Court Opinion

ID: 9575933
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:18:42.857043+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:49:43.961464
License: Public Domain

STEWART, Justice
(concurring in the result):
I concur in the result reached in Justice Durham’s opinion. I write separately because I think it essential to observe that her sweeping opinion represents the views of only two justices of this Court and is therefore not the law of the state. I also write because her opinion raises more difficult issues than it settles with respect to the legality of roadblocks. While I would prefer not to address the legality of the roadblock, I do so briefly to point out that the result of this case is dictated by federal law.
As Justice Durham’s opinion demonstrates, the Tax Commission proceeding that adjudicated petitioner’s tax liability under the Utah Illegal Drug Stamp Tax Act was quasi-criminal in nature. The primary purpose of that Act is to penalize, not to raise revenue. In effect, the Act imposes criminal penalties for the possession of illegal drugs.
The United States Supreme Court held in One 1958 Plymouth Sedan v. Pennsylvania, 380 U.S. 693, 85 S.Ct. 1246, 14 L.Ed.2d 170 (1965), that the Search and Seizure Clause of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the exclusionary rule apply to quasi-criminal proceedings. Because the instant case involves a quasi-criminal proceeding and because the Tax Commission concedes on appeal that the roadblock was illegal, it follows that the evidence seized as a result of the roadblock must be suppressed under federal law. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961); see also Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 10 L.Ed.2d 726 (1963); James v. Louisiana, 382 U.S. 36, 86 S.Ct. 151, 15 L.Ed.2d 30 (1965) (per curiam).1
Notwithstanding the Tax Commission’s concession that the roadblock was illegal, Justice Durham asserts that it would be “irresponsible” to assume the illegality of the roadblock. She does not explain, and I do not see, why that is so. Issues are frequently conceded for purposes of decision. It is therefore sufficient to hold that federal law requires suppression of the illegally seized evidence in this case. Nevertheless, Justice Durham undertakes an extensive analysis of search and seizure law for the benefit of "the lower courts, counsel, and law enforcement officers generally.” She concludes that the roadblock was illegal under Utah constitutional law. That conclusion, however, is dictum.
I would hold the roadblock illegal under federal law because of the complete lack of protection against unbridled police discretion as to how, when, under what circumstances, in what manner, and for what purpose roadblocks may be used. See Michigan Dep’t of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444, 110 S.Ct. 2481, 110 L.Ed.2d 412 (1990). The authority to establish roadblocks to stop automobiles pursuant to wholly arbitrary discretion is fundamentally contrary to the privacy interests protected by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
*16Justice Durham’s reliance on, and reference to, State v. Larocco, 794 P.2d 460 (Utah 1990), raises difficult problems and settles nothing. Although Larocco is cited repeatedly, it did not represent the views of a majority of this Court. Moreover, I do not now, and did not in Larocco, understand what Justice Durham means when she refers to “this court’s commitment to the warrant approach under our state constitution.” I agree that warrants are a highly important element of search and seizure law, but insofar as the “warrant approach” is intended to be something different from the “federal approach,” I do not know what the warrant approach is, and Larocco does not elucidate that point. On its facts, Larocco was nothing more than a disagreement with federal search and seizure law on a comparatively peripheral aspect.
Now, Justice Durham states that “war-rantless searches of automobiles will be allowed only if probable cause and exigent circumstances exist.” She then states that in the case of a “suspicionless investigatory roadblock, neither the first nor the second prong of the warrant requirement is met.” Those statements taken together would make all preplanned, suspicionless roadblocks illegal, including roadblocks intended to remove intoxicated drivers from the highways or to enforce automobile safety measures. Although at one point Justice Durham seems to arbitrarily exempt statutorily authorized roadblocks from those constitutional requirements, she does not explain that point.
I also disavow any conclusion that might be drawn from Justice Durham’s opinion that the exclusionary rule should be applied in civil cases generally, as opposed to quasi-criminal cases that are technically civil in nature.

. Justice Howe contends in his dissenting opinion that under United States v. Janis, 428 U.S. 433, 96 S.Ct. 3021, 49 L.Ed.2d 1046 (1976), the proceeding before the Tax Commission was not quasi-criminal in nature. I disagree. The holding in Janis turned on the issue of whether evidence illegally seized by state officers should be suppressed in a federal action to assess wagering taxes. The Court held that the Fourth Amendment did not require the suppression of illegally seized evidence in a federal proceeding where the evidence had been seized by state, not federal, law enforcement officers. The Court reasoned that the exclusion of that evidence in a federal proceeding would not serve to deter unlawful state police conduct. Id. at 454, 96 S.Ct. at 3032.