Court Opinion

ID: 9561463
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:10:06.081916+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:49.652724
License: Public Domain

HOWE, Associate Chief Justice
(concurring and dissenting):
I concur in that part of the majority opinion which rejects all four of Zissi’s challenges to the constitutionality of the Stamp Act.
I dissent from that part which holds that the roadblock was illegal. I would not reach that issue because it is unnecessary *860to do so. I would follow the reasoning of my dissenting opinion in Sims v. Collection Division of Utah State Tax Commission, 841 P.2d 6 (Utah 1992), and hold that, assuming the roadblock was illegal and the search of the truck and seizure of the tablets was unconstitutional, the exclusionary rule should not be applied to bar admission of the drugs in evidence before the Commission. My reasoning was that proceedings before the Commission to enforce the Stamp Act are civil in nature and that the exclusionary rule should only be applied in criminal proceedings. Also, I pointed out that imposition of the exclusionary rule would serve no useful purpose because the Commission played no part in either setting up the roadblock or the search and seizure that followed. The police officers have already been punished by the suppression of the seized evidence in Sims’ criminal prosecution. The same reasons apply in the instant case.
The majority opinion in Sims, in holding that proceedings before the Commission are quasi-criminal in nature, relied heavily on the fact that a 100 percent penalty is imposed by the Stamp Act. In my dissenting opinion, I observed that the penalty was no heavier than is imposed in both federal and civil tax proceedings on erring taxpayers. It is interesting that now, in the instant case, the majority agrees that the penalty is no heavier than is found in our income tax code, which admittedly is a civil, not a quasi-criminal, penalty. States the majority:
Utah prescribes heavy penalties for [income] tax evasion. Although the Stamp Act’s penalty of 100 percent is among the most severe in Utah law, it is by no means unique. For instance, Utah imposes a penalty of 100 percent of underpaid tax when that underpayment is due to fraud with intent to evade the tax. See Utah Code Ann. § 59-l-401(3)(d).
The above statement from the majority opinion in this case effectively undercuts one of the chief bases for the majority opinion in Sims.
I would affirm the Commission.
HALL, C.J., concurs in the concurring and dissenting opinion of HOWE, Associate C.J.