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This article was forwarded to me yesterday by a friend of mine with a question about notification that you have a CHL and you’re armed when you are in your own home. So I read the article and tried to answer his question as best as I could. To be clear – I am not an attorney. But I am certified by the state of Ohio to teach legal topics in the Basic Police Academy, meaning I teach the CCW law. I’ve spent hours and hours researching CCW case law trying to find answers to some of the issues that pop up with Ohio’s law so that I can answer questions intelligently and with Judges/Court’s opinions – which are really the only opinions that matter when it’s all said and done.
Let’s start by assuming that the news article has all the facts that we need (and without a records request there’s no way to verify that yet). With that assumption in mind, let’s talk about the facts presented in the article and how Ohio law applies to those facts. First, the facts: The defendant in this case – Ashley Heiskill – called the police to have an unwanted person removed from her house. The person had a warrant. Remember this – she called them and she was in her own home. Since the unwanted person did, in fact, have a warrant they were arrested and removed. Then, one of the Officers ran Heiskill’s information with their Dispatch Center. Dispatch told the Officer that Heiskill had a Concealed Handgun License (CHL). It is very common (I would hazard a guess and say it is a requirement) for Dispatch to inform Officers of this fact. The Officer asked Heiskill about her CHL and she showed them a pistol she carried in her purse. The Officer asked why she didn’t notify like she was required to do and she said she wasn’t aware she needed to notify. She was subsequently charged with failing to notify and her pistol and CHL were taken.
So let’s look at what the Ohio notification law says. The are 2 separate types of situations where notification is required. The first is when you are the driver or passenger of a vehicle that’s been stopped. That obviously does not apply. The second situation is where “a licensee is stopped for a law enforcement purpose”. And this is the crux of the matter. Was Heiskill “stopped for a law enforcement purpose” when she called the police to have someone removed from her home? If the answer is yes, then she is guilty as charged. Based on the information in the article, I believe the answer to this important question is no, she was not “stopped for a law enforcement purpose”. Was she interacting with an Officer in a situation where the Officer was acting in an official capacity? Yes, absolutely. But that does not meet the threshold necessary to require her to notify the Officer about her CHL.
So what does “stopped for a law enforcement purpose” mean? That is a really good question, but is one that doesn’t have a simple answer. The Ohio CHL Manual that is published by the Ohio Attorney General and is required reading for those who wish to obtain their CHL doesn’t offer any help. Here’s what the manual says – “If a person is stopped for a law enforcement purpose and is carrying a concealed handgun as a CCW licensee, whether in a motor vehicle or not, the person shall promptly inform the law enforcement officer about the concealed handgun.” But nowhere does the Attorney General’s Office, the guy whose Office is responsible for giving legal opinions, define “stopped for a law enforcement purpose”.
As of yet, I have not found a court opinion that directly answers this question. The only court opinion I have found that touches on the “stopped for a law enforcement purpose” definition didn’t define it, but did clarify when something wasn’t a “stop for a law enforcement purpose”. In this 8th District Appeals case, the court ruled that when an officer stops behind a broken down vehicle on the side of the road to ask if the driver needs assistance, the driver has not been “stopped for a law enforcement purpose”. The Supreme Court of Ohio must have agreed with the 8th District since it refused to hear the case when it was appealed to them, but unfortunately they couldn’t or wouldn’t define “stopped for a law enforcement purpose”.
So without a superseding court opinion or an Attorney General opinion, “stopped for a law enforcement purpose” can mean different things to different people. Here’s what I think it means and why: I think “stopped for a law enforcement purpose” means a situation in which a person is not free to end the encounter with a law enforcement officer (LEO) of their own free will. For those of you who may not know, there are 3 general types of citizen/police encounters (which are outlined in the Search and Seizure Lesson Plan used to teach every police cadet across the state).
First, there are what are described as “consensual encounters” between a citizen and an LEO. During a consensual encounter an LEO may stop and talk with anyone. The LEO may stop themselves and talk with someone. The LEO may not stop someone else and force them to talk to the LEO in a consensual encounter. As an LEO I can walk up to anyone and start talking with them. But I can’t force them to talk with me if it’s a consensual encounter, nor can I use force to make them stop if they want to walk away from me.
Second, there are what we in law enforcement call Investigative Stops or “Terry” Stops. In this type of stop, an LEO has some form of “reasonable articulable suspicion” that someone has committed, is committing or is about to commit some sort of crime. During a “Terry” Stop an LEO can use force to detain someone. I cannot force them to speak with me, but I can prevent them from leaving. This is not quite to the level of a formal arrest.
And third, we have a formal arrest based on a warrant or probable cause that the person has committed a crime. Like a “Terry” Stop, an LEO can use force to take someone into custody during a formal arrest.
So let’s go back and look at Heiskill’s situation. She called the Police. Meaning she consented to the encounter with them. They would not have been there but for her calling them. Up to the point that the Officer asked her about her CHL, she was not suspected of committing any crime, at least according to the article. So was she “stopped”? I don’t think so. The law doesn’t say that you have to notify during an official encounter with an LEO, it says you must notify when you are “stopped”. Say someone backs into your car at the grocery and leaves without notifying you and you need a crash report. So you call and ask for an Officer to come take the report. Can you end that encounter whenever you want to? Yes. Is the LEO detaining you? No, they aren’t. Were you “stopped” by that LEO? No.
So in the end, I’m not sure that calling the police to come to your home so they can help you (like what is described in this case) counts as being “stopped for a law enforcement purpose”. Having said that, could there be a situation where calling the police to your home to help you evolves into a situation where you are now “stopped for a law enforcement purpose”? Yes, I think so. How would that happen? Here’s an easy example that’s happened before. Someone calls the police to come take a report for some reason. When the Officer gets there the caller lets the Officer into their home. While the Officer is there speaking with the caller, which up to this point had been a consensual encounter, the Officer sees and immediately recognizes some sort of drug paraphernalia sitting on the coffee table in plain sight. This has now changed the encounter from a consensual encounter to something more. At that point, the Officer can physically prevent the caller from tampering or destroying the evidence. The Officer can order the subject to leave their own home while a search warrant is being obtained. The Officer can potentially arrest the caller for possession of drug paraphernalia.
There’s a second component to the notification requirement that is quite often misunderstood. And that’s the “….and is carrying a concealed handgun” portion of the statute. So “stop” + “carrying” = notification requirement. Take either component away and notification is not legally required. But many people, including many officers, don’t understand that. From the article, we don’t have enough information to determine whether or not Heiskill was “carrying”. True, the pistol was in her purse but women don’t normally carry their purses around with them while they are in their own home. Was it in a different room? Was it across the room? If she didn’t have her purse over her shoulder or if her purse wasn’t sitting right next to her, there’s a good chance that she wasn’t “carrying” her pistol with her.
So in the end, until the courts come up with some guidance and define or clarify “stopped for a law enforcement purpose” or the legislature changes the law, there will be a lot of different interpretations of what it means. There are over TWENTY THOUSAND LEOs in Ohio. That means there could be twenty thousand opinions as to what a “stop for a law enforcement purpose purpose” means.
But wait, I forgot about this little part of the statute in the exceptions:(C)(1) This section does not apply to any of the following: (d) A person’s storage or possession of a firearm, other than a firearm described in divisions (G) to (M) of section 2923.11 of the Revised Code, in the actor’s own home for any lawful purpose. So if she’s in her home this section doesn’t even apply, right? Confused yet?
This case is a prime example of the problem with Ohio’s CCW Notification law and why it should be repealed. If you’re interested, here’s my argument (at a House Committee hearing) to repealing the notification law, along with other arguments for and against. I start at the 13 minute mark. The FOP rep didn’t appreciate what I had to say. 
UPDATE: This article makes it sound like she was outside her home when this happened. So once again we are back to – was she “stopped for a law enforcement purpose”?
Stay safe. Carry your gun. And don’t forget to notify 
