Court Opinion

ID: 9797853
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:30:47.503211+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:59:15.768171
License: Public Domain

SUTIN, Judge, specially concurring. {26} I agree in the result. I would overrule State v. Snyder, 1998-NMCA-166, 126 N.M. 168, 967 P.2d 843, instead of rendering it only brain dead. I think the majority’s fair warning in paragraphs 17-21 should be law rather than warning. {27} While Snyder may have been properly analyzed under our usual approach requiring a particularized showing of exigent circumstances, see Gomez, 1997-NMSC-006, ¶ 39, 122 N.M. 777, 932 P.2d 1, I think it is time to deviate from that approach in border patrol fixed checkpoint cases. No reason exists in these cases to “defer to the [agent’s] good judgment,” id. ¶ 40, until such time as a good faith attempt to follow established procedures fails and the agent is at a point at which he must choose between a warrantless search and allowing the vehicle to continue on. Thus, unless an exceptional circumstance otherwise exists, no objectively reasonable basis exists for believing exigent circumstances requiring an immediate warrantless search at a border patrol fixed checkpoint are present unless and until the procedures are established and followed. Until then, as in the present case, evidence obtained from a warrantless search should, generally, be barred.