Court Opinion

ID: 9558645
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:14:37.165168+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:29.559645
License: Public Domain

ORDER
Petition for Rehearing
The State of Alaska has filed a petition for rehearing, asking us to expand our decision by addressing two questions of constitutional law.
In Schaffer v. State, Opinion No. 1648 (Alaska App., October 1, 1999), we held that the search of Schaffer’s belongings could not be justified as either a private search or a consent search, and we directed the trial court to assess the propriety of the search under the rubric of “administrative searches”. In its brief to this court, the State argued that the conduct of private citizens acting at the behest of a federal agency must be assessed under federal law, not state law. The State points out that we did not specify in our opinion whether we were applying federal search and seizure law or Alaska search and seizure law to Schaffer’s case.
When we held that the search of Schaffer’s belongings could not be justified either as a private search or as a consent search, it was not necessary for us to decide whether these questions were governed by the federal constitution or the state constitution — because the result was the same under either body of law. By asking us now to decide that the proceedings on remand should be governed by federal constitutional law as opposed to Alaska constitutional law, the State implicitly raises one issue and explicitly raises another.
The first issue implicitly suggested by the State’s petition is that the criteria for a lawful administrative search may be different under the two constitutions. That issue has never been litigated, either in the trial court or in this appeal.
The second issue (which has been briefed by the parties on appeal) appears to involve a choice of law. The State asks us to hold that when a search is conducted by private persons (here, airline employees and private security guards) acting at the behest of a federal agency (the Federal Aviation Administration), the legality of the search — and the admissibility of any evidence obtained through that search — should be governed by federal search and seizure law rather than Alaska law. But the search of Schaffer’s belongings occurred in Alaska, and the prosecution against her is being pursued in the Alaska courts. Under these circumstances, the true underlying question involves the exclusionary rule: does Alaska Evidence Rule 412 bar the State of Alaska from relying on evidence obtained by agents of the federal government who perform a search in Alaska that would have been illegal if performed by agents of the State?
This question has no ready answer under Alaska law. In Pooley v. State, 705 P.2d 1293, 1302-03 (Alaska App. 1985), this court discussed the applicability of Alaska law to a search to be conducted by agents of another government. But because the search in Pooley occurred in California, we ultimately concluded that we did not need to decide whether Alaska law should govern searches conducted within Alaska by agents of another sovereign. The State now asks us to decide this issue on rehearing.
Our sibling states are split on this question; there is no clear legal doctrine that governs this issue. Moreover, it is possible that application of the exclusionary rule in Schaffer’s case will hinge on issues of fact that have not yet been litigated. The trial judge did not actively investigate this aspect of Schaffer’s case (because he concluded that the search of Schaffer’s belongings had been a consented-to private search).
Given the posture of this case, we conclude that the issues raised by the State’s petition for rehearing are not ripe for review — primarily because the trial court has *618yet to consider whether the search of Schaf-fer’s belongings can be justified as an administrative search. If the proceedings against Schaffer are renewed in the trial court, the State can at that time raise its argument concerning the non-applicability of the Alaska Constitution, and this issue can be litigated in the normal manner.
We therefore deny the State’s petition for rehearing.