Court Opinion

ID: 9627500
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:46:09.195414+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:44:21.677109
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J., Dissenting.
I dissent.
The rule followed by the majority opinion seriously impairs the efficacy and sanctity of the constitutional guarantee against unlawful searches and seizures. (Cal. Const., art. I, sec. 19.) The particular issue is the competency of evidence in a criminal proceeding which has been obtained from defendant in violation of that constitutional prohibition. Although it is my opinion that the same constitutional guarantee appearing in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is applicable to states as well as federal agencies because it is one of the fundamental liberties embraced in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, I will limit my discussion to the proposition that even if the right to be secure against unlawful searches and seizures is not protected by the federal Constitution with reference to state agencies, the provision in our *175state Constitution compels the rule that evidence obtained in contravention thereof shall not be competent or admissible.
It cannot be seriously questioned that to permit the use of evidence obtained in violation of the constitutional provision at least to some extent infringes upon the field of liberty secured by the inhibition against unlawful searches and seizures. But it goes beyond a mere partial invasion. It in effect practically destroys the right. That is true for the reason that the value of any right varies in direct proportion to the means afforded for the protection of the right; the realization of any benefit from the right is wholly dependent upon the existence of instruments for that purpose. If it may be violated and the fruits of the violation directed against the possessor of it, the fruits of it are lost, and it is no more than a bare abstraction.
I take it that a person in preserving the right here involved is justified in committing homicide. However, if he does not adopt that extreme measure, and in a well ordered social system that should be discouraged, he is faced with possibility that evidence obtained may be used against him. Certainly he should be given credit and security rather than being penalized for failing to pursue such an extreme course.
Permitting such evidence to be used is an invitation and encouragement to law enforcing officials to violate the Constitution. It gives them free reign to act upon mere suspicion and conjecture, to the harassment of the persons offended and to the end that the sanctity of his home or depository of his papers and effects is destroyed. It is of small comfort to say that he has an action against the officers. In most instances the amount of recovery would be negligible and the process costly.
In Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383 [34 S. Ct. 341, 58 L. Ed. 652], it was stated with respect to this issue:
“Judge Cooley, in his Constitutional Limitations, pp. 425, 426, in treating-of this feature of our Constitution said: ‘The maxim that “every man’s house is his castle” is made a part of our constitutional law in the clauses prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures, and has always been looked upon as of high value to the citizen.’ ‘Accordingly,’ says Lieber in his work on Civil Liberty and Self-Government, 62, in speaking of the English law in this respect, ‘no man’s house can be forcibly opened, or he or his goods be carried away after it has thus been forced, except in cases of felony; and *176then the sheriff must be furnished with a warrant, and take great care lest he commit a trespass. This principle is jealously insisted upon.’ In Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S. 727, 733, [24 L. Ed. 877, 879], this court recognized the principle of protection as applicable to letters and sealed packages in the mail, and held that, consistently with this guarantee of the right of the people to be secure in their papers against unreasonable searches and seizures, such matter could only be opened and examined upon warrants issued on oath or affirmation, particularly describing the thing to be seized, ‘as is required when papers are subjected to search in one’s own household. ’
“In the Boyd case, supra, after citing Lord Camden’s judgment in Entick v. Carrington, 19 How. St. Tr. 1029, Mr. Justice Bradley said (630):
“ ‘The principles laid down in this opinion affect the very essence of constitutional liberty and security. They reach farther than the concrete form of the case then before the court, with its adventitious circumstances; they apply to all invasions on the part of the government and its employees of the sanctity of a man’s home and the privacies of life. It is not the breaking of his doors and the rummaging of his drawers that constitutes the essence of the offense; but it is the invasion of his indefeasible right of personal security, personal liberty, and private property, where that right has never been forfeited by his conviction of some public offense,—it is the invasion of this sacred right which underlies and constitutes the essence of Lord Camden’s judgment.’ ” And again:
“The efforts of the courts and their officials to bring the guilty to punishment, praiseworthy as they are, are not to be aided by the sacrifice of those great principles established by years of endeavor and suffering which have resulted in their embodiment in the fundamental law of the land.”
In addition to the federal courts, the following states have adopted the rule that evidence obtained in violation of the Constitution is not admissible. (Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming.) (See 24 A. L. R. 1408; 32 id. 408; 41 id. 1145; 52 id. 477; 88 id. 348; 134 id. 819.)
Obviously, the purpose and object of the constitutional provision in question was to guarantee security to the individual *177against invasion of his premises by officers seeking evidence which might be used by them in a criminal prosecution without making oath or affirmation particularly describing the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized. In other words, it was contemplated by the framers of the Constitution that before an officer should be permitted to secure evidence by means of a search and seizure, the facts supporting the claim of right to make the search should be submitted to a magistrate in the form of an affidavit, and if the magistrate determined such facts to be sufficient he would issue a warrant authorizing the search of premises particularly described in the warrant and the seizure of the person or thing particularly described therein. To say that to permit the use of evidence acquired in violation of this constitutional provision does not abrogate or destroy the constitutional right so guaranteed is to my mind counterfeit logic.
History reveals many abuses by public officers both in England and colonial times in this country when officers invaded the premises of persons sukpected of crimes, many of which have long since been abolished, and the papers and effects of innocent victims seized and used for the persecution as well as prosecution of such victims. It was to prevent these abuses that the Fourth Amendment was added to the Constitution of the United States and section 19 of article I was incorporated in the Constitution of California. In my opinion there is no such urgency or necessity enjoined upon prosecuting officers today to obtain evidence of law violation which requires them to violate a constitutional provision so specific in its prohibitions, and which has enshrined within its provisions such sacred concepts of liberty, security and justice as the constitutional provision here in question.
The more I read and hear about the tyranny of totalitarianism as it pervades a large part of the world today, the more appreciative I am of the constitutional form of government and the constitutional guarantees which we have in this country and in this state. And every time I see an effort being made to abrogate or nullify by interpretation any of the constitutional provisions designed to protect the life, liberty and property of the people, I shudder to contemplate what will happen if this disposition to abrogate and nullify these constitutional provisions continues. I, for one, shall never yield to the doctrine that a constitutional provision designed to protect the life, liberty and property of the people of this *178country should be abrogated or nullified by interpretation. If political, social or economic conditions require changes in our Constitution, such changes should be made by amending the Constitution in the manner prescribed by it, but it is not for the courts by their decisions to abrogate or nullify constitutional provisions by interpretation or read into those provisions that which was never intended to be included therein.
In my opinion it was prejudicial error requiring a reversal of the judgment for the trial court to admit the evidence obtained by the police officers as the result of the unlawful entry and search of the premises occupied by the defendants, and the judgment of conviction against them should therefore be reversed.
Houser, J., concurred.
Appellants’ petition for a rehearing was denied April 30, .1942. Carter, J., voted for a rehearing.