Court Opinion

ID: 9489765
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:23:33.216104+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:42.108694
License: Public Domain

ILANA DIAMOND ROYNER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment.
Although I regard the issue as close, I agree with the majority that the unannounced entry into Stowe’s apartment was justified by exigent circumstances, and that the district court’s denial of Stowe’s suppression motion must therefore be upheld. Having concluded that there was no violation of Stowe’s Fourth Amendment rights in this cáse, I consider the majority’s decision to embark upon a discussion of the constitutionality of the Illinois “no-knock” statute, 725 ILCS 5/1088, to be particularly ill-advised. Indeed, our conclusion that there was no Fourth Amendment violation here ensures that any determination we may make about the no-knock statute is of no practical consequence to Stowe because our views concerning whether the statute is unconstitutional, “clearly” or otherwise, will have no effect whatsoever on the disposition of Stowe’s suppression motion. As a threshold matter, then, it is not immediately evident to me that Stowe would have standing to mount a facial attack against the no-knock statute. Cf. County Court of Ulster County v. Allen; 442 U.S. 140, 155, 99 S.Ct. 2213, 2223, 60 L.Ed.2d 777 (1979) (“As a general rule, if there is no constitutional defect in the application of a statute to a litigant, he does not have standing to argue that it would be unconstitutional *502if applied to 'third parties in hypothetical situations.”)
Moreover, even if we were to conclude that Stowe has standing to challenge the statute, there are other sound reasons to refrain from ruling on its constitutionality here. In Krull, the Supreme Court held that the exclusionary rule has no application where evidence is obtained pursuant to a statute that, although held to be unconstitutional, does not so clearly transgress the Fourth Amendment that a reasonable officer, acting in objective “good faith,” would have been expected to recognize its invalidity. Krull, 480 U.S. at 349-51, 355, 107 S.Ct. at 1166-68, 1170. Thus, where a search would be illegal but for the fact that it was authorized by a statute upon which the officer could reasonably rely, the motion to suppress must be denied. Id. at 355, 359-60, 107 S.Ct. at 1170, 1172; see also United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984). It follows that the question whether a statute is “clearly unconstitutional” within the meaning of Krull would have to be addressed only in a case where a defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated, and becomes superfluous in a case where they were not. Yet the majority embarks upon an analysis of the statute and concludes that it is not “clearly unconstitutional” under Krull without so much as acknowledging that constitutional questions should generally be avoided unless necessary to the resolution of the case. E.g., Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 361 n. 10, 103 S.Ct. 1855, 1860 n. 10, 75 L.Ed.2d 903 (1983); see also Brennan v. Township of Northville, 78 F.3d 1152, 1157 (6th Cir.1996); United States v. Knox, 888 F.2d 585, 587 (8th Cir.1989); United States v. Velasquez, 885 F.2d 1076, 1083 (3d Cir.1989), cert. denied, 494 U.S. 1017, 110 S.Ct. 1321, 108 L.Ed.2d 497 (1990).
Following oral argument, we were apprised that the question of the constitutionality of 725 ILCS 5/108-8 is currently pending before the Illinois Supreme Court (People v. Krueger, No. 80486 (Ill. argued Sept. 18, 1996)). Although . the Illinois Supreme Court’s view of the Fourth Amendment is not binding upon us, its interpretation of the meaning of the statute is authoritative (e.g., Diesel Service Co. v. AMBAC Intenat’l Corp., 961 F.2d 635, 639 & n. 3 (7th Cir.1992); Williams, McCarthy, Kinley, Rudy & Picha v. Northwestern Nat’l Ins. Group, 750 F.2d 619, 624 (7th Cir.1984)), and may well alter the constitutional inquiry. As a prudential matter, then, I consider it unwise to venture an opinion concerning the facial validity of the statute when that determination is wholly unnecessary to deciding this appeal. For these reasons, I concur in the majority’s judgment but do not join its opinion.