Court Opinion

ID: 9718618
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:28:09.75765+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:00.765465
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(concurring). The principle which assures citizens the privacy and security of their homes is embodied in art. I, sec. 11 of the Wisconsin Constitution1 as well as in the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution.2 It is important that *598the independent state constitutional basis of our decision be emphasized. The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly remanded cases to state supreme courts with the direction that the state court specify whether its decision rests on the state constitution, the federal constitution, or both. See e.g., California v. Krivda, 409 U.S. 33 (1972). Just this year, the United States Supreme Court directed that we articulate the constitutional basis of our decision in State ex rel. Terry v. Schubert, 74 Wis.2d 487, 247 N.W.2d 109 (1976). Percy v. Terry, 434 U.S. 808, 98 S. Ct. 40 (1977).
Long before it was constrained to do so by the fourth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, this court relying on the Wisconsin Constitution sustained and enforced the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures. In Hoyer v. State, 180 Wis. 407, 417, 193 N.W. 89 (1923), Mr. Justice Eschweiler, writing for the court, described the importance of sec. 11, art. I of the Wisconsin Constitution to the people of the state as follows:
“Sec. 11, art. I, Wis. Const., supra, is a pledge of the faith of the state government that the people of the state, all alike (with no express or possible mental reservation that it is for the good and innocent only), shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable search and seizure. This security has vanished and the pledge is violated by the state that guarantees it when officers of the state, acting under color of state-given authority, search and seize unlawfully. The pledge of this provision and that of sec. 8 are each violated when use is made of such evidence in one of its own courts by other of its officers. That a proper result — that is, a conviction of one really guilty of *599an offense — may be thus reached is neither an excuse for nor a condonation of the use by the state of that which is so the result of its own violation of its own fundamental charter.”
Mr. Chief Justice Yinje similarly viewed the state constitutional guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure as a fundamental part of the organic law of this state:
“. . . It is also said that, if searches such as this cannot be made, the prohibition law cannot be enforced. This may be true in part or it may be true in whole. The answer is that an article of the constitution having its origin in the spirit if not in the letter of the Magna Carta prevents it, and that it is the duty of the court to sustain and enforce the constitution in its entirety, and not to permit what may seem to be presently a desirable mode of procedure to annul such fundamental portions of our organic law as the freedom from unlawful searches. The importance of such a provision may be lost sight of in times of peace in a well-organized and well-administered state, but in times of stress or dissensions its value is as great as those who inserted it in the constitution conceived it to be.” Jokosh v. State, 181 Wis. 160, 163, 193 N.W. 976 (1923).
Our decision today is in keeping with this court’s longstanding interpretation of sec. 11, art. I of the state constitution.

 Sec. 11, art. I, Wis. Const., provides:
“The right oí the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated; and no warrant shall issue but upon probable ■cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.”

 Fourth Amendment, U. S. Const., provides:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, *598shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”