Court Opinion

ID: 9732964
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:46:32.209195+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:26:59.499560
License: Public Domain

TEIGEN, Justice
(concurring specially).
I concur in the opinion.of the majority except as to those matters contained in paragraphs numbered 23 through 27 of the syllabus, together with that portion of the opinion upon which these paragraphs are based. It is not my intent to dissent to the law expressed, but I do not agree that the law expressed is applicable in this case.
The subject matter of this special concurrence relates principally to the seizure and admission in evidence of the towel.
The majority hold that the towel “was lawfully seized and admitted in evidence as a means of committing a felony” and that the unauthorized nighttime search was harmless error because the officers did not invade the defendant’s privacy as he was not at the home when it was searched. They conclude that the unlawful authorization of a nighttime search was a technical error, which was harmless and must be disregarded on appeal.
I feel that this is a strained construction. The officers found and seized the towel while they were searching the home of the defendant’s parents, with whom he lived. They saw spots on it, which they thought might be blood. Subsequently, the towel was examined by laboratory technicians. They found that the towel contained blood spots of the same type blood as that of one of the victims and of the defendant. The defendant’s father testified at the trial that he had the same type blood as was found on the towel; that he had a rough skin and sometimes cuts himself while shaving and, when he does so, he wipes the blood from his face with a towel. The house had a common bathroom. The towel was found by the officers in a clothes hamper, along with other dirty clothes, in the basement of the home being searched. In view of this evidence, it was a question for the jury to determine whether the defendant, or his father, had used the towel. Defendant denied the charge against him and introduced alibi testimony. In my opinion, the towel was mere evidence. It was seized by the officers while conducting an unauthorized nighttime search and was not particularly described in the search warrant.
The federal constitution requires that articles seized must be particularly described in the search warrant, but does not prohibit nor require a positive showing, as do our statutes, to authorize a nighttime search. The federal constitution does not prohibit the seizure of mere evidence under a search warrant. Warden, Maryland Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967).
The only federal question which arises is whether the towel was unlawfully seized *45because it was not particularly described in the warrant.
A body of federal case law has developed upholding the right of officers searching pursuant to a search warrant to seize items not described in the warrant if those items are subject to seizure as an incident of lawful arrest. In Marron v. United States, 275 U.S. 192, 48 S.Ct. 74, 72 L.Ed. 231 (1927), the Supreme Court held that the seizure of certain articles not described in the search warrant being executed was not justified, but nevertheless upheld the seizure on the theory that the articles in question were seized incident to the arrest of a codefendant of Marrón while he was on the premises being searched under the warrant. The court reasoned that the officers had a right, contemporaneously, to search the place without a warrant and to seize the items used to carry out the criminal enterprise.
In Harris v. United States, 331 U.S. 145, 67 S.Ct. 1098, 91 L.Ed. 1399 (1947), the United States Supreme Court held that where a search was made incident to an arrest and, in the course of the search, the officers came upon draft cards, although not related to the crime for which the defendant had been arrested and not objects of the search but which were the property of the United States in the illegal custody of the defendant and for which he was guilty of a serious and continuing offense against the laws of the United States, the draft cards could also be legally seized and used as evidence against him on another charge.
Subsequent to Marrón and Harris, case law on searches was further developed, upholding the right of officers searching pursuant to a search warrant to seize items not described in the warrant if those items were subject to seizure as an incident of a lawful arrest. Many of these cases are cited by the majority but only for the proposition that the property seized and not described in the search warrant constitutes an instrumentality of the crime, or a means of committing a felony. These cases hold that although a search warrant must describe the things to be seized and a search must be directed toward the things so described, nevertheless, items not named in the warrant but which are discovered in the search pursuant to the warrant may be seized if they could have been seized in a search incident to a lawful arrest. Since, in Warden, the United States Supreme Court rejected the distinction between seizure of items of evidential value only and seizure of instrumentalities, fruits or contraband under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, mere evidence is given the same standing under these search warrant cases as in-strumentalities, fruits or contraband and, in my opinion, mere evidence may be seized by officers under a warrant, whether particularly described therein or not, if such evidence could have been seized as an incident of lawful arrest. Such seizure is no longer considered a violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The principal thrust of the defendant’s objections is based upon the claim that our search warrant statutes were violated in that they do not permit a search for mere evidence, and that the requirements for a nighttime search are not set forth in the affidavits for a search warrant. This raises a state issue and the federal decisions based on the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure are not controlling, nor particularly significant in its determination. The provisions of our statutes on search warrants are more stringent than the requirements of the fourth amendment to the federal constitution and, also, are more stringent than the requirements of Section 18 of our state constitution. The two statutes in question are set forth in full in the majority opinion. Section 29-29-02, N.D.C.C., briefly stated, provides for limited grounds upon which a search warrant may be issued. They are as follows: (1) when the property is stolen or embezzled; *46(2) when the property was used as a means of committing a felony; and (3) when the property is in the possession of any person with the intent to use it as a means of committing a public offense, or in the possession of another to whom he may have delivered it for the purpose of concealing it and preventing its discovery. This statute does not authorize a search for mere evidence.
Section 29-29-10, N.D.C.C., requires that a search warrant must be served in the daytime unless the affidavits are positive that the property is on the person or in the place to be searched, in which event it may be served at any time. The affidavits in this case do not set forth the requirements of this statute for a nighttime search. The search in this case was made shortly after midnight.
Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961), holds that all evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the fourth amendment to the federal constitution is constitutionally inadmissible in evidence, and applies the exclusionary rule to the states. Historically, prior to Mapp, North Dakota followed the common-law rule of admissibility. State v. Fahn, 53 N.D. 203, 205 N.W. 67 (1925); State v. Pauley, 49 N.D. 488, 192 N.W. 91 (1922); State v. Lacy, 55 N.D. 83, 212 N.W. 442 (1927). The common-law rule of admissibility has also been followed in more than fifty percent of the states, Canada and England. 50 A.L.R.2d 531-546, and later case service. In accordance with the common-law rule, the admissibility of evidence is not affected by the illegality of the means by which it was obtained.
In State v. Manning, 134 N.W.2d 91 (N.D.1965), we held that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is not admissible in evidence following Mapp. The decision in Manning modified our holding in Fahn to the extent that where the evidence was obtained in violation of the federal constitution it was not admissible in evidence.
Manning was followed by State v. Dove, 182 N.W.2d 297 (N.D.1970). In Dove we applied Aguilar v. State of Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964), and Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969), and found that the evidence in Dove was obtained in violation of the federal constitution. We then reviewed the question to determine whether we should apply the harmless error rule in light of Fahy v. State of Connecticut, 375 U.S. 85, 84 S.Ct. 229, 11 L.Ed.2d 171 (1963), and Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), and determined that it could not be said that the evidence obtained and admitted in violation of the fourth amendment was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. We concluded that because the evidence was obtained by an unlawful search under the fourth amendment, it was inadmissible in the trial, and that because it was the only evidence upon which the conviction was based, the error in admission was prejudicial, and the conviction was reversed.
I concurred specially in Dove because I was concerned with the wording of paragraph number 3 of the syllabus, which stated:
“Where a search warrant was based upon an insufficient affidavit, any evidence obtained as a result of the search is inadmissible.”
It was my feeling that the wording of that paragraph was too broad and that it was tantamount to adopting the exclusionary rule in this state, including violations of the state search warrant requirements. In Dove we said, in applying the harmless error rule:
“An error in admitting plainly relevant evidence which possibly influenced the jury adversely to a litigant cannot, under Fahy, be conceived of as harmless.”
*47In this case the majority have said that because there was a statutory- violation but not a constitutional violation it is proper to apply the harmless error rule. They do so in spite of the fact that the evidence obtained was highly prejudicial to the defendant. The three items, consisting of the trenchcoat, a pair of trousers, and the towel, were all seized as a result of the after-midnight search, and contained blood and hair which compared with the blood and hair of the two victims. It appears to me that what the majority, in effect, have held is that, although it was violative of statute to have received the articles in evidence, nevertheless, because the error was statutory and not constitutional, it is only a technical error and will be disregarded on appeal. Therefore, it appears that paragraph number 3 of the syllabus in Dove must have been intended to have reference only to constitutional violations and not to statutory violations, although the majority refused, at the time Dove was written, to clarify paragraph number 3 of the syllabus in light of my special concurrence.
In effect, it appears to me that the majority in this case have applied the common-law rule of admissibility on review in the supreme court. I see no reason why we should not continue to apply the common-law rule of admissibility in this state at the trial court level where the evidence was not obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. I think that we should specifically hold that the federal exclusionary rule of evidence is applicable in North Dakota only if the search does not meet the requirements of the federal constitution, and continue to apply the common-law rule in all other cases.
For the reasons aforesaid, it is my belief that there was no error in the admission of the evidence in question even though it may have been obtained in violation of our search warrant statutes.