Opinion ID: 1802851
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: feeling their oats

Text: Appreciating that newspapers are not legal authority but often express, succinctly, current mood swings in our country, I deign to refer to the Wall Street Journal, front page, Wednesday, June 15, 1988. This article is captioned Asserting Rights, State Supreme Courts Are Feeling Their Oats About Civil Liberties. Specifically, the State of New Jersey is portrayed as having a Supreme Court which protects, very jealously, individual liberties under the New Jersey State Constitution. And even more specifically, the New Jersey Supreme Court, per the article, veered away from the good faith ruling of the United States Supreme Court when Fourth Amendment scrutiny pertains to probable cause and search warrants. Apparently, the New Jersey Court took the position that it need not experiment with fundamental rights protected by the Fourth Amendment counterpart of our state constitution. The general tenor of the article, both by expressions of state supreme courts and law professors, being that states are utilizing their state constitutions to expand rights beyond those which the United States Supreme Court finds to be protected under the federal constitution. All in all, the article in the Wall Street Journal wins credence to Justice Sabers' viewpoints of protecting citizens' rights under our state constitution to a greater extent than that which is now being done by the United States Supreme Court under the federal constitution. This particular informant, instanter, seemed to have very specific information concerning Saiz. I note that the circuit judge, who issued the search warrant, questioned the affiants. It was certainly not a willy-nilly approach to the issuance of a search warrant. I further note that another circuit judge, who tried this case, denied the motion to suppress, employing the totality of the circumstances test which was resurrected by the United States Supreme Court in Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983). Under State v. O'Connor, 378 N.W.2d 248 (S.D.1985), it appears that this Court approved the totality of the circumstances test which is applicable to probable cause challenges founded under art. VI, § 11, of the S.D. Constitution. It would appear to me that the Aguilar and Spinelli two-pronged probable cause test is old hat in South Dakota by virtue of the opinion in O'Connor, written by Circuit Judge Marshall Young, who was substituting for a disqualified Justice. I am truly convinced, therefore, that the exclusionary rule should not be imposed in this case for the reason that these law enforcement officers acted objectively, in good faith, and there were no transgressions on their part. Many writers and students of the law seem to have lost sight of the fact that the exclusionary rule was never intended to become a personal constitutional right but, rather, was implemented to guard Fourth Amendment rights. Surely, the exclusionary rule was designed to prevent and deter police misconduct rather than to punish any error of a judge or magistrate. Massachusetts v. Sheppard, 468 U.S. at 990, 104 S.Ct. at 3429, 82 L.Ed.2d at 745. There is simply no police misconduct whatsoever in this case and there was careful consideration of the presentation of the affidavits by Circuit Judge Tschetter, who also saw fit to personally question the affiants. Under all of the circumstances, I can comfortably join the majority opinion without benefit of taking a soft approach to the rights created by our own state constitution.