Court Opinion

ID: 9774915
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:38:07.502825+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:50:30.145508
License: Public Domain

ROBERTSON, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides in pertinent part: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” These words have defied every judicial attempt to give them a firm, lasting definition around which law enforcement personnel, judicial officers and citizens can plan and judge their conduct.
This case involves a relatively simple factual scenario. A police officer patrolling in his police car receives information over his police radio. That information specifically describes an automobile, a location and a time, and informs the officer that the party driving the vehicle is armed. Within minutes of the broadcast of this information, near the location described, an officer spots a car matching the description of the vehicle described in the police radio broadcast. Weighing the information received over his police radio against what he sees in front of him, the officer decides to stop the car to investigate further. That stop, and the driver’s failure to produce a driver’s license when requested to do so, results in a search that reveals narcotics and a bag containing thousands of dollars in cash. On the strength of United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 105 S.Ct. 675, 83 L.Ed.2d 604 (1985), the majority reasons that the state failed to show that the police dispatcher had a reasonable basis for announcing the information over the radio in the first place and, because of that, con-*646eludes that the state is prohibited from introducing any of the evidence discovered by the officer. For the reasons that follow, I respectfully dissent.
I.
One is tempted to distinguish Hensley from this case factually and thus render Hensley inapposite. At least two factual distinctions present themselves. First, Justice O’Connor’s opinion for the Court places unusual and curious reliance on the fact that communication resulting in Mr. Hensley’s arrest came from another police department. Indeed, the Court defines the issue in Hensley saying, “At issue in this case is a stop of a person by officers of one department in reliance on a flyer issued by another department indicating that a person is wanted for investigation.” [Emphasis added.] 469 U.S. at 229, 105 S.Ct. at 681. Whiteley v. Warden, 401 U.S. 560, 91 S.Ct. 1031, 28 L.Ed.2d 306 (1971), and United States v. Robinson, 536 F.2d 1298 (9th Cir.1976) (the latter of which Hensley expressly cites as dealing with the precise issue), both have the same inter-departmental facts. However, I doubt the constitutional significance of this distinction; if there is one, I cannot make it stick.
Second, there is a request-to-act/information-only dichotomy in the cases. Thus, Hensley may turn on an agency theory: where the principal (requesting police department or dispatcher) asks another to perform an act (e.g., an arrest), the agent (the arresting officer) has only the authority of the principal and no more. The inquiry Hensley invites into the principal’s basis for requesting the act is consistent with this theory. Where the dispatcher only provides information, but makes no request for action, as in this case, Hensley may not apply. Under this analysis, where the arresting officer makes a decision to stop on his or her own, based on the action-neutral information received via usually reliable police channels, the only rational focus is on the reasonableness of that officer’s decision.
This second level of analysis could form the basis for my dissent. However, I do not need to do so. In my view, the majority’s decision is incorrect because excluding the evidence in this case will serve no constitutionally useful purpose. I would extend the holding of United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984), to the facts of this case and allow the state to introduce the evidence the majority suppresses.
To rest on Leon is to admit, at least for the sake of argument, that the dispatcher did not have a reasonable and independent basis for suspecting that the occupant of the 1984 black Fiero was armed and that the information on which Officer Duncan relied was not proven to be sufficient. Even assuming these two conclusions are true, however, it does not follow that the evidence uncovered in the search must be suppressed.
The Fourth Amendment does not require that evidence uncovered in a constitutionally-infirm search be excluded from the state’s arsenal. Instead, the exclusionary rule is a product of the judicial imagination, designed to deter official misconduct. Leon, 468 U.S. at 906, 104 S.Ct. at 3411. “The deterrent purpose of the exclusionary rule necessarily assumes that the police have engaged in willful, or at the very least negligent, conduct which has deprived the defendant of some right.” United States v. Peltier, 422 U.S. 531, 539, 95 S.Ct. 2313, 2318, 45 L.Ed.2d 374 (1975). With Leon, the Court announced a policy of “considering whether Fourth Amendment interests will be advanced” by the decision to exclude evidence. Id., 468 U.S. at 915-6, 104 S.Ct. at 3417. Applying this policy, the Court held that it would not exclude evidence obtained “in objectively reasonable reliance on a subsequently invalidated search warrant.” Id., 468 U.S. at 922, 104 S.Ct. at 3420.
Admittedly, Leon involves a determination of probable cause by a neutral magistrate upon which an officer relies in good faith. One could argue that the absence of such a neutral officer terminates any application of Leon to stops initiated in reliance on subsequently invalidated information that led an officer on patrol to conduct a stop under the reasonable suspicion standard of Terry v. Ohio, 391 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. *6471503, 20 L.Ed.2d 381 (1968). I note that the Supreme Court rejected a similar distinction in Hensley, finding the interests of law enforcement outweigh the privacy interest no less heavily when a Terry stop is involved than when a warrant is being executed. Certainly, the purposes of the exclusionary rule are no better served by excluding evidence obtained under a good faith Terry stop than they are by excluding evidence obtained in good faith reliance on a warrant. As the latter practice was abandoned by the Supreme Court in Leon, so should this Court abandon the former in this case.
[Excluding the evidence will not further the ends of the exclusionary rule in any appreciable way; for it is painfully apparent that ... the officer is acting as a reasonable officer would and should act in similar circumstances. Excluding the evidence can in no way affect his future conduct unless it is to make him less willing to do his duty.
Leon, 468 U.S. at 920, 104 S.Ct. at 3419, quoting with approval Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 539-540, 96 S.Ct. 3037, 3073, 49 L.Ed.2d 1067 (1976) (White, J., dissenting).
Hensley proves the point. That case serves as a prosecutorial sword; it encourages police officers to act on information received via the radio, while acknowledging that a Fourth Amendment violation may occur if the dispatch is subsequently found wanting. Indeed, Hensley encourages the stop where the officer on patrol objectively and in good faith believes that the information he or she receives is a valid basis for reasonable suspicion. Hensley did not address whether the exclusionary rule would apply in such a situation; it did not have to. The majority’s application of the exclusionary rule defeats this policy of encouraging good faith reliance by punishing the state with a hindsight standard.
In this case, Officer Duncan responded to radio information describing a threat to public safety. That information was specific as to the description of the car, its location, and the time. Duncan did not interrogate the dispatcher, nor should he be expected to; the police radio is a normally reliable source of information concerning all manner of crimes and threats to public safety. As would any reasonable officer, Duncan formed a reasonable suspicion in good faith reliance on the dispatch that the 1984 black Fiero presented a present and ■ serious threat to the public safety.
Applying Leon, I would suppress any evidence obtained where the dispatch could not support objectively reasonable reliance or where the dispatch merely relayed information that other officers knew or should have known was false. Id., 468 U.S. at 923, 104 S.Ct. at 3420. Under my theory, the state still bears the burden of showing the good faith of the officer on patrol. However, where the defendant can show that the dispatcher made a false statement to the officer on patrol or made a statement that the dispatcher would have known was false except for his or her reckless disregard for the truth, the evidence will be suppressed.
II.
Even if one cannot agree with my extension of Leon, I believe the state can cure any Hensley defect in the evidence on remand. Leon speaks (without comment) of a motion for reconsideration as an option to the prosecution following an adverse ruling on a motion to suppress. 468 U.S. at 903-904, 104 S.Ct. at 3410. I believe that this procedure is both correct and appropriate in this case. All trials, particularly criminal trials, ought to permit the trier of fact the opportunity to hear and see high quality, inherently trustworthy evidence; defendants ought not to enjoy the benefit of a failure of proof by the state that can be corrected prior to trial and prior to the attachment of jeopardy.
For the reasons expressed, I respectfully dissent.