Case Title: Logan v. Commonwealth

Citation: 

Docket Number: 090706

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 2010-01-15T00:00:00Z

Document:
Present:  Hassell, C.J., Keenan, Koontz, Kinser, Lemons, 
          and Millette, JJ., and Russell, S.J. 
 
JAMES GREGORY LOGAN 
             OPINION BY 
SENIOR JUSTICE CHARLES S. RUSSELL 
v.  Record No. 090706  
           January 15, 2010 
 
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
This appeal requires us to revisit the question of the 
application of the exclusionary rule to probation revocation 
proceedings.  Reaffirming our holding in Anderson v. 
Commonwealth, 251 Va. 437, 470 S.E.2d 862 (1996), we hold that 
the exclusionary rule is not applicable in probation 
revocation proceedings absent a showing of bad faith on the 
part of the police. 
Facts and Proceedings 
 
On August 22, 2003, Danville Police Officer Jerry L. Pace 
followed James Gregory Logan into a rooming house under the 
mistaken apprehension that Logan was a man named Chappell for 
whom there was an outstanding felony warrant.  Logan, a 
resident of the rooming house, was standing on the second-
floor landing of a stairway leading upward from the entrance 
hall.  Officer Pace saw Logan hand a piece of crack cocaine to 
another person and arrested him for possession of cocaine.  
This event gave rise to a ramified chain of proceedings 
leading to the present appeal. 
 
Logan’s motion to suppress the Commonwealth’s evidence on 
Fourth Amendment grounds was denied by the Circuit Court of 
the City of Danville, which held that Logan had no expectation 
of privacy in the common areas of the rooming house.  He was 
convicted of possession of cocaine and sentenced to four years 
and six months imprisonment, with three years suspended.  That 
conviction was reversed by the Court of Appeals sitting en 
banc on the ground that the evidence obtained pursuant to the 
officer’s warrantless entry into the rooming house violated 
Logan’s rights under the Fourth Amendment.  Logan v. 
Commonwealth, 47 Va. App. 168, 622 S.E.2d 771 (2005)1 (Logan 
II).  The Commonwealth did not appeal that reversal. 
 
At all times pertinent to Logan II, Logan was on 
probation for an earlier conviction, in the same circuit 
court, for distribution of cocaine as an accommodation in 2001 
(Logan I).  In that case he was sentenced, on March 15, 2002, 
to five years imprisonment.  The sentence was suspended, 
conditioned upon Logan’s serving one year and five months 
imprisonment, followed by 12 months of supervised probation, 
with Logan to be of good behavior for three years and six 
months after his release from probation. 
                     
1 The Court of Appeals, en banc, affirmed the prior 
decision of a panel of the Court, but did so on the narrow 
ground that the Commonwealth had conceded that the rooming 
house was not open to the general public.  Id. 
 
2
 
After the conviction in Logan II, the officer supervising 
Logan’s probation under Logan I reported to the court that 
Logan had not been of good behavior based upon the facts 
leading to his conviction in Logan II.  Logan was brought 
before the court on a rule to show cause and counsel was 
appointed for him, but the revocation hearing was continued 
until the Court of Appeals decided Logan II.  After the Court 
of Appeals reversed the conviction in Logan II, Logan’s 
counsel moved the circuit court to dismiss the rule to show 
cause, contending that the Commonwealth’s effort to revoke 
Logan's probation from Logan I was now based solely upon a 
conviction that had been vacated.  The Commonwealth asked the 
court to revoke probation notwithstanding the reversal, based 
not upon the conviction but upon Logan’s failure to be of good 
behavior.  The circuit court denied the motion to dismiss and 
entered an order revoking suspension of the sentence imposed 
in Logan I. 
 
Logan appealed the revocation order to the Court of 
Appeals.  A panel of that Court held, based upon federal 
decisions, that the exclusionary rule is never applicable in 
probation revocation proceedings.  Logan v. Commonwealth, 50 
Va. App. 518, 524, 651 S.E.2d 403, 406 (2007).  We awarded 
Logan an appeal from that judgment and reversed it, remanding 
the case to the Court of Appeals for consideration of Logan’s 
 
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contention that the circuit court had erred in finding that 
Officer Pace had not acted in bad faith.  In so ruling, we 
held that the Court of Appeals’ reliance on federal decisions 
was misplaced and that the application of the exclusionary 
rule to probation revocation proceedings continued to be as we 
expressed it in Anderson.  Logan v. Commonwealth, 276 Va. 533, 
535-36, 666 S.E.2d 346, 347-48 (2008). 
 
Upon remand, the Court of Appeals held that the record 
contained no evidence to support a finding that Officer Pace 
had acted in bad faith.  The officer testified that he had 
been in the rooming house on prior occasions and had seen no 
signs to indicate that it was not open to the general public.2 
The Court concluded that, although the Commonwealth later 
conceded that the rooming house was not in fact open to the 
general public, “[the fact that the officer] was mistaken, 
however, does not mean that he acted in bad faith.”  Logan v. 
Commonwealth, 53 Va. App. 520, 526, 673 S.E.2d 496, 499 
(2009).  The Court of Appeals affirmed the circuit court’s 
determination that Officer Pace’s actions did not warrant the 
                     
2 Another witness testified that there were signs at and 
near the front door saying “No Trespassing” and “Ring or Knock 
to Enter.”  Officer Pace testified that the only signs he saw 
said merely “Rooms.”  He said that when he entered, “it was a 
storm door, and there’s a wooden door on the inside, but at 
that particular time it was standing open.” 
 
 
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exclusion of his evidence at the probation revocation hearing.  
Id. at 527, 673 S.E.2d at 499.  We awarded Logan an appeal. 
Analysis 
 
In Anderson, we said: 
 
We hold that the exclusionary rule is not 
applicable in a probation revocation proceeding 
absent a showing of bad faith on the part of the 
police.  There is a strong public interest in 
receiving all evidence relevant to the question 
whether a probationer has complied with the 
conditions of probation.  Application of the 
exclusionary rule in a probation revocation 
proceeding would frustrate the remedial and 
protective purposes of the probation system, because 
a court would not be permitted to consider relevant 
evidence of the probationer's rehabilitation or 
regression. 
 
251 Va. at 440, 470 S.E.2d at 863.  We continue to adhere to 
that holding.  In Anderson, we explained the difference 
between the application of the exclusionary rule in a criminal 
trial and its application in probation revocation proceedings.  
The rule is a judicially-created remedy, not an individual’s 
constitutional right.  The purpose of the rule is to deter 
future unlawful police conduct.  Exclusion of unlawfully 
seized evidence at trial makes its seizure profitless to the 
police.  Excluding it in a probation revocation proceeding 
will ordinarily serve only to impede the search for truth 
where the inquiry is whether the defendant has violated the 
terms of his probation.  Id.  
 
5
 
The circuit court made an express factual finding that 
the officer did not act in bad faith.  Such findings are 
binding upon appeal unless they are plainly wrong or without 
evidence to support them because the credibility of witnesses 
and the weight accorded to evidence are matters solely for the 
fact-finder, who has an opportunity to see and hear that 
evidence as it is presented.  Elliott v. Commonwealth, 277 Va. 
457, 462-63, 675 S.E.2d 178, 181 (2009).  
 
“Bad faith,” in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, is not 
the mere opposite of “good faith,” as those terms have been 
judicially defined.  In applying the bad faith exception 
stated in Anderson, exclusion of proof is warranted only upon 
a showing of conscious wrongdoing by an officer.3  Absence of 
the objective “good faith” required for certain constitutional 
exceptions to the warrant requirement is not sufficient to 
trigger the exclusionary rule in probation revocation 
proceedings. The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly 
refused to apply Fourth Amendment exclusion standards to 
probation revocation proceedings.  Pennsylvania Bd. of Prob. & 
Parole v. Scott, 524 U.S. 357, 363-64 (1998). 
                     
3 “Bad faith” is defined differently in the civil context, 
but even there it connotes the “conscious doing of a wrong.” 
See Black’s Law Dictionary 139 (6th ed. 1990). 
 
 
6
 
A “good faith” analysis, in Fourth Amendment cases, turns 
upon a purely objective determination: the conclusion an 
objective police officer would reasonably have drawn under the 
circumstances known to him at the time of the search rather 
than the officer’s subjective motivation or state of mind.  
Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 404 (2006); Illinois v. 
Krull, 480 U.S. 340, 349-50 (1987); United States v. Leon, 468 
U.S. 897, 922 n.23 (1984); Robinson v. Commonwealth, 273 Va. 
26, 34-38, 639 S.E.2d 217, 222-24 (2007). 
 
A “bad faith” analysis, by contrast, turns almost 
entirely upon the subjective motivation or state of mind of 
the police officer making the search.  In order to invoke the 
exclusionary rule in a probation revocation case, the evidence 
must show that the officer making the search was motivated by 
bias, personal animus, a desire to harass, a conscious intent 
to circumvent the law, or a similar improper motive.  See 
Commonwealth v. Michaliga, 947 A.2d 786, 792-93 (Pa. Super. 
2008) (bad faith is not simply bad judgment or negligence but 
rather it implies conscious wrongdoing); Spencer v. State, 667 
S.E.2d 223, 225 (Ga. Ct. App. 2008) (police must not act in 
bad faith or in an arbitrary or capricious manner when 
searching a probationer); Plue v. State, 721 N.E.2d 308, 310 
(Ind. Ct. App. 1999) (evidence seized illegally will be 
 
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excluded in a revocation proceeding if seized as part of a 
continuing plan of police harassment). 
 
The record in the present case is devoid of evidence that 
would tend to show any such motivation on the part of Officer 
Pace.  Therefore, applying the rule in Anderson, we will 
affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals insofar as it 
upholds the revocation of Logan’s probation and suspended 
sentence. 
 
Four months after we had remanded this case to the Court 
of Appeals for reconsideration of Logan’s bad faith claim, the 
Supreme Court of the United States decided Herring v. United 
States, 555 U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 695 (2009).  That case 
involved the application of the exclusionary rule to evidence 
seized in a search that violated the Fourth Amendment because 
the police were mistakenly told that the defendant was wanted 
on an outstanding warrant in an adjoining county, when in fact 
that warrant had been recalled but the adjoining county’s 
database had not been updated to show the recall.  Herring 
involved the application of the exclusionary rule to evidence 
offered at a criminal trial, not a probation revocation 
proceeding.  On remand, the Court of Appeals nevertheless 
applied the reasoning of Herring to the question of bad faith 
we had directed it to consider.  That application may be read 
to substitute an objective “good faith” test for the 
 
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admissibility, in probation revocation proceedings, of 
evidence that has been seized in violation of the Fourth 
Amendment. 
 
Because we adhere to the requirement that bad faith must 
be shown in order to trigger the application of the 
exclusionary rule in probation revocation proceedings, we 
expressly overrule the opinion of the Court of Appeals in 
Logan v. Commonwealth, 53 Va. App. 520, 673 S.E.2d 209 (2009), 
insofar as it may be read to suggest that our holding in 
Anderson is in any way altered. 
Affirmed. 
 
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