Court Opinion

ID: 9604501
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:22:50.752275+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:12:51.282342
License: Public Domain

*928ERICKSON, Justice,
specially concurring in the result:
I agree with the majority’s result and the conclusion that suppression of the defendant’s confession is unwarranted. I write separately because I disagree with the majority’s approach, which requires balancing on a case-by-case basis to determine the applicability of the exclusionary rule. Since the defendant’s confession was not obtained in violation of the United States or Colorado Constitutions, it is unnecessary for us to employ a judicial balancing test to decide this case and to further confuse the law relating to the exclusionary rule.
The district court correctly held that the defendant was properly advised of his Miranda rights and that he voluntarily confessed after an effective waiver of these rights. Since Colorado Crim.P. 5 does not apply, People v. Robinson, 192 Colo. 48, 556 P.2d 466 (1976), the acts of the FBI agents are governed by Fed.R.Crim.P. 5(a). This rule, however, is not of constitutional dimension. Van Ermen v. Burke, 398 F.2d 329, 331 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 1004, 89 S.Ct. 494, 21 L.Ed.2d 468 (1968); Barnett v. United States, 384 F.2d 848, 856 (5th Cir.1967). There is also no constitutional requirement that evidence obtained in another jurisdiction be suppressed simply because the process of acquisition offended some local law. Burge v. Estelle, 496 F.2d 1177, 1178 (5th Cir.1974) (“A more strict local rule may serve as a deterrent to lawless action. But it does not follow that Oklahoma’s choice of a deterrent must be imposed upon the State of Texas to trigger application of the exclusionary rule via a nexus of federal constitutional law.”); W. La Fave, Search and Seizure § 5(c), at 112 (1987).
Absent a denial of constitutional rights, the exclusionary rule will not bar evidence acquired in violation of the laws of another jurisdiction from being admitted in the forum jurisdiction. People v. Price, 54 N.Y.2d 557, 431 N.E.2d 267, 446 N.Y.S.2d 906 (1981) (possible violation of California law in constitutional narcotics search was irrelevant to the legality of a search warrant issued in New York based on evidence obtained in the search); Burge v. State, 443 S.W.2d 720 (Tex.Crim.) (violation of Oklahoma law in acquiring evidence did not bar evidence from being admitted in Texas court), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 934, 90 S.Ct. 277, 24 L.Ed.2d 233 (1969); see Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 223-24, 80 S.Ct. 1436, 1447, 4 L.Ed.2d 1669 (1960) (“In determining whether there has been an unreasonable search and seizure by state officers, a federal court must make an independent inquiry, whether or not there has been such an inquiry by a state court, and irrespective of how any such inquiry may have turned out. The test is one of federal law, neither enlarged by what one state court may have countenanced, nor diminished by what another may have colorably suppressed.”); United States v. Mitchell, 783 F.2d 971, 973 (10th Cir.) (in addressing the legality of a search by state officers which resulted in a United States district court conviction for drug possession the court of appeals stated “we need not consider whether the Oklahoma statute was satisfied or not.... The issue in this case is one under the fourth amendment and the exclusion of evidence would only be warranted if there were a violation of the Constitution of the United States”) (footnote omitted), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 107 S.Ct. 208, 93 L.Ed.2d 138 (1986); United States v. Bedford, 519 F.2d 650, 653-54 (3d Cir.1975) (state court decision that search warrant violated state law irrelevant to validity of warrant in federal court), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 917, 96 S.Ct. 1120, 47 L.Ed.2d 323 (1976). By adopting a judicial balancing test, the majority has created unnecessary uncertainty regarding the application of the exclusionary rule. See New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 369-70, 105 S.Ct. 733, 758, 83 L.Ed.2d 720 (1985) (Brennan, J., joined by Marshall, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (in response to the majority’s application of a judicial balancing test to define the fourth amendment standard of reasonableness for searches by school officials, Justice Brennan stated: “All of these ‘balancing tests’ amount to brief nods by the Court in the direction of a neutral utilitarian calculus while the Court in fact engages in an unan-*929alyzed exercise of judicial will. Perhaps this doctrinally destructive nihilism is merely a convenient umbrella under which a majority that cannot agree on a genuine rationale can conceal its differences.”); see also United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 929, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 3422, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984) (Brennan, J., joined by Marshall, J., dissenting) (“the language of deterrence and of cost/benefit analysis, if used indiscriminately, can have a narcotic effect. It creates an illusion of technical precision and ineluctability”); Alienikoff, Constitutional Law in the Age of Balancing, 96 Yale L.J. 943 (1987) (discussing the problems inherent in judicial balancing). Accordingly, I concur in the result only.
I am authorized to say that YOLLACK, J., joins in this special concurrence.