Court Opinion

ID: 9515822
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 23:05:19.966574+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:08:58.743995
License: Public Domain

CROTHERS, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
[¶ 79] I concur with the majority decision except portions of Part II D relating to inevitable discovery and the suppression of evidence. From those portions, I respectfully dissent as explained below.
[¶ 80] The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” The Amendment does not address execution of warrants at night, and we must be guided by precedent to decide whether a particular search was lawful.
[¶81] Here, law enforcement sought and obtained warrants to search Holly’s vehicle and home. After the judge issued what we have confirmed were valid search warrants, law enforcement learned Holly would return to Minot later that evening. Obviously mindful that execution of search warrants at night need explicit authorization, Deputy Graham contacted the judge, and the court approved nighttime execution of both the vehicle and the home warrants. The deputy was not sworn, and no record was made of his statements to the judge, which of course does not comply with the legal requirements for obtaining any warrant for a search at any time. N.D.R.Crim.P. 41(c); Majority opinion at ¶ 39. We all agree that both the deputy and the judge failed to follow established law. Id.
*38[¶ 82] Judicial authorization was received at the same time for nighttime execution of both the home and the vehicle warrants. Authorization for nighttime execution of neither warrant was supported by a showing of “separate probable cause.” State v. Torkelsen, 2008 ND 141, ¶ 32, 752 N.W.2d 640 (citing State v. Fields, 2005 ND 15, ¶ 9, 691 N.W.2d 283). Yet we uphold the nighttime vehicle search based on the recognized exigency that vehicles are inherently mobile and the suspected contraband “would not be expected to be in Holly’s vehicle the following day or might be removed if the search was delayed to daytime.” Majority opinion at ¶ 43.
[¶ 83] What is not recognized is that Holly and his traveling companion were seized immediately upon their arrival at Holly’s residence in Minot. The search warrants for the vehicle and residence were executed upon Holly’s seizure at 10:14 p.m. — a mere 14 minutes after the apparently inflexible, one size fits all, rule crafted by this Court that “daytime” ends at 10:00 p.m. N.D.R.Crim.P. 41(h)(2)(B). With their subsequent arrest, Holly and his roommate/travel companion were not in the residence. A rational person might fairly conclude Sesseman, the remaining roommate and citizen informant, was not asleep during execution of the warrants that his information and participation helped procure. Therefore, the articulated basis for limiting nighttime searches also seems to fail in this case. See Fields, 2005 ND 15, ¶ 9, 691 N.W.2d 233 (“The purpose of Rule 41(c), N.D.R.Crim.P., is to protect citizens from being subjected to the trauma of unwarranted nighttime searches.”); State v. Schmeets, 278 N.W.2d 401, 410 (N.D.1979) (“Courts have long recognized that nighttime searches constitute greater intrusions on privacy than do daytime searches.”). See also Ex parte Hendersen, 27 N.D. 155, 162, 145 N.W. 574, 576 (1914) (“When the reason for the rule fails, the rule itself should fall, is the statute of our state as well as the course dictated by common sense.”).
[¶ 84] I recite these facts and the reasons articulated for our law on nighttime execution of warrants not to erode a citizen’s right of privacy in their residence. Rather, these details become important when this case is examined through the lens of good faith and inevitable discovery.
[¶ 85] The majority concludes that the lack of a record establishing separate probable cause to search the residence at night is the lack of good faith for application of the good-faith exception. Majority opinion at ¶48. I am compelled to join that conclusion because a reasonably trained officer and judge should know the requirements under North Dakota’s well-established law. However, what I do not join is the majority’s apparent leap from the lack of good faith under the good-faith exception to a determination of bad faith under the inevitable discovery doctrine.
[¶ 86] This Court adopted the inevitable discovery exception to the exclusionary rule in State v. Phelps, 297 N.W.2d 769, 775 (N.D.1980). There, the Court stated:
“In order to apply the inevitable-discovery theory the State must meet a two-part test. First, use of the doctrine is permitted only when the police have not acted in bad faith to accelerate the discovery of the evidence in question. Second, the State must prove that the evidence would have been found without the unlawful activity and must show how the discovery of the evidence would have occurred.”
Id. (footnote omitted).
[¶ 87] The inevitable discovery exception specifically examines whether law enforcement acted in bad faith in discovering *39evidence. The test is not the absence of good faith but the presence of bad faith. A common definition of bad faith is “[dishonesty of belief or purpose.” Black’s Law Dictionary 159 (9th ed.2009). See also State v. Steffes, 500 N.W.2d 608, 618 (N.D.1993) (“Bad faith, as used in cases involving destroyed evidence or statements, means that the state deliberately destroyed the evidence with the intent to deprive the defense of information; that is, that the evidence was destroyed by, or at the direction of, a state agent who intended to thwart the defense.”).
[¶ 88] The majority cites State v. Johnson, 801 N.W.2d 625 (N.D.1981) and State v. Handtmann, 437 N.W.2d 830 (N.D.1989) in support of its holding. In Johnson, officers made a warrantless entry on the defendant’s property to seize what police thought was stolen property. Id. at 626. Warrantless searches and seizures are presumptively unreasonable unless they fall within a recognized exception to the warrant requirement. Id. at 628. On inevitable discovery, the Court in Johnson stated:
“If the inevitable discovery theory applied when a shortcut was taken, as in the instant case, the net result would be that the magistrate’s determination of probable cause as required by the fourth amendment would be eliminated for all practical purposes. This we cannot do.
“In no instance is this type of shortcut more apparent than in the present case in which the warrant requirement was bypassed in the absence of exigent circumstances. We conclude that the requirements of the inevitable discovery doctrine have not been met in this case.”
Id. at 629. Johnson is factually and legally dissimilar to Holly’s situation. Therefore, the holding in Johnson relied on by the majority is unhelpful in resolving the present case.
[¶ 89] The Handtmann decision is a closer case, but ultimately different than the present situation because the warrant in Handtmann was invalidated due to “concededly false information” and unsubstantiated information from a confidential informant. 437 N.W.2d at 834-35. Unlike the situation in Handtmann, the present warrant was defective not because it lacked probable cause for issuance but because it lacked a record showing the magistrate was given separate probable cause justifying nighttime execution.
[¶ 90] Finally, the majority warns we must guard against “mechanical application of the inevitable-discovery doctrine.” Majority opinion at ¶ 54. Yet they conflate the lack of good faith with bad faith when an otherwise lawful warrant was executed 14 minutes later than authorized by court rule. Other than that infraction, the majority confirms the warrants to search both Holly’s vehicle and residence were valid. Holly’s residence could have and would have been searched using that valid warrant. The legal defect at issue in this appeal was nighttime execution of the warrant to search the residence. No evidence shows law enforcement acted in bad faith procuring authorization to execute the warrant “anytime.” Nor does the record support a conclusion that law enforcement’s execution of the warrant at 10:14 p.m. was motivated by or accomplished with bad faith. Therefore, I would hold that the State satisfied its burden that the inevitable discovery exclusion applies and that the fruits of the residential search accomplished pursuant to warrant should not be suppressed under the facts of this case.
[¶ 91] Daniel J. Crothers