Court Opinion

ID: 9686516
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:52:29.08592+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:09.903582
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(dissenting). The circuit court found that the police officers “told the defendant’s mother that they . . . wanted to talk to her son. She invited them into the home. ... It is clear from the record that the deputies went to the defendant’s home not to speak with him but to arrest him. . . . [T] he testimony shows that the deputies did not tell the defendant’s mother the real purpose for their visit, that being to arrest her son. . . . The deputies appeared by their actions to have made a deliberate decision to arrest the defendant before they arrived at his home.” (Memorandum decision, pp. 1, 3.)
The circuit court’s findings of fact are not challenged by the state. Indeed the facts are not disputed by the parties.
If this were a contract or tort case, the officers’ conduct would be governed by the general rule that a person’s intent is a question of fact, generally one to be determined by the trier of fact, and that a misstatement of intent can be a misrepresentation which will render a contract voidable or which will render the speaker liable for a tort. See State v. Lossman, 118 Wis. 2d 526, 348 N.W.2d 159 (1984); In re Estate of Lecic, 104 Wis. 2d 592, 604 n. 8, 312 N.W.2d 773 (1981); 3 Restatement (Second) of Torts sec. 544 (1977).
The fundamental principle governing this case is that a warrantless search or seizure inside a home is “presumptively unreasonable.” Welsh v. Wisconsin, - U.S. -, - (1984) (slip opinion p. 8) ; Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 586 (1980). Justice Jackson eloquently explained why a warrant issued by a judicial officer is required for a search of a home:
*117“The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences 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. . . . The right of officers to thrust themselves into a home is ... a grave concern, not only to the individual but to a society which chooses to dwell in reasonable security and freedom from surveillance. When the right of privacy must reasonably yield to the right of search is, as a rule, to be decided by a judicial officer, not by a policeman or government enforcement agent.” Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14 (1948).
The federal and state constitutions bar a law enforcement officer’s warrantless entry into a home unless there are exigent circumstances or there is a valid consent to enter.1 In this case there was neither a warrant nor an exigent circumstance. Therefore the entry into the home and the subsequent arrest are valid only if the officers had obtained a valid consent.
*118I conclude that the police officers’ misstatement of their intent constitutes a misrepresentation or deception which vitiates consent in this case.
The state argues that the police did not have to state the purpose of their seeking entry into the home and that the police officers’ statement that they wanted to speak to the defendant — when they really intended to arrest him — was not a deception vitiating consent. The court of appeals accepted part of the state’s position and rejected part, saying: “We do not hold that police must state the purpose of their visit to a home in order to obtain a valid consent to enter, only that they may not gain entry through deception.” 115 Wis. 2d at 118, n. 3.
This is not a case in which the police officers entered the home intending to talk to the defendant and then decided to arrest him. When the police officers entered the home in this case, they did not wish to and did not in fact “talk” to the defendant in the home. The majority opinion correctly sets forth Officer Mielke’s testimony at slip op., p. 105, supra: “The detectives told the defendant they wanted to talk to him and when the defendant got up and started to say something, Mielke told him he was under arrest.” Compare the majority’s restatement of the testimony when it intimates that the detectives did in fact talk to the defendant: “ [I] n fact the officers upon entry did start to talk to the defendant and when he got up and started to say something, they told him he was under arrest.” Slip op., p. 112, supra.
The police officers were obviously concerned that they would not gain consent to entry if they stated their true intent, the true purpose of their mission. I agree with the court of appeals which observed, “If we were to approve this type of [police] conduct... we would permit an important state and federal constitutional right [of the people to be secure in their houses from unreasonable searches and seizures] to be vitiated by the guile of those *119on whom we depend to protect our rights.” State v. Rodgers, 115 Wis. 2d 118, 120, 339 N.W.2d 605 (Ct. App. 1983).2
The majority apparently holds that despite the officers’ misstatement of their intent the mother exercised her free choice to permit entry into her home and that the consent to enter the home was validly obtained. To reach this conclusion the majority relies on Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 225-26 (1973), in which the United States Supreme Court decided that the standard under the fourth and fourteenth amendments to determine the validity of consent to search a car is “voluntariness”.
The majority’s reliance on Schneekloth is misplaced. The majority mistakenly reads Schneekloth broadly and expansively to cover this case, even though the Schneck-loth court explained that its decision was “a narrow one,” see quoted passage at slip op., p. Ill, supra. The Schneck-loth decision does not address directly the issue presented in this case. In Schneekloth the United States Supreme Court held only that state law enforcement officers were not required to inform the person whose consent was sought of his or her federal constitutional right to refuse to consent to a warrantless search or seizure.3 This case *120does not involve lack of knowledge of the right to refuse consent.
Schneckloth involved the officer’s failure to advise the suspect of a constitutional right to refuse consent to a warrantless search of a car when the officer sought consent to search a car. In contrast, this case involves an officer’s intentional misstatement of their purpose in seeking consent to a warrantless entry of a home. There is a bright line between an officer’s failure to inform a suspect of a legal right to refuse consent to a warrantless search and an officer’s intentional misrepresentation of a fact to obtain consent to a warrantless arrest.
Schneckloth involved search of a car officers stopped on the highway for a traffic violation. This case involves officers intentionally going to the suspect’s home to make an arrest. There is a bright line in fourth amendment law between entry into a car where the right of privacy is least protected and entry into a home where privacy is most protected. State v. Welsh, 108 Wis. 2d 319, 341, 321 N.W.2d 245 (1982) (Abrahamson, J., dissenting) . Furthermore, in Schneckloth the Court stressed *121the practical difficulties of requiring the officers to advise and warn the suspect after the officers stopped the car on the highway. There are no such practical difficulties in this case. The crime was reported and the suspect identified the day before the officers made the arrest. The officers could have obtained a search warrant. Or the officers could have obtained consent to enter the home without misstating their purpose.
The majority apparently reads Schneckloth as saying that only deceptive conduct amounting to coercion renders the consent involuntary and that the deception in this case cannot be characterized as coercive or as rendering the mother’s consent involuntary. The majority’s view that voluntariness turns only on whether a defendant’s will was overborne is indefensibly narrow. In the context of the Schneckloth fact situation, the Court stressed volition and perceived a reduced need for “awareness.” But Schneckloth is limited to its fact situation : a consent to search a car on the road. The circumstances in this case are very different.
It is well recognized that the voluntariness test set forth in Schneckloth is an elusive standard. The Schneck-loth court itself recognized there is “no talismanic definition of ‘voluntariness’ mechanically applicable to the host of situations where the question has arisen. ‘The notion of “voluntariness” ... is itself an amphibian.’ ” Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. at 224. Indeed the United States Supreme Court has been criticized for not providing a firm principle to guide judicial decisions as to what factors deprive consent of voluntariness. 2 La Fave, Search and Seizure sec. 8.2, p. 637 (1978).
Although Schneckloth intermingles the issue of the suspect’s awareness of her or his situation with the issue of the pressures acceptable upon the person who makes a choice, it is generally accepted that the concepts of voluntariness and consent have cognitive as well as voli*122tional components. See 2 LaFave, Search and Seizure sec. 8.2, pp. 636-688 (1978); Grano, Voluntariness, Free Will and the Law of Confessions, 65 Va. L. Rev. 859, 860 (1979). In contract law, if a party’s manifestation of assent is induced by a fraudulent or material misrepresentation upon which the party is justified in relying, the consent may be withdrawn. Restatement (Second) of Contracts sec. 164(a) (1979). I see no reason why a lower standard than that applied in a contract case should be applied when the issue is consent to enter a home without a warrant to make an arrest when a search warrant could be obtained and there are no exigent circumstances.
While it is clear from the SchnecJcloth decision that consent to a warrantless search must not be the product of coercion and that consent need not be predicated on specific knowledge of the right to refuse consent, the United States Supreme Court has not provided a firm principle “for deciding in varying circumstances whether ignorance of a highly relevant fact deprives consent of voluntariness.” Weinreb, Generalities of the Fourth Amendment, 42 Univ. Chi. L. Rev. 47, 57 (1974).
Even though the United States Supreme Court has not set forth a guiding principle, the United States Supreme Court has recognized in SchnecJcloth that the phrases “voluntariness,” “freedom from fear or coercion,” and “free and unconstrained choice” are shorthand expressions indicative of the complex values which the law considers and seeks to maximize. Schneckloth, 412 U.S. at 224. According to the Court, the criteria for volun-tariness reflect an accommodation of competing values. A determination of the validity of the consent depends on a balancing process. Another way of stating this concept is that consent searches are a legitimate exception to the warrant requirement because consensual searches are inherently reasonable. The ultimate cri*123terion for determining the validity of consent is therefore whether the bounds of reasonableness have been crossed.
One value in this balancing process is the constitutional right to privacy in the home. The “physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed.” United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297, 313 (1972); quoted with approval in Welsh v. Wisconsin, - U.S. -, - (1984) (slip op. at p. 107, supra). See also Laasch v. State, 84 Wis. 2d 587, 597, 267 N.W.2d 278 (1978) (Abrahamson, J. concurring as to Wisconsin Constitution) .
Another value is that public officials not deviate from high standards of conduct. Deception and misrepresentations are such deviations. Any deviation fosters cynicism in the public and callousness in the officials which is then difficult to contain within the bounds of the special needs which justify the deviation.
A third value is the need for effective law enforcement. Undue restriction of the effective enforcement of criminal law diminishes our security. Thus it is recognized that under certain circumstances officials may, in combatting crime and in dealing with persons who are suspected of having violated the criminal statutes, depart from usual high standards of conduct to which we hold government officials. In the investigation of some kinds of criminal cases, “stealth and strategy are necessary weapons in a police officer’s arsenal.” Sherman v. United States, 356 U.S. 369, 372 (1958).
A fourth value may be that “the community has a real interest in encouraging consent” in order to facilitate legitimate law enforcement activities. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. at 243. Effective law enforcement depends on the cooperation and assistance of the citizenry.
A final value is “society’s deeply felt belief that criminal law cannot be used as an instrument of unfairness.” *124Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. at 223-27. In the final analysis, then, in each “consent” case there is an assessment of “fairness.” Schneckloth, 412 U.S. at 223-27; 2 LaFave, Search and Seizure sec. 8.2 (n), p. 689 (1978).
In this case, entry into the home to make a warrant-less arrest was not required to stop a threatened or ongoing crime or to capture a fleeing or difficult to find suspect. Crime control and law enforcement do not require, in this case, that law enforcement officers use deceptive practices. In this case there was no necessity for law enforcement purposes for the officers to gain immediate entry into the home. The crime — false imprisonment of the defendant’s girl friend — had allegedly occurred two days before the arrest and the victim had reported the crime to the police the day before the arrest. The police had time to plan the arrest. The circuit court concluded that there was “nothing in the record which provides any reason for not obtaining a warrant.” (Memorandum decision, p. 3.)
The majority’s condoning police deception in this case may actually hinder police efforts in the future by discouraging citizen cooperation with law enforcement officers. Since the majority opinion provides no assurance that the police will not misstate the purpose for which they seek entry into the home, the majority’s decision may lead citizens to be distrustful of police officers and to be reluctant to consent to police entry into a home. As a result of the majority opinion, citizens are likely to conclude that they should exercise their constitutional right to refuse consent to a police officer’s request to enter a home when the officer does not have a warrant. If citizens cannot trust law enforcement officers, the officers cannot expect to be treated by the citizens as trustworthy.
In this case, society’s interest in the sanctity of the home and in high standards of conduct for government *125officials substantially outweighs the limited inconvenience of requiring law enforcement officers not to misstate their intent in seeking consent to enter the home or of requiring law enforcement officers to get warrants before seeking entry into the home. I therefore conclude that in assessing fairness, in assessing reasonableness, this court should hold that the police deception in this case vitiated the consent.
I refer to Schneekloth and the fourteenth amendment in this case because the majority relies on Schneekloth and decides the search and seizure issue under the fourteenth amendment. I conclude that the entry into the home and the arrest violate the fourteenth amendment.
Furthermore, I have considered the validity of the entry and the arrest under Article I, section 11, of the Wisconsin Constitution, apart from the fourteenth amendment, and I conclude, on bona fide separate, adequate, and independent state law grounds, Michigan v. Long, - U.S. -, -, 51 U.S.L.W. 5231, 5234 (1983), that this search and arrest violate the Wisconsin Constitution. Any federal cases referred to in this opinion are not cited as binding precedent in interpreting Article I, séction 11, of the Wisconsin Constitution, but for guidance.
Although the majority concludes that Article I, section II, is substantially the same as the fourth amendment, it errs in analyzing the consent issue under the state constitution by guessing what the United State Supreme Court might hold under the fourth amendment. Decisions of the United States Supreme Court and other courts interpreting constitutional language substantially similar to that of the Wisconsin Constitution may be helpful and persuasive in interpreting the Wisconsin Constitution, but these decisions of other jurisdictions are not binding on this court in our interpretation of our constitution.
*126Even if Article I, section 11, had been copied from the federal Constitution, rather than from another constitution or document, see note 5 infra, our court is not bound by the construction placed on the fourth amendment by the United States Supreme Court subsequent to the adoption of our constitution in 1848, unless we find the construction sound and the reasoning persuasive. Ditsch v. Finn, 214 Wis. 305, 308, 309, 252 N.W. 562 (1934); B.F. Sturtevant Co. v. Industrial Comm., 186 Wis. 10, 17, 202 N.W. 324 (1925) ; 2A Sands, Sutherland Status tory Construction sec. 52.02 (1973).
Although our court has been willing to consider federal precedents which accord with the Wisconsin Constitution, Allen v. State, 183 Wis. 323, 329, 197 N.W. 808 (1924), this court has refused to be bound by federal decisions which are contrary to our state constitutional values. This court clearly stated this view in Nunnemacher v. State, 129 Wis. 190, 198, 108 N.W. 627 (1906), as follows: “We are fully aware that the contrary proposition has been stated by the great majority of the courts of this country, including the supreme court of the United States. The unanimity with which it is stated is perhaps only equaled by the paucity of reasoning by which it is supported.”
Justice Smith’s statement in 1855 urging the court to look to the Wisconsin constitution should be followed by the court:
“The people then made this constitution, and adopted it as their primary law. The people of other states made for themselves respectively, constitutions which are construed by their own appropriate functionaries. Let them construe theirs — let us construe, and stand by ours.” Attorney General ex rel. Bashford v. Barstow, 4 Wis. 567, [*758] (1856).
This court has a long history of recognizing the vitality of the Declaration of Rights of the Wisconsin Constitu*127tion (Article I) and of interpreting Article I, section 11. We should continue our traditional approach of examining our own constitution and our own precedents. See Sundquist, Construction of the Wisconsin Constitution — Recurrence to Fundamental Principles, 62 Marq. L. Rev. 531 (1979) ; Comment, The Independent Application of State Constitutional Provisions to Questions of Criminal Procedure, 62 Marq. L. Rev. 596 (1979) ; Comment, Rediscovering the Wisconsin Constitution: Presentation of Constitutional Questions in State Courts, 1983 Wis. L. Rev. 483.
Our court has long recognized that the home is entitled to special dignity and sanctity under our state constitution. See, e.g., Royer v. State, 180 Wis. 407, 417, 193 N.W. 89 (1923) ;4 Jokosh v. State, 181 Wis. 160, 163, 193 N.W. 976 (1923) .5 Long before it was constrained to *128do so by the fourth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, this court relied on the Wisconsin Constitution to sustain and enforce the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures. Laasch v. State, 84 Wis. 2d 587, 598, 267 N.W.2d 278 (1978) (Abrahamson, J., concurring).
In light of the frequent use of consent to justify noncompliance with the warrant requirement, diluting the meaning of consent dilutes the impact of the state constitutional guarantee of the sanctity of the home. This court should avoid facilitating the erosion of the state constitutional guarantee of privacy. The solution to the problem presented by this case is not to reduce the requirements for consent but to prevent the problem from arising by encouraging officers to obtain warrants.
Characterizing the conduct of the defendant’s mother in this case as evincing free and voluntary consent to enter the home compromises the integrity of the state constitutional guarantee of the sanctity of the home and makes a mockery of the English language.
Since I conclude that the warrantless arrest in the home was illegal, I would hold that the circuit court did not acquire personal jurisdiction of the defendant. State v. Monje, 109 Wis. 2d 138, 147, 325 N.W.2d 695 (1982). I would therefore affirm the order of the circuit court *129and the decision of the court of appeals dismissing the action. I dissent.
I am authorized to state that Chief Justice Nathan S. Heffernan joins in this dissent.

 Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573 (1980); Laasch v. State, 84 Wis. 2d 587, 267 N.W.2d 278 (1978).
The fourth amendment to the federal Constitution, applicable to the states through the fourteenth amendment, 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 Warrant 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.”
Art. I, sec. 11, Wis. Const., 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 warrant 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.”

 Neither party questioned the authority of the defendant’s mother to grant consent to enter the home.

 Schneekloth has been criticized by various commentators. 2 LaFave, Search and Seizure, sec. 8.2, p. 636-7 (1978); Dix, Waiver in Criminal Procedure: A Brief for More Careful Analysis, 56 Tex. L. Rev. 193, 224-29 (1977); Chase, The Burger Court, the Individual, and the Criminal Process: Directions and Misdirections, 52 N.Y.U.L. Rev. 518 (1977); Note, Valid Consent to Search Determined by Standard of “Voluntariness — Schneckloth v. Bustamonte,” 12 Am. Cr. L. Rev. 231 (1974).
The New Jersey Supreme Court has not followed Schneekloth in interpreting the New Jersey Constitution. See State v. Johnson, 68 N.J. 349, 346 A.2d 66 (1975).
*120Professor Taylor, the reporter for the search and seizure sections of the Model Code of Pre-Arraignment Procedure, commented on Schneckloth as follows: “It seems unlikely that there is any greater knowledge of one’s right to refuse a search than the right to silence.” He goes on to explain that a choice based on a wholly erroneous factual belief may not be the result of a will that has been overborne, but neither is it an understanding choice.
“In consent searches, the police have full knowledge that the person from whom they are seeking consent is under no obligation to give it. The right to refuse is a fact crucially pertinent to an understanding consent and, if there is the slightest doubt that the person in question is not aware of his right, and no such information is given him, the police are eliciting consent on the basis of withheld information. It is hard to describe such conduct as other than deceptive, or the Court’s decision [in Schneckloth] as other than retrograde.” Commentary, sec. 240.2, pp. 536-537 (Proposed Official Draft, April 15, 1975).

 Writing for the court, Justice Esehweiler described the importance of Article I, section 11, of the Wisconsin Constitution to the people of the state as follows:
“Sec. 11, art. I, Wis. Const., supra, is a pledge of the faith of the state government that the people of the state, all alike (with no express or possible mental reservation that it is for the good and innocent only), shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable search and seizure. This security has vanished and the pledge is violated by the state that guarantees it when officers of the state, acting under color of state-given authority, search and seize unlawfully. The pledge of this provision and that of sec. 8 are each violated when use is made of such evidence in one of its own courts by other of its officers. That a proper result — that is, a conviction of one really guilty of an offense — may be thus reached is neither an excuse for nor a condonation of the use by the state of that which is so the result of its own violation of its own fundamental charter.” Hoyer v. State, 180 Wis. 407, 417, 193 N.W. 89 (1923).

 Chief Justice Vinje viewed the state constitutional guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure as a fundamental part of the organic law of this state:
“. . . It is also said that, if searches such as this cannot be made, the prohibition law cannot be enforced. This may be true *128in part or it may be true in whole. The answer is that an article of the constitution having its origin in the spirit if not in the letter of the Magna Carta prevents it, and that it is the duty of the court to sustain and enforce the constitution in its entirety, and not to permit what may seem to be presently a desirable mode of procedure to annul such fundamental portions of our organic law as the freedom from unlawful searches. The importance of such a provision may be lost sight of in times of peace in a well-organized and well-administered state, but in times of stress or dissensions its value is as great as those who inserted it in the constitution conceived it to be.” Jokosh v. State, 181 Wis. 160, 163, 193 N.W. 976 (1923).