Court Opinion

ID: 9845069
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:14:53.582021+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:51.289429
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting.
It is beyond peradventure that the majority is correct in holding that the conviction for failure to affix a drug stamp must be vacated pursuant to State v. Smith, 120 Idaho 77, 813 P.2d 888 (1991). The majority is not entitled to rely upon California v. Acevedo, — U.S.-, 111 S.Ct. 1982, 114 L.Ed.2d 619 (1991) to justify the search, and errs in doing so.
Acevedo, decided on May 30, 1991, overruled Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. 753, 99 S.Ct. 2586, 61 L.Ed.2d 235 (1979). The search here occurred on December 1, 1989. At that time, pursuant to Sanders, a container inside an automobile could not be searched without a warrant, if the police only had probable cause to search the container (as opposed to probable cause to search the entire car). In Sanders, the police had probable cause to believe a suitcase contained marijuana. They watched the defendant place the suitcase in the trunk of a taxi and allowed the taxi to be driven away. The police pursued the taxi, stopped it, opened up the trunk and searched the suitcase.
The State argued that the officers having probable cause to believe that illegal drugs were in the suitcase were entitled to make a warrantless search. The Supreme Court of the United States disagreed; it held that the search was invalid absent a warrant:
In sum, we hold that the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment applies to luggage taken from an automobile to the same degree it applies to such luggage in other locations. Thus, insofar as police are entitled to search such luggage without a warrant, their actions must be justified under some exception to the warrant requirement other than that applicable to automobiles stopped on the highway. Where — as in the present case — the police, without endangering themselves or risking loss of evidence, lawfully have detained one suspected of criminal activity and detained his suitcase, they should delay the search thereof until after judicial approval has been obtained. In this way constitutional rights of suspects to prior judicial review of searches will be fully protected.
442 U.S. at 766, 99 S.Ct. at 2594 (emphasis added).
At the time of the hearing now in question, Sanders was in place, and cannot be ignored. Application of the Sanders holding would require suppression of the evidence discovered by the officers in rummaging through the red shaving kit.
The district court denied the motion to suppress relying upon United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 102 S.Ct. 2157, 72 L.Ed.2d 572 (1982). In Ross, the Supreme Court upheld a search of an automobile where the police had probable cause to believe illegal drugs were somewhere in the trunk of the defendant’s automobile. However, the Supreme Court was careful to distinguish that case from Sanders where the police only had probable cause to *900search the luggage. The rationale behind the distinction being that if the police have probable cause to believe contraband is somewhere inside a car, they have the right to search the entire car without a warrant because “it is not practicable to secure a warrant because the vehicle can be quickly moved out of the locality or jurisdiction in which the warrant must be sought.” Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 153, 45 S.Ct. 280, 285, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925). In cases where the police have only probable cause to believe contraband is present inside a particular container, that container may be impounded, thus affording the police an opportunity to apply for a warrant. Such a warrant could have authorized the seizure and search of the red shaving kit, assuming of course that the police satisfied the magistrate that they had probable cause for the search. Sanders, 442 U.S. at 762, 99 S.Ct. at 2592.
Professor LaFave explains the Ross case as follows:
Turning now to the scope of the Ross rule, it is important to stress that the Court did not overturn the Chadwick-Sanders rule. What this means is that if there is only probable cause to search a particular container in the vehicle but not probable cause to search the vehicle generally, as was true in those cases, Ross does not control and ... a warrant will be required to search the container, but not to seize it. (parenthetical remark and footnotes omitted)
3 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure, § 7.2(d), at 56 (2d ed. 1987).
Because probable cause was established by the police dog indicating to the officers that there was a controlled substance in the red shaving kit, the case here falls squarely into the Sanders rule. Thus, if the district court had correctly applied the controlling Supreme Court case to this case, the evidence would have been suppressed. Today, however, the majority, in relying on Acevedo, applies a rule which was not announced until eighteen months after the search here was completed. Undoubtedly it was an inadvertence. The bar at large, and the trial lawyers specifically, are well aware of the crowded dockets of the two Idaho appellate courts, and the efforts of the latter to move out appellate decisions in an expeditious manner. It would not be self-demeaning were it to be conceded that there is no guarantee that appellate opinions, and the holdings therein expressed, are free of any error. For that reason, long before my time on the Court, a decision was made whereby the Court would welcome petitions for rehearing where involved counsel would have the opportunity to politely and forthrightly illustrate for the benefit of the Court where it may have omitted consideration of statutory law, case law precedent, and certain important evidentiary matters.
Had the search occurred after May 30, 1991, the case would be controlled by Acevedo, but the search took place on December 1, 1989. Thus, the exact question before this Court, and one as yet ignored by the majority, is whether a Supreme Court decision which overrules controlling precedent at the time of the occurrence at bar should be applied retroactively. The prospective or retroactive application of a decision is a discretionary determination of judicial policy made after balancing certain criteria. The Court must weigh:
1. The purposes of the new rule;
2. Reliance on prior decisions by the Court; and
3. The effect of the new rule on the administration of justice.
State v. Whitman, 96 Idaho 489, 491, 531 P.2d 579, 581 (1975).4
Today the majority errs, rather mightily in my view, by simply applying the Acevedo rule retroactively without one iota of analysis, or even an acknowledgement of the question. The Court has on previous occasions declined to apply Supreme Court precedent retroactively. See e.g. State v. Martinez, 92 Idaho 183, 186, 439 P.2d 691, 694 (1968) (applying Escobedo v. Illinois, *901378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977 (1964), but not Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), to admissions made in 1965), State v. West, 92 Idaho 728, 728-29, 449 P.2d 474, 474-75 (1969) (refusing to apply either Escobedo or Miranda to a preliminary hearing held in 1963), State v. Zamora, 93 Idaho 625, 628, 469 P.2d 752, 755 (1970) (refusing to apply Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969) to a 1968 search), Smith v. State, 94 Idaho 469, 473, 491 P.2d 733, 737 (1971) (holding that Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. 1, 90 S.Ct. 1999, 26 L.Ed.2d 387 (1970), is to be applied prospectively only), Calkins v. May, 97 Idaho 402, 404-05, 545 P.2d 1008, 1010-11 (1976) (refusing to apply Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), to a 1973 prison disciplinary hearing).
On the other hand, Supreme Court decisions have been applied retroactively. State v. Lang, 105 Idaho 683, 684-685, 672 P.2d 561, 562-63 (1983) (applying Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983) to 1980 search, ignoring the views in the dissent of Bistline J.), see State v. Schaffer, 107 Idaho 812, 817-821, 693 P.2d 458, 463-67 (Ct.App.1984), (applying both Gates and United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984), retroactively).
The astute reader may have already noticed a trend in our retroactivity decisions, as least where it concerns criminal procedure. It is only most recently that the Court has indulged in the questionable application of Supreme Court decisions retroactively, without pausing to consider the retroactivity question. In State v. Card, Idaho S.Ct. No. 18313, slip op. # 130 (filed Dec. 31, 1991), the majority applied Payne v. Tennessee, 498 U.S.-, 111 S.Ct. 2597, 115 L.Ed.2d 720 (1991), retroactively. Payne overruled, in part, controlling precedent at the time of the defendant’s sentencing hearing. Not one word was said by the majority about the propriety of applying Payne to the case even though it was undisputed a contrary rule was in effect at the time of the sentencing hearing. It is thought, by at least this one member of the Court, that we should at least consider the question of retroactivity instead of issuing important decisions sub silentio, as though that was not at all an obstacle.
Turning now to the Whitman factors, the new rule announced in Acevedo does not serve an identifiable purpose. The High Court’s rationale behind the overruling of Sanders was that, 1) the case was too confusing for courts and law enforcement, 2) the rule did not protect any significant privacy interest and 3) the rule impeded effective law enforcement. On the other hand, the dissent, lead by Justice Stevens, vociferously disagreed with and dissected all three of the majority’s assertions. Neither side however, proved or disproved the majority’s stated rationales for overruling Sanders, other than in the eyes of the beholder.
In the absence of a compelling reason to adopt the Acevedo opinion, it cannot be said with any assurance that the first Whitman factor favors this Court’s retroactive application of this new rule of criminal procedure.
The second Whitman factor favors a prospective only application of Acevedo. Litigants should be able to rely upon controlling Supreme Court cases, as should the courts. If the trial court had properly applied the law, it would have suppressed the illegally seized evidence. To do so would not be the end of the world. Many are the decisions which have emanated from this Court which have held the State, and the defendants as well, accountable for staying within the bounds established by the Constitution of the United States, and equally so with the Constitution of the State of Idaho, as to both of which the members of this Court even now, and formerly as practicing attorneys, were solemnly sworn to uphold. The police should not be rewarded, nor Gallegos punished, for the district court’s erroneous ruling or for the Supreme Court’s inability to finally determine the parameters of Fourth Amendment protection. The majority punishes Gallegos because he had the misfortune of being brought before a judge who did not correct*902ly apply the law. That is no reason to treat Gallegos differently from other similarly situated defendants.
As to the third factor, there will not be an adverse effect on the administration of justice if Acevedo is applied prospectively only, as has always been my understanding is the proper course in such cases. Presumably, the police were not conducting illegal searches in the hope that Sanders would be overruled. If they were, that supplies yet another reason for according prospective application to Acevedo. As was recently said “it is not unjust to require the state and the trial court to adhere to controlling precedent until it is overruled. To the contrary, it is their sworn duty to do exactly that.” Card, slip op. at p. 30 (Bistline, J. dissenting).
The search was illegal under Sanders, and, because it is not justifiably retroactively applicable, Acevedo should not be applied. No other theories of admissibility have been raised by the State. Because it is the State which had the burden of proving that the warrantless search fell within one of the exceptions to the warrant requirement, State v. Bottelson, 102 Idaho 90, 92, 625 P.2d 1093, 1095 (1981), and it has failed to do so, the challenged evidence should have been suppressed.
In sum, the majority has reached the correct conclusion as to the drug stamp conviction. The other conviction should also be reversed.

. Of the Court membership as presently constituted, only Chief Justice Bakes was involved in Whitman.