Court Opinion

ID: 9646819
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:12:05.401669+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:42.183021
License: Public Domain

WELLIVER, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
The original basis for the exclusionary rule is to further the principle of judicial integrity, which demands that the courts be isolated from contagious contact with unconstitutional activity.1 To affirm the conviction in this case and allow the evidence obtained through the clearly perceivable police misconduct to remain intact “would be to affirm by judicial decision a manifest neglect, if not an open defiance, of the prohibitions of the Constitution.” Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 392, 34 S.Ct. 341, 344, 58 L.Ed.2d 652 (1914). “[W]hen flagrant misconduct is involved,” as in the instant case, “the normative principle underlying the exclusionary rule — that government should play no part in unlawful activity — is a compelling justification for the exclusionary sanction.” 2 The principle of judicial integrity demands that this *343Court not act as an accomplice to the violation of the Constitution. Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 80 S.Ct. 1437, 4 L.Ed.2d 1669 (1960). “Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a law breaker, it breeds contempt for the law . . .. ” Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 485, 48 S.Ct. 564, 72 L.Ed. 944 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting), overruled, Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). Although other courts may be eclipsing the underlying rationale for the exclusionary rule by reducing the rule to pragmatic dimensions, this Court need not join in ad hoc, result-oriented application of constitutional principles,
[Tjhis type of ad hoc evaluation is, as it has always been, the deepest problem of our constitutionalism ....

... [T]he main constituent of the judicial process is precisely that it must be genuinely principled, resting with respect to every step that is involved in reaching judgment on analysis and reasons quite transcending the immediate result that is achieved.3
The judgment of conviction in this case should be reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings in which the illegally obtained evidence is suppressed. As much as I regret retrial, I would rather say to the world that judicial integrity and individual rights will be preserved and that deterrence of blatant police misconduct will be furthered than to become a party to violation of the Constitution.
The principal opinion rests its harmless error judgment on the finding of sufficient evidence of guilt in this case. To apply a standard of sufficiency “as a threshold requirement to the raising of constitutional challenges to criminal convictions,” however, “is to shield from attack errors of a most fundamental nature and thus to deprive many defendants of basic constitutional rights.” Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250, 257, 89 S.Ct. 1726, 1730, 23 L.Ed.2d 284 (1969) (Brennan, J., dissenting). I, too, have no doubt that the admissible evidence supports a finding of guilt in this case. I am equally confident that a conviction would be obtained upon retrial without use of the evidence obtained illegally. Judicial integrity and individual constitutional rights could be maintained if this principled analysis were undertaken. There is a distinction between reversing on a mere technicality and placing court approval on bad, infectious police procedure. Even if the purpose of the exclusionary rule is viewed as a mere deterrence technique, deterrence can be achieved in this case only by suppressing the illegally obtained evidence. “[Cjonsistent application of the exclusionary rule by a reasonable and resolute judiciary could significantly alter police behavior.”4 All that is gained by the principal opinion’s tacit approval of the illegal investigations in this case is a conviction without retrial. Retrial is a small price to pay5 for preserving judicial integrity and constitutional principles.
The need for court intervention for the purpose of maintaining proper standards of law enforcement being so clearly demonstrated in this case, our own failure to intervene will, I fear, be interpreted by our federal brothers as but another invitation to intervene.
Appellant Bonuchi contends that admission of the credit cards and driver’s license into evidence was error because they were discovered only through violation of his constitutional rights and, thus, are fruits of the poisonous tree. This point should be ruled in appellant’s favor.
It was interrogation when the police asked appellant to accompany them to the cemetery for the purpose of showing them where the credit cards and driver’s license were buried. The police did not give appel*344lant his Miranda6 warnings before their repeated requests or before the trip to the cemetery. Although appellant consented to the trip upon the condition that his lawyer approved, Captain Watson falsely told appellant that he had contacted his attorney and that the attorney had given his consent. Under this subterfuge, it cannot be said that the attorney-client privilege was not violated. Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981); Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387, 97 S.Ct. 1232, 51 L.Ed.2d 424 (1977); State v. Oldham, 618 S.W.2d 647 (Mo. banc 1981). Moreover, the artifice of having the civil defense volunteers “find” the credit cards and driver’s license while Captain Watson was nearby in no way militates against the conclusion that the items were found only as a direct result of the illicit interrogation of appellant. Under Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963), the credit cards and driver’s license and the evidence surrounding their discovery should not have been admitted against appellant. The only real significance of the credit cards and driver’s license is that their admission condones and tolerates the misconduct of the police. These items are fruits of the poisonous tree.
The record is more than replete with recognition of the bad faith of the Oklahoma police officers in their investigation and their treatment of appellant. No exception to the exclusionary rule, be it “inevitable discovery,” “independent source,” or “attenuation,” would permit admission of the complained-of evidence that they obtained.
Moreover, the techniques of the Oklahoma police infected the Columbia, Missouri, investigation leading to discovery of the victim’s body. Sheriff Foster’s discovery of the victim’s body undoubtedly was accelerated by appellant’s inadmissible disclosure of the location of the body and a route thereto. Appellant first disclosed the location by drawing a map for his attorney, whom the El Reno police officers compelled to turn it over to the Oklahoma authorities. The Oklahoma police attempted to direct the Columbia authorities, who had been searching for several days, to the body by telephone conversations in which the map was explained. With even this failing to lead the Columbia investigators to the body, Columbia Detective Bob Muse engaged in a telephone conversation with appellant. Appellant at the time had not received the Miranda warnings, and counsel was not present. Without condoning any of the Oklahoma or Missouri police misconduct described, it is my opinion that “evidence of where the body was found and of its condition [is] admissible on the theory that the body would have been discovered in any event, even had incriminating statements not been elicited.” Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387, 406-07 n.12, 97 S.Ct. 1232, 1243 n. 12, 51 L.Ed.2d 404 (1977). See Killough v. United States, 336 F.2d 929 (D.C.Cir.1964); Wayne v. United States, 318 F.2d 205 (D.C.Cir.), cert. denied, 375 U.S. 860, 84 S.Ct. 125, 11 L.Ed.2d 86 (1963); Williams v. Nix, 528 F.Supp. 664 (S.D.Iowa 1981); State v. Williams, 285 N.W.2d 248 (Iowa 1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 921, 100 S.Ct. 1859, 64 L.Ed.2d 277 (1980). In Killough, the victim’s body was admitted in the face of police misconduct when it was found that the body was discovered close to a road, near a densely populated area, and close to the defendant’s girlfriend’s address. In Wayne, the court held that the coroner would sooner or later have obtained the body. See generally Kaplan, The Limits of the Exclusionary Rule, 26 Stan.L.Rev. 1027 (1974). In this case, it cannot be said that the body would not ultimately have been discovered. It was found during the hunting season, in an area frequented by hunters. It was about thirty feet from the center of a county gravel road. There was a path of trampled weeks from the road to the body. Blood spots were visible on the road surface.
The inevitable discovery exception to the exclusionary rule would admit evidence concerning the discovery, location, and condition of the victim’s body. Although Detective Muse’s conduct was of no higher caliber *345than that of the Oklahoma authorities, the inevitable discovery exception saves the evidence of the victim’s body, saves this case, and would permit retrial and, undoubtedly, conviction. The inevitable discovery, independent source, and attenuation exceptions, do not reach the other hidden evidence. Even at this late date, justice can prevail and the integrity of both law enforcement and the judicial process can be vindicated by a retrial of appellant. Appellant’s conviction should be reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings.

. Terry v. Ohio, 394 U.S. 1, 12-13, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1875, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968); Henderson, Justice in the Eighties: The Exclusionary Rule and the Principle of Judicial Integrity, 65 Judicature 354 (1982).

. Mertens & Wasserstrom, The Good Faith Exception to the Exclusionary Rule: Deregulating the Police and Derailing the Law, 70 Geo.L.J. 365, 405 n. 196 (1981).

.Wechsler, Toward Neutral Principles of Constitutional Law, 73 Harv.L.Rev. 1, 12, 14 (1959).

. Mertens & Wasserstrom, supra note 2, at 393 n. 126.

.See id. at 401.

. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966).