.

## Decision

- The Court held it had jurisdiction because the state court’s decision rested on federal law despite references to the state constitution.
- The Court held the Fourth Amendment does not require an officer to inform a motorist that he is “free to go” before requesting consent to search.
- The Court rejected the state court’s per se warning requirement as inconsistent with the totality-of-the-circumstances standard governing consent.
- The Court reversed and remanded for application of the correct federal standard rather than deciding voluntariness on the existing record.

## Legal Principles

- Federal review is available where a state court decision appears to rest primarily on federal constitutional law, notwithstanding general or passing state-constitutional references.
- Voluntariness of consent to search is determined under the totality of the circumstances; knowledge of the right to refuse is a relevant factor but not a prerequisite.
- The Fourth Amendment generally disfavors rigid prophylactic rules for consent searches; reasonableness is assessed objectively and contextually.
- The validity of a stop or continued encounter turns on objective justification; an officer’s subjective intentions do not by themselves make an otherwise justified detention unlawful.
- States may impose more protective search-and-seizure rules as a matter of state law, but those rules must be grounded independently rather than attributed to the federal Constitution when inconsistent with federal doctrine.

## Conclusion

The Court rejected a categorical “free-to-go” warning requirement for consent searches following traffic stops, holding that the Fourth Amendment measures consent by the totality of the circumstances and remanding for state courts to apply that standard.


Ohio v. Robinette, 519 U.S. 33 (1996)