Court Opinion

ID: 9854793
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:14:13.166986+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:24.884120
License: Public Domain

Gunter, Justice,
dissenting.
The appellant was indicted, tried, and convicted for having marijuana in his possession and under his control, in violation of the Georgia Controlled Substances Act. He has appealed his conviction and one of his enumerated errors here is: "The court erred in denying the appellant’s motion to suppress certain alleged evidence which was admitted and used against the appellant in the Superior Court of Walker County.”
The appellant moved in the trial court to suppress evidence obtained by law enforcement officers as the result of a search made pursuant to a warrant issued by a Justice of the Peace. The motion contended that the search violated the Georgia Constitution and the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution in that the warrant "was not issued by a neutral and detached magistrate.” The motion further contended that the Justice of the Peace who issued the warrant was compensated solely on the fee system, that if he issued a search warrant he was compensated the sum of five dollars, and that if he did not issue the requested search warrant, he was not compensated at all. Code Ann. § 24-1601.
Paragraph 10 of the motion to suppress stated: "Because of these constitutional provisions, the defendant is entitled to have a neutral and detached magistrate *210decide whether or not probable cause existed for the issuance of a search warrant and in this case as is indicated by the record, and is amply illustrated by the fact that the issuing magistrate had a financial interest in issuing the warrant and would have lost money had he not issued the warrant, there was no neutral and detached magistrate and thereby, the search of the defendant’s premises was unreasonable.”
I conclude that the motion to suppress the evidence should have been granted by the trial judge, the evidence should not have been used in the trial against the defendant, and I would reverse the judgment.
In Shadwick v. City of Tampa, 407 U. S. 345, 350 (1972), the United States Supreme Court said: "The substance of the Constitution’s warrant requirements does not turn on the labeling of the issuing party. The warrant traditionally has represented an independent assurance that a search and arrest will not proceed without probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed and that the person or place named in the warrant is involved in the crime. Thus, an issuing magistrate must meet two tests. He must be neutral and detached, and he must be capable of determining whether probable cause exists for the requested arrest or search. This Court long has insisted that inferences of probable cause be drawn by a 'neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime.’ Johnson v. United States, supra, at 14; Giordenello v. United States, supra, at 486. In Coolidge v. New Hampshire, supra, the Court last term voided a search warrant issued by the state attorney general 'who was actively in charge of the investigation and later was to be chief prosecutor at the trial.’ Id., at 450. If, on the other hand, detachment and capacity do conjoin, the magistrate has satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s purpose.”
In Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443, 453 (1971), the United States Supreme Court said: "We find no escape from the conclusion that the seizure and search of the Pontiac automobile cannot constitutionally rest upon the warrant issued by the state official who was the chief investigator and prosecutor in this case. Since he *211was not the neutral and detached magistrate required by the Constitution, the search stands on no firmer ground than if there had been no warrant at all.”
In Bennett v. Cottingham, 290 FSupp. 759, 762 (1968), a three-judge court said: "Since no provision of law is made for the payment of the fees of Justices of the Peace on charges based upon highway violations in the event of an acquittal or nolle prosequi, Justices of the Peace must go unremunerated unless they convict. The scales of justice are thereby weighted on the side of a conviction. Such a situation is interdicted by the decision in Turney v. State of Ohio, 273 U. S. 510, 47 S. Ct. 437, 71 L. Ed. 749, where it was said:
'[I]t certainly violates the Fourteenth amendment, and deprives a defendant in a criminal case of due process of law to subject his liberty or property to the judgment of a court, the judge of which has a direct, personal, substantial pecuniary interest in reaching a conclusion against him in his case.
'The mayor of the village of North College Hill, Ohio, had a direct, personal pecuniary interest in convicting the defendant who came before him for trial, in the $12 of costs imposed in his behalf, which he would not have received if the defendant had been acquitted. This was not exceptional, but was the result of the normal operation of the law and the ordinance.’ See Hulett v. Julian, supra, where Turney was applied under similar facts to those here involved.”
Bennett v. Cottingham was affirmed by the United States Supreme Court, 393 U. S. 317 (89 SC 554, 21 LE2d 513) (1969).
See also Ward v. Village of Monroeville, 409 U. S. 57 (1972), where it was held that an accused was denied a trial before a disinterested and impartial judicial officer as guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment where he was compelled to stand trial for traffic offenses before the mayor, who was responsible for village finances and whose court through fines, forfeitures, costs and fees provided a substantial portion of village funds.
The Justice of the Peace in this case, though having the capacity to issue the warrant, was not a neutral and *212detached magistrate. This is so because if he made an affirmative finding *of probable cause and issued the warrant, he was compensated; but if he rendered a finding of no probable cause, and declined to issue the warrant, he was not compensated. I simply cannot hold that neutrality and detachment exist in such a situation.
Georgia procedure provides that a defendant aggrieved by an unlawful search and seizure may move to suppress the evidence seized on the ground that a search warrant was illegally executed, and if the warrant was illegally executed, the fruit of the search "shall not be admissible in evidence against the movant in any trial.” Code Ann. § 27-313.
The problem with Georgia’s Justice of the Peace system in the areas of search warrants, arrest warrants, and commitment hearings is that the Justice of the Peace is compensated if he finds "probable cause” in cases in each of these three areas, but if he does not find "probable cause” in cases in each of these three areas, he is not compensated. Code Ann. § 24-1601. I believe that self-interest, whether enlightened or unenlightened, is the first principle applicable to all human beings. And applying that principle in these three areas to all Georgia Justices of the Peace, I do not think they are "neutral and detached” in making their determinations of "probable cause” in these three areas.
The Fourth Amendment and its equivalent in the Georgia Constitution (Code Ann. § 2-116) provide that "no warrant shall issue except upon probable cause.” This provision in the two Constitutions is, to me, devoid of any meaning whatsoever if the state allows its officer that it has clothed with authority to be compensated with money if he finds probable cause in a particular case but denies him compensation if he does not find probable cause in a particular case. It just seems to me that the state has "stacked the deck” in its favor by authorizing payment to its judicial officers for a finding of probable cause for the issuance of search warrants, arrest warrants, and commitments by courts of inquiry.
My brothers of the majority obviously do not believe that this method of compensation for Justices of the Peace in Georgia violates either of the two Constitutions, at *213least in the search warrant area. I respectfully disagree. I do not think that a warrant for the search of a citizen’s house should be issued except upon determination of "probable cause” made by a neutral and detached judicial officer, one who is not compensated for a finding in favor of the state.
If the Georgia Supreme Court will not enforce this constitutional principle, it now seems that the only other place for attaining its enforcement is in the Supreme Court of the United States by a writ of certiorari. In Stone v. Powell (Number 74-1055, decided July 6, 1976), the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that search-and-seizure claims, unsuccessfully asserted in state criminal proceedings, cannot be raised in federal habeas corpus review of state convictions.
It therefore seems to me that the court’s decision in the instant case today effectively nullifies Fourth Amendment claims based on the non-neutrality of a Justice of the Peace who found probable cause for the issuance of a search warrant.
It is my view that the prosecution by the state of a criminal case, including the gathering of evidence by the state and the use of evidence by the state during a trial, is an integral part of a "fair criminal trial” that is required by the Due Process Clauses found in the Federal and Georgia Constitutions.
I further think that evidence obtained unreasonably by the state cannot be used in a criminal trial against the seizure-victim; and evidence obtained and used by the state pursuant to a search warrant issued by a judicial officer who is allowed payment if he issues the warrant but not allowed payment if he does not issue the warrant is the unreasonable attainment and use of evidence in constitutional terms.
I respectfully dissent.