52
Stevens, J., dissenting
ceding the Ohio Supreme Court's opinion or the validity of that rule as a matter of Ohio law. Nevertheless the risk that the narrowness of the Court's holding may not be fully understood prompts these additional words.
There is no rule of federal law that precludes Ohio from requiring its police officers to give its citizens warnings that will help them to understand whether a valid traffic stop has come to an end, and will help judges to decide whether a reasonable person would have felt free to leave under the circumstances at issue in any given case.11 Nor, as I have previously observed, is there anything "in the Federal Constitution that prohibits a State from giving lawmaking power to its courts." Minnesota v. Clover Leaf Creamery Co., 449 U. S. 456, 479, and n. 3 (1981) (dissenting opinion). Thus, as far as we are concerned, whether Ohio acts through one branch of its government or another, it has the same power to enforce a warning rule as other States that may adopt such rules by executive action.12
11 Indeed, we indicated in Florida v. Bostick, 501 U. S. 429, 437 (1991), that the fact a defendant had been explicitly advised that he could refuse to give consent was relevant to the question whether he was seized at the time consent was sought. And, in other cases, we have stressed the importance of similar advice as a circumstance supporting the conclusion that a consent to search was voluntary. See Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218, 227 (1973); United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U. S. 544, 558- 559 (1980). Cf. Washington v. Chrisman, 455 U. S. 1, 9 (1982) (consent to search was voluntary where defendant "consented, in writing, . . . after being advised that his consent must be voluntary and that he had an absolute right to refuse consent").
12 As we are informed by a brief amicus curiae filed by Americans For Effective Law Enforcement, Inc.: "Such a warning may be good police practice, and indeed amicus knows that many law enforcement agencies among our constituents have routinely incorporated a warning into their Fourth Amendment consent forms that they use in the field, but it is precisely that—a practice and not a constitutional imperative. An officer who includes such a warning in his request for consent undoubtedly presents a stronger case for a finding of voluntariness in a suppression hearing, and we would not suggest that such agencies and officers do other-
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