Court Opinion

ID: 9734435
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:34:52.297976+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:48.581145
License: Public Domain

BAILEY, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority's determination that the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule is inapplicable to the trash search in question and that, as a result, the property subject to the transfer order-i.e., the $57,060.00, jewelry, and firearms-was not obtained pursuant to a lawful search. Even assuming arguendo that the police lacked a reasonable, articulable suspicion for seizing Membres's trash and that, as a consequence, the trash pull did not meet the constitutional requirements of Litchfield v. State, 824 N.E.2d 356, 363-64 (Ind.2005), the evidence is still admissible under the good faith exception as codified in Indiana Code Section 35-47-4-5. See, e.g., Richardson v. State, 848 N.E.2d 1097, 1103-04 (Ind.Ct.App.2006).
Indiana Code Section 35-47-4-5 provides that, in a prosecution for a crime, a court may not grant a motion to exclude evidence on the grounds that the search or seizure by which the evidence was obtained was unlawful if the law enforcement officer obtained the evidence in good faith. Ind.Code § 35-47-4-5. Subsection (b) of that statute explains that evidence is ob*995tained in good faith if it is obtained pursuant to "a state statute, judicial precedent, or court rule that is later declared unconstitutional or otherwise invalidated."2 As noted by the majority, Litchfield-which requires articulable suspicion for trash searches-had not been decided at the time of the trash search at issue3 Instead, at that time, a different test for the search of trash was being applied by our courts. See Edwards v. State, 832 N.E.2d 1072, 1076 (Ind.Ct.App.2005). In Moran v. State, 644 N.E.2d 536, 541 (Ind.1994), rehy denied, our Supreme Court noted that the constitutionality of a trash search should be determined based upon the reasonableness of the search. Of primary importance to the Moran Court was the manner in which the trash was seized. The Court recognized, for example, that the police officers did not trespass on the premises to get the trash bags, but collected them from an area approximately a foot from the street, next to the mailbox, where they had been left for pickup by the trash collector. Id. at 538, 541. Further, the Moran Court observed that the officers did not cause a disturbance because they conducted their activities early in the morning when they were unlikely to be seen. Id. at 541. What is more, the officers conducted themselves in the same manner as those whose duty it was to collect the trash. Id.
Subsequently, in Lovell v. State, 813 N.E.2d 393, 398 (Ind.Ct.App.2004), trams. denied, this Court upheld the validity of a search of three trash bags by officers after reviewing the totality of the circumstances to determine the reasonableness of the trash search. There, the trash in question had also been placed next to the mailbox for collection. Id. In addition, many of the neighboring residences had bags placed along the street for pickup. Id. Moreover, in Lovell, the record did not indicate that the officers had to trespass on the defendant's proberty or disturb his neighbors in seizing the trash bags. Likewise, in Mast v. State, 809 N.E.2d 415, 420-21 (Ind.Ct.App.2004), reh'g denied, trans. denied, this Court upheld the search and seizure of the defendant's trash as reasonable under the Indiana Constitution. There, a police officer rode with the defendant's trash carrier when it collected the defendant's trash from a dumpster, on the day previously scheduled for trash removal. Id. at 417. The dumpster was located approximately fifteen to twenty feet from the public roadway. Id. In Mast, the officer remained in the trash truck during the entire collection process. Id.
However, in State v. Stamper, 788 N.E.2d 862, 865 (Ind.Ct.App.2003), abrogated by Litchfield, another panel of this Court determined, under a set of facts readily distinguishable from those in Moran, that the search of the defendant's trash was unreasonable. There, the defendant, while under surveillance by an Indiana State Police Detective, placed a trash bag at the bottom of a garbage pile that was some feet onto his property, near the end of the driveway. In Stamper, the evidence revealed that trash collection was not done by a government-run collection service but by the defendant's sister's fian-cé. Accordingly, this Court held that be*996cause the detective had to go onto the defendant's property to collect garbage, which was not normally collected by a public trash collection service, the search was unreasonable. Id. at 865.
In light of the case law that existed at the time of the search of Membres's trash, the search in question was not unreasonable and the evidence obtained was properly discovered evidence. Indeed, the facts of the present case are very similar to Moran and Mast. Here, without entering onto Membres's property, Deputy Wil-dauer collected the four trash bags at issue, which were located by the mailbox and curb. In addition, the officer pulled the trash on the normal day for Membres's trash collection. Because the search at issue conformed to the prevailing case law at the time, the evidence could not have been properly excluded under Indiana Code Section 85-37-4-5 and, thus, could provide support for the finding of probable cause to issue the warrant to search Mem-bres's residence.
For these reasons, I dissent with the majority opinion.

. Indiana Code Section 35-37-4-5(b)(2) also requires that the law enforcement officer, at the time he or she obtains the evidence, have satisfied applicable minimum basic training requirements established by rules adopted by the law enforcement training board under Indiana Code Section 5-2-1-9. Because Deputy Wildauer's training is not presently in dispute, we do not examine this subsection.

. The record demonstrates that Deputy Wil-dauer searched Membres's trash on March 9, 2005. Yet, Litchfield was not decided until March 24, 2005.