State v. Wynn

In State v. Wynn, 2011 Ohio 1832, the Ohio Court of Appeals reviewed a suppression ruling involving heroin discarded during a police pursuit.

Kenneth Wynn was arrested on September 21, 2009, after officers attempted to stop him following what one officer described as an observed drug transaction. According to the officer’s testimony, Wynn was seated in a vehicle and appeared to drop heroin capsules into another man’s hand through the open windows of their cars. When the officer approached in a cruiser, Wynn drove away at high speed.

Wynn’s vehicle later malfunctioned and stopped. Officers tried to arrest him, but Wynn fled on foot. During the foot chase, another officer testified that he saw Wynn take a plastic baggie from his pocket and throw it to the ground. After Wynn was caught and arrested, the officer returned to the location and recovered the baggie. It contained heroin.

Wynn moved to suppress the heroin, arguing that police lacked reasonable suspicion to detain him and that the evidence was the fruit of an unlawful stop. The trial court denied the motion, and Wynn entered no-contest pleas to possession of heroin and trafficking in heroin. He then appealed.

The main issue was whether police could use heroin that Wynn threw away while running from officers, even if Wynn claimed the officers did not have a lawful basis to stop him.

In plain English, the question was this: if a suspect flees from police and drops contraband before officers physically catch him or he submits to their authority, has the suspect been “seized” for Fourth Amendment purposes at the moment he drops the evidence? If not, the evidence may be treated as abandoned property rather than the product of an unlawful seizure.

The Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s denial of the motion to suppress.

The court relied on the abandonment doctrine. When a person abandons property, he gives up any reasonable expectation of privacy in it. Property abandoned during flight from police may be seized and used as evidence because the Fourth Amendment does not protect abandoned property in the same way it protects property in which a person maintains a privacy interest.

The court also discussed California v. Hodari D., where the United States Supreme Court held that a fleeing suspect is not “seized” merely because officers are chasing him. A seizure requires either physical force or submission to police authority. If the suspect throws away contraband before being physically stopped or before submitting, the discarded item is not considered the fruit of a seizure.

Applying that rule, the court found that Wynn discarded the baggie during the foot chase before he was apprehended. Because he had not yet been physically seized and had not submitted to police authority when he threw it away, the heroin was treated as abandoned. The court also noted that, unlike Hodari D., the officer here testified that he had observed conduct consistent with a heroin sale, giving police a reasonable basis to attempt the detention. Even so, the court’s suppression ruling rested on the abandonment analysis.

The practical rule from State v. Wynn is that contraband discarded by a fleeing suspect before capture or submission may be admissible as abandoned property, even when the defense argues that the pursuit itself was not justified. The timing matters: the key point is whether the suspect discarded the item before or after a Fourth Amendment seizure occurred.

State v. Wynn is important for officers because it reinforces the distinction between pursuit and seizure. A suspect who runs from police has not necessarily been seized simply because officers are chasing him or ordering him to stop. If the suspect throws away drugs or other evidence before officers tackle him, handcuff him, block his movement in a way that actually restrains him, or otherwise obtain submission, that evidence may be considered abandoned.

For report writing and testimony, officers should clearly document the sequence of events. In a case like Wynn, it matters that the officer saw the suspected drug transaction first, that Wynn drove away, that the vehicle stopped, that Wynn fled on foot, that the officer saw him remove and discard the baggie, and that the baggie was recovered from the location where it was seen being thrown. The admissibility analysis can turn on whether the evidence was discarded before the suspect was physically stopped or submitted to police authority.

The case also shows the value of articulating the facts that led officers to act. Here, the officer testified that he saw what appeared to be heroin capsules dropped into another person’s hand during a vehicle-to-vehicle transaction. The appellate court viewed that testimony as providing ample suspicion for the attempted detention. Officers should avoid relying on vague descriptions such as “suspicious activity” when they can describe specific observations.

At the same time, Wynn should not be read too broadly. It does not authorize unsupported stops or searches. It addresses evidence discarded during flight before a seizure occurs. If officers already have physically detained a person, or if the person has submitted to police authority, later-discovered evidence may be analyzed differently. The safest practice remains to base stops on clearly articulable facts, preserve the timeline, and describe exactly when and where any discarded evidence was observed and recovered.