COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Supreme Court of Ohio has upheld a traffic stop that led to the discovery of a firearm, reinstating the convictions of Jessica Dunlap and Je’Brel Lewis for improperly handling a firearm in a vehicle.
In 2021, Officer Andrew Centrackio of the Chester Township Police Department was using the Law Enforcement Automated Data System (LEADS) to check vehicle registrations. He ran a check on a car displaying a temporary tag registered to Jessica Dunlap and found that her driver’s license was suspended. Suspecting that Dunlap might be driving without a valid license, he initiated a traffic stop.
Upon approaching the vehicle, Officer Centrackio realized that the driver was not Dunlap, a white female, but Je’Brel Lewis, a Black male, with Dunlap in the passenger seat. When asked for his driver’s license, Lewis was evasive and eventually provided a state identification card instead.
A background check revealed that Lewis’s driver’s license was suspended and that he had active arrest warrants, including a prior charge for improperly handling a firearm. Lewis admitted there was an unloaded gun in the front passenger-side door and a loaded magazine on the back seat floor. Both he and Dunlap were arrested and charged with improper handling of a firearm in a motor vehicle.
Dunlap and Lewis filed a motion to suppress the evidence, arguing that the officer had unlawfully extended the traffic stop. The trial court denied the motion, and they entered no-contest pleas to the charges. The Eleventh District Court of Appeals reversed this decision, but the Geauga County Prosecutor’s Office appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court.
In a majority opinion authored by Justice R. Patrick DeWine, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the traffic stop and the officer’s actions were constitutional. The court cited the U.S. Supreme Court case Rodriguez v. United States (2015), stating that during a lawful traffic stop, an officer is permitted to conduct ordinary inquiries related to the stop’s purpose, such as requesting a driver’s license and checking for outstanding warrants.