Opinion ID: 1441601
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Fourth Amendment and the State Constitution

Text: One could reasonably conclude, as the court of appeals did here, that the so called confirmatory search in this case was reasonable. After all, the initial warrantless entry was, as the majority acknowledges, justified by exigent circumstances, and one could reasonably argue that the confirmatory search added no constitutionally recognizable quantum of further intrusion into the defendant's privacy. Thus, if reasonableness alone were the test under the Fourth Amendment, then, as argued by Justice Scalia in California v. Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565, 581-85, 111 S.Ct. 1982, 1992-94, 114 L.Ed.2d 619 (1991) (Scalia, J., concurring), there would simply be no Fourth Amendment violation here. That his view did not prevail suggests that under the Fourth Amendment a warrant is required in certain cases even where a search is otherwise reasonable. [1] Yet, Fourth Amendment law is fluid. See, e.g., Soldal v. Cook County, 506 U.S. 56, 71, 113 S.Ct. 538, 549, 121 L.Ed.2d 450 (1992) (`reasonableness is still the ultimate standard' under the Fourth Amendment). See also, United States v. Santiago, 846 F. Supp. 1486, 1489-90 (D.Wyo. 1994) (Although Justice Scalia's concurrence in Acevedo was not joined by any other Justices, the Court's most recent cases interpreting the Fourth Amendment have started down Justice Scalia's path.). Unlike the Fourth Amendment, Article 2, § 8 of the Arizona Constitution has no warrant clause. It would thus be anomalous to have a reasonableness test, and not a per se warrant requirement, under the Fourth Amendment, yet require a warrant under the Arizona Constitution. That is why it is important for us to decide this case under the Fourth Amendment. Our goal is to keep the Arizona exclusionary rule uniform with the federal. State v. Bolt, 142 Ariz. 260, 269, 689 P.2d 519, 528 (1984). As this court has said, [i]t is poor judicial policy for rules governing the suppression of evidence to differ depending upon whether the defendant is arrested by federal or state officers. Id. By deciding this case as though it were predominately one under the state constitution, the majority seeks to immunize its decision from federal judicial review. [2] But this is a close case. If we are wrong about it, we should want the Supreme Court to have an opportunity to review it because we would not want a state rule to be more restrictive than the federal rule in this area for all the reasons this court stated so ably in State v. Bolt, 142 Ariz. at 268-69, 689 P.2d at 527-28. If it is still true that we do not want to exclude more evidence under the Arizona Constitution than we have to under the Fourth Amendment, then it is poor judicial policy, id. at 269, 689 P.2d at 528, to decide a state constitutional issue that is not properly preserved.