Court Opinion

ID: 9854360
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:06:23.642707+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:02.421306
License: Public Domain

Justice MEYER
dissenting.
I join the well-reasoned dissenting opinion of Justice Mitchell, and wish to add the following.
The majority dismisses the very recent United States Supreme Court case, Illinois v. Krull, 480 U.S. —, 94 L.Ed. 2d 364 (1987), as a 5 to 4 decision which fails to address the “judicial integrity” justification for the exclusionary rule. In my view, this cavalier dismissal is a serious error. As a practical matter, the United States Supreme Court frequently divides rather sharply on hotly debated issues such as this one. See, e.g., United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 82 L.Ed. 2d 677 (1984) (6 to 3); United States v. Havens, 446 U.S. 620, 64 L.Ed. 2d 559 (1980) (5 to 4); Michigan v. DeFillipo, 443 U.S. 31, 61 L.Ed. 2d 343 (1979) (6 to 3). It is unwise to ignore the teachings of the majority opinion in such cases.
In my view, the case before the Court today is indistinguishable from Krull. There, a detective searched an automobile wrecking yard under authorization of a section of the Illinois Vehicle Code granting police officers wide latitude to make warrantless inspections of the records and premises of automobile parts dealers. The statute was later found to be unconstitutional. Here, the SBI agent and assistant district attorney made application for a nontestimonial identification order requesting that, among other things, a blood sample be taken from defendant. The order was improperly issued, since under State v. Irick, 291 N.C. 480, 231 S.E. 2d 833 (1977), article 14 of chapter 15A of the North Carolina General Statutes does not apply to an in-custody accused. In Krull, the United States Supreme Court held that its decision in United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 82 L.Ed. 2d 677, controlled the facts before it. Under Leon, the exclusionary rule does not apply to evidence obtained by a police officer who acts in objective*731ly reasonable reliance on a search warrant issued by a neutral magistrate that is later found to be defective. Id. at 922, 82 L.Ed. 2d at 698; see Note, Illinois v. Krull: Extending the Fourth Amendment Exclusionary Rule’s Good Faith Exception to Warrantless Searches Authorized by Statute, 66 N.C.L. Rev. 781, 784 (1988). In Krull, the Supreme Court encountered no problems in analogizing the situation in which a police officer acts in reasonable reliance on an unconstitutional warrant to one in which he acts under the authority of what turns out to be an unconstitutional statute. So it should be in the case before this Court. Here we have a law enforcement officer acting in objectively reasonable reliance upon an order issued by a judge which was later found to have been improperly issued. If this Court followed Krull, the evidence deduced from the blood sample drawn from defendant would be properly admissible.
As the majority points out, when interpreting the Federal Constitution, we adopted the Leon holding and extended it to a case not involving a defective search warrant in State v. Welch, 316 N.C. 578, 342 S.E. 2d 789 (1986). In Welch, this Court held that the obtaining of a blood sample from an in-custody defendant by use of a nontestimonial order was an unreasonable search and seizure under the United States Constitution, but that since the officers acted in good faith in obtaining the blood through the nontestimonial order, the evidence need not be excluded. State v. Welch, 316 N.C. 578, 342 S.E. 2d 789. Under the logic of Welch, this Court should hold that the evidence derived from the blood drawn in this case should also not be suppressed since the seizure was in good faith. This is especially so since the samples were obtained from the defendant in the case sub judice before this Court’s decision in Welch went down. The failure of the majority to give this case the same treatment as Welch is the worst sort of judicial arbitrariness.
The State here, in obtaining a nontestimonial order and in making the minor intrusions required to draw blood or get pubic and head hair samples, was acting in objectively reasonable reliance upon an order issued by a judge pursuant to statutory authority. See, e.g., State v. Kuplen, 316 N.C. 387, 343 S.E. 2d 793 (1986); State v. Young, 317 N.C. 396, 346 S.E. 2d 626 (1986). Logic demands that the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule be *732properly extended to apply to the facts in the case before us today.
This Court ought not, on the basis of state constitutional law, reject the good faith exception to the federal exclusionary rule enunciated in United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 82 L.Ed. 2d 677, and Massachusetts v. Sheppard, 468 U.S. 981, 82 L.Ed. 2d 737 (1984). The law of search and seizure under the North Carolina Constitution should be interpreted as being no more restrictive than the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution. Article I, section 20 of the Constitution of North Carolina has generally been read as being the functional equivalent of the fourth amendment. See State v. Kornegay, 313 N.C. 1, 326 S.E. 2d 881; State v. Arrington, 311 N.C. 633, 319 S.E. 2d 254 (1984). In interpreting article I, section 20, this Court has generally relied on United States Supreme Court decisions on the fourth amendment as persuasive authority. See, e.g., State v. Arrington, 311 N.C. 633, 319 S.E. 2d 254.
As stated in State v. Vestal, 278 N.C. 561, 577, 180 S.E. 2d 755, 766 (1971), “there is no variance between the law of this State as declared by the decisions of this Court . . . and the requirements of the Fourth Amendment as interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States.” See also State v. Kornegay, 313 N.C. 1, 326 S.E. 2d 881 (1985). In State v. Hendricks, 43 N.C. App. 245, 258 S.E. 2d 872 (1979), cert. denied, 299 N.C. 123, 262 S.E. 2d 6 (1980), our Court of Appeals stated:
Though the language in the North Carolina Constitution (Article I, Sec. 20), providing in substance that any search or seizure must be “supported by evidence,” is markedly different from that in the federal constitution, there is no variance between the search and seizure law of North Carolina and the requirements of the Fourth Amendment as interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States.
Id. at 251-52, 258 S.E. 2d at 877.
There is no reason, compelling or otherwise, for this Court to find there to be different exclusionary standards under the North Carolina Constitution than the United States Constitution. A dual set of rules and exclusionary standards will create a burdensome set of highly sophisticated rules which in no way furthers the ob*733jectives of the fourth amendment or article I, section 20 of the North Carolina Constitution. As pointed out in another context:
“[T]he exclusionary ruleQ is primarily intended to regulate the police in their day-to-day activities and thus ought to be expressed in terms that are readily applicable by the police in the context of the law enforcement activities in which they are necessarily engaged. A highly sophisticated set of rules, qualified by all sorts of ifs, ands, and buts and requiring the drawing of subtle nuances and hairline distinctions, may be the sort of heady stuff upon which the facile minds of lawyers and judges eagerly feed, but they may be ‘literally impossible of application by the officer in the field.’ ”
New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 458, 69 L.Ed. 2d 768, 773-74, reh’g denied, 453 U.S. 950, 69 L.Ed. 2d 1036 (1981) (quoting LaFave, “Case-by-Case Adjudication” Versus “Standardized Procedures”: The Robinson Dilemma, 1974 Sup. Ct. Rev. 127, 141).
Since the search and seizure portions of the North Carolina Constitution have heretofore been interpreted in light of the United States Constitution, I believe that the majority has grievously erred in ignoring the rationale of Illinois v. Krull, 480 U.S. —, 94 L.Ed. 2d 364, and instead creating different exclusionary rules depending upon whether the state or federal Constitutions are invoked by a defendant making a suppression motion.
Justices Mitchell and Webb join in this dissenting opinion.