Court Opinion

ID: 9531683
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:13:52.559547+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:33.760454
License: Public Domain

HOWE, Justice
(concurring in the result):
I concur in the result. However, I prefer to rest my concurrence in the denial of the defendant’s pretrial motion to suppress the evidence seized from his pack upon the ground that he has not provided us with a record by which we may review that ruling. I do not subscribe to the holding in the majority opinion that the ruling is not reviewable because the defendant failed at the trial to object to the admission of the evidence.
Rule 12 of the Utah Rules of Criminal Procedure (codified as U.C.A., 1953, § 77-35-12) provides in pertinent part:
(a) ...
*83(b) Any defense, objection or request including request for ruling on the admissibility of evidence, which is capable of determination without the trial of the general issue may be raised prior to trial by written motion. The following shall be raised at least five days prior to the trial:
(1) .. .
(2) Motions concerning the admissibility of evidence;
(c) A motion made before trial shall be determined before trial unless the court for good cause orders that the ruling be deferred for later determination. Where factual issues are involved in determining a motion, the court shall state its findings on the record.
The foregoing rule appears to be permissive only whereas its counterpart in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Rule 12(b)(3), as amended in 1975, requires that motions to suppress evidence be made before trial. However, both rules have the same purpose: to eliminate from the trial disputes over police conduct not immediately relevant to the question of guilt. Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697, 78 A.L.R.2d 233 (1960). It therefore makes sense that pretrial proceedings be designed to expedite trials by deciding issues collateral to guilt or innocence prior to the trial. However, any economy which is gained is soon lost if the motion must again be made, presented and argued by counsel at the trial and the trial judge must hear the same evidence. See United States v. Barletta, D.C.Mass., 500 F.Supp. 739 (1980).
Under the ruling of the majority opinion, a proper objection must be made to the admission of evidence which the defendant has theretofore unsuccessfully sought to suppress so that the trial judge may examine anew the ruling made by another judge of the same court. In my opinion such practice is not only an unnecessary expenditure of effort on the part of the trial court and counsel but more seriously, it offers the defendant two opportunities to convince two different judges of the merits of his motion. I do not think that was the intention of our Rule 12. Subsection (c) implies this by its direction that a pretrial motion should be determined before trial unless the court for good cause orders that the ruling be deferred for later determination. This provision is to take care of those situations where the judge hearing the pretrial motion concludes that it would be better to defer ruling on the motion to the trial judge who can better determine it after some or all of the evidence is in. This is obviously a salutary practice. However, when the judge hearing the pretrial motion has ruled, that should end the matter and the defendant should not be required nor given another opportunity to present the matter. The denial of such a motion should be reviewable on appeal without requiring the defendant to again object at the trial. See United States v. Hopkins, 433 F.2d 1041 (5th Cir. 1970). This result also eliminates the problem of one district judge overruling another judge of the same court, which we generally have not allowed. Matter of Estate of Cassity, Utah, 656 P.2d 1023 (1982); See also United States v. Jaffe, D.C.D.C., 98 F.Supp. 191 (1951).
STEWART, J., concurs in the concurring in the result opinion of HOWE, J.