Opinion ID: 2382122
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: Deterrence of Illegal Police Conduct

Text: The purpose of the exclusionary rule is to deter law enforcement officers from violating the constitutional rights of citizens by removing the incentive for disregarding such rights. Fidler, 72 Ill.App.3d at 926, 29 Ill.Dec. 51, 391 N.E.2d at 211; see Mustafa, 323 Md. at 73, 591 A.2d at 485; see also Blair, 25 Cal.3d at 655, 159 Cal.Rptr. 818, 602 P.2d at 748; Engel, 249N.J.Super. at 368, 592 A.2d at 587; Capolongo, 85 N.Y.2d at 164, 623 N.Y.S.2d 778, 647 N.E.2d at 1293 ([O]ne State's laws have no deterrent effect on conduct of governmental agents of another jurisdiction.). As the Supreme Court of Hawaii has summarized: Deterrence refers to our expectation that after evidence is suppressed based on particular police conduct in one case, in the future, police officers will refrain from that type of conduct and will instead act in a manner that would not lead to suppression of evidence.... Most authorities recognize that suppression of evidence in the forum state will have little, if any, deterrent effect on agents of the situs state conducting investigations within the situs state.... The lack of any deterrent effect is particularly apparent when the manner in which the evidence was obtained did not violate situs law but would have violated forum law had the evidence been obtained in the forum state. Bridges, 83 Hawai'i at 199, 925 P.2d at 369. There are numerous jurisdictions that have followed an interpretation of admissibility of out-of-state wiretap evidence in the fashion I propose. Our neighboring state of Pennsylvania was first confronted with this issue in Bennett, 245 Pa.Super. 457, 369 A.2d 493. In that case, the Superior Court of New Jersey authorized a wiretap on a telephone located in the state of New Jersey as part of a drug investigation. The surveillance of this telephone was conducted entirely in New Jersey; however, the incoming calls, which discussed illegal drug transactions, were received from Pennsylvania. Based on this information, Pennsylvania police secured a search warrant for the location where the incoming calls were made. The Pennsylvania Superior Court noted that [i]t is, of course, obvious that the courts of this Commonwealth have absolutely no power to control the activities of a sister state or to punish conduct occurring within that sister state. The legislature of New Jersey has determined that wiretapping, in appropriate circumstances and for proper cause shown, will be permitted within its borders. Thus, the information involved in the appeal before us was obtained by the New Jersey Police under a legal authorization. A conclusion that denies the exchange of information between law enforcement agencies of our Commonwealth and those of our sister states cannot be justified. The overriding public policy must ... favor the interest of the public by fostering its protection through the detection and apprehension of those who persist in defying our laws. This is particularly true in the case of major interstate drug dealers whose activities wreck the lives of so many people in this country today. We certainly must extend to all people the protection of constitutional safeguards, but to extend such protection, on the instant facts, would be an unwarranted extension allowing procedure to emerge victorious over justice. Id. at 460-61, 369 A.2d at 494. The same can be said with regard to tapes legally obtained in California used in a Maryland court in a case of contract murder by a Michigan resident. Suppressing such evidence does not promote the reasoning behind the deterrence factor. In Lucas, 372 N.W.2d 731, a case strikingly similar to the case sub judice, the Supreme Court of Minnesota ruled on the admissibility of wiretaps obtained out-ofstate in a killing for insurance scheme. The court stated, as to taped conversations, that where the seizure of evidence was valid under the law of the place where the search occurred but where it would be regarded as unlawful if it had occurred in the forum state[,] ... the forum state should not suppress it.... Id. at 736-37. Another factually similar contract murder case was decided by the Supreme Court of Florida in Echols v. State, 484 So.2d 568 (Fla.1985). In that case, the defendant was contracted by Alex Dragovich to murder Waldamar Baskovich to get control of the victim's estate. The murder occurred in Clearwater, Florida; however, a bulk of the investigation took place in Gary, Indiana. In Indiana, a police informant wore a wire; with a small hidden tape recorder and questioned Echols about the murder in Florida. Echols boastfully responded that he had participated in the murder. When Florida prosecutors attempted to use the taped conversation against Echols, he argued that although the tape would be admissible under Indiana law, Florida law, the law of the forum, should apply, which would render the tape inadmissible. The Florida Supreme Court disagreed and held that: Florida's interests are [not] served by excluding relevant evidence which was lawfully obtained in Indiana in conformity with the United States Constitution and Indiana law. The primary purpose of the exclusionary rule is to deter future official police misconduct. We do not believe exclusion of the evidence would have any discernable effect on police officers of other states who conduct investigations in accordance with the laws of their state and of the United States Constitution. Further, we do not believe that the interest of Florida is served by imperially attempting to require that out-of-state police officials follow Florida law, and not the law of the situs, when they are requested to cooperate with Florida officials in investigating crimes committed in Florida. Id. at 571-72 (emphasis added) (citations omitted). Perry was a resident of Detroit, Michigan; Horn was then residing in Los Angeles, California. There was substantial, albeit circumstantial, evidence that the conspiracy to murder Horn's son and wife was conceived in substantial part while the co-conspirators were in Michigan and California. While in Michigan, Horn complained to a cousin, who was a friend of Perry's, about his problems with his relationship with Mildred Horn. The cousin told him of Perry and assisted Horn in contacting Perry. After the murders, the cousin in Michigan continued to facilitate the relationship between Perry and Horn. Before and after the murders, there were numerous telephone calls between pay phones near where Perry was living in Michigan to Horn's phone in California, and from pay phones in California to Perry in Michigan. Additionally, $6,000 believed to be payment, or partial payment, for the murders was transferred under a fictitious name from Los Angeles, where Horn was then staying, to Perry's girlfriend in Michigan. Presuming that California's conspiracy laws are similar to Maryland's, the application of Mustafa's holding to the case at bar could result, should California choose to try Horn for conspiracy to commit murder, in the recording being admissible in the state where the conspiracy to commit the crime was made and where the recording was lawfully made, but not in the jurisdiction where the murders were actually committed. I respectfully suggest that such a result would also be absurd. Under Mustafa, a criminal conspirator in Illinois, who has never been in Maryland, who records, without the co-conspirator's knowledge, a telephone conversation from the co-conspirator in California, who also has never been in Maryland, violates the Maryland Wiretap Act at the time the recording is made. This is because the exclusionary clause relied on in Mustafa excludes only evidence obtained and/or disclosed in violation of the Maryland statute, and the Court held in Mustafa that acts committed elsewhere violate the Maryland statute for exclusionary purposes. To me, this makes little sense and, as this case evidences, is unsound in practice and, as I view it, incongruous. Under Mustafa, a recording of a communication from Cape Canaveral, made by an astronaut standing on the surface of the moon, recorded without NASA's consent, would not be admissible in Maryland's courts because it would violate the Maryland Act if the parties had been in Maryland. Because violations of the Maryland Act are felonies, is the astronaut a felon? I hasten to indicate that I consider this example to be absurd; but that is the point. The Maryland Wiretap Act also contains civil liability provisions similar to the criminal liability provisions. Section 10-410 provides in relevant part: (a) Civil liability. Any person whose... communication is intercepted, disclosed, or used in violation of this subtitle shall have a civil cause of action against any person who intercepts, discloses, or uses, or procures any other person to intercept, disclose, or use the communications, and be entitled to recover from any person: (1) Actual damages but not less than liquidated damages computed at the rate of $100 a day for each day of violation or $1,000, whichever is higher; (2) Punitive damages; and (3) A reasonable attorney's fee and other litigation costs reasonably incurred. [Second emphasis added.] If Mustafa 's holding were to be extended to these civil penalty provisions, [10] persons in other states and countries receiving and recording calls made from Maryland, could be subjected to civil liability in Maryland courts, even though their state's statutes permit the recording upon the receiving party's consent. In my view, that, too, would be absurd. Under Mustafa, conversations between callers in different states, each of which has the one-party consent standard, if recorded in a state where it is legal to do so, from a state in which it was legal to do so, would still not be admissible in Maryland courts. If the parties thereafter moved into Maryland, could the one whose conversation had, without his consent, been legally recorded elsewhere, initiate a civil suit under the Maryland statute and Mustafa 's extra-territorial extension of Maryland's jurisdiction? I believe that it was the intention of the Legislature to regulate the recordings of such messages when the recording is done in this State, not elsewhere in the universe. Moreover, what wrong does this type of extraterritorial application of the exclusionary rule address? In a case such as this, no agent of this State has done anything wrong. If the exclusion of the evidence is designed to punish the State, for what is the State being punished? It has not done anything wrong. Is the purpose to teach a lesson to the police and residents of California? We should have no interest in California's treatment of such recordings. Moreover, their actions were legal. In this case, Horn is not the opposing party that sought the admission of the recording. Obviously, we are not punishing him. What purpose does the extension of Mustafa serve? To whom are we teaching a lesson? Certainly not Horn. Certainly not California. Certainly not the police involved in the case. The answer to all of these questions apparently is Mustafa. I believe in the importance of precedent and stare decisis; but, where adherence to the holdings of prior cases leads to the reversal of the convictions of a Michigan contract killer who has murdered three Maryland residents, including the California co-conspirator's own disabled child, because the coconspirator legally recorded a telephone message in California, the price of the precedent is too great for my adherence. Mustafa should be overruled. If not overruled, it should be distinguished. While the Maryland police officer supervising the paid informant in Mustafa asserted that he did not know that the informant was taping the calls in the District of Columbia where it was legal to do so, the informant was, nonetheless, actively participating as an agent of the officers in attempting to have a drug transaction take place in Maryland. The State had agreed to pay $2,500 to the informant if the informant would set up the drug buy. The informant enticed Mustafa's co-defendant, Andarge Asfaw, into helping set up a drug transaction. The attempts to set up the transaction took place by phone between the informant's Washington residence and Prince George's County. The informant taped the calls, which was legal in the District. The person taping the calls in Mustafa was acting at the general direction of the Maryland officers. At least to some significant extent, the informant, in respect to the specific investigation, was acting as an agent of the police, although the informant was not within the physical jurisdiction of this State. [11] Mustafa, therefore, involved extraterritorial Maryland police action, in direct support of a Maryland police investigation. At least an argument could be made in Mustafa that a Maryland police officer was being penalized, being taught to keep better control over his paid informant. In the case sub judice, the recording was not made as a part of a police investigation. It was made, not by an informant, but, by a co-conspirator to murder, and the recording itself did not result from the payment of Maryland funds and was legally made in California. Assuming that the purpose of the act is to deter surreptitious recordings, who is being deterred by the exclusion of this evidence? Not the police. Not Horn. Not Perry. He is getting away with murder. I understand the majority's adherence, under the doctrine of stare decisis, to Mustafa 's extraterritorial extension of the Maryland statute's application. As I perceive it, however, it is an example of bad cases making bad law. Now, if co-conspirators record their conversations, unknown to each other and to the authorities, no part of those conversations, if discovered, will be admissible in Maryland, even if no part of the conversations occurred in Maryland and if the recording of them elsewhere was legal. I see no justification for the application of the extreme Mustafa. rule in this case.