Court Opinion

ID: 9464453
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:33:44.392877+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:38.267380
License: Public Domain

TIMBERS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Judge Carter’s eminently correct decision below denying this state prisoner’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus should have been affirmed in a one sentence order reading, “Affirmed on the authority of Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465 (1976).” From the majority’s refusal to do so, I respectfully but emphatically dissent.
Granted that the majority opinion is an artful effort to circumvent Stone, significantly it fails to accord any deference to the strong view expressed in Stone, based on deeply rooted public policy, that the exclusionary rule is unique and should not be invoked on habeas petitions under the circumstances described by Mr. Justice Powell in Stone and more fully in his concurring opinion in Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 250 (1973). That view, in my opinion, applies with particular force to the circumstances of the instant case.
The majority opinion is a striking illustration of the mischief that results when one of the “inferior courts” 1 takes it upon itself to vent its displeasure with recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court. And the mischief is not mitigated by the assertion that recent Supreme Court decisions have “complicated analysis in the instant case” and forced the majority to “struggle to understand the implications of the recent High Court cases”. 568 F.2d at 844.
With deference, the only complication and confusion is that spawned by today’s struggling majority opinion, the practical result of which will be to turn loose upon society a convicted first degree murderer now serving a life sentence. To suggest any other result would be utterly naive, in view of the virtual impossibility of determining probable cause ten years after the fact.
The radiations from today’s majority opinion will have an impact far beyond the confines of this case and this Circuit. I wish I could believe they would' be for the good of the Republic.

. U.S.Const, art. III, § 1.