Court Opinion

ID: 9601086
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:36:27.068692+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:55.111535
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Chief Justice
(concurring in the result).
I concur in the result. It is difficult for-me, however, to see how the main opinion, can pay reverence to Mapp v. Ohio, and; then distinguish it, where, as here, no war-, rant was used, and where the violence in-, volved simply was one of degree. I am off *70the opinion that the context of the majority hints at a hopeful relaxation of the Mapp case in futuro, but, as courts sometimes do, avoids it by distinction and espousal of laudatory purpose. ' The fact remains, I think, that under a literal interpretation of the Mapp case, a careful premeditator could murder, chop the body up, put the pieces in his car, under a blanket, race through a dozen red lights at 100 miles per hour, get a'rrested, object to a search of his vehicle, and after a peace officer nonetheless had taken a peek, discovered and impounded the sordid remains, the killer, driving a rented car, perhaps, would seem to be immune, under the Mapp case, from admissibility of evidence, and would go scot-free unless the corpus delicti could be shown by other evidence, perhaps completely unavailable. In my opinion, the novel results engenderable by Mapp v. Ohio ultimately should result, if not in its demise, at least, in its amelioration in favor of a rule of common sense designed to protect, not destroy, the public weal.
In our state we have such a rule of reason under Title 77-13-3, Utah Code Annotated 1953, which allows a peace officer to arrest without warrant 1) one committing a felony in his presence, 2) where the arrestee actually has committed a felony, though not in the officer’s presence! and 3) where a felony has been committed and the officer has reasonable cause to believe the arrested person committed it. Under Title 77-13-12 a peace officer may “break open the door *' * * of the building in which the person to be arrested is, or in which there are reasonable grounds for believing him to be, after demanding admittance and explaining the purpose for which admittance is desired.” It would appear that the officers in this case satisfied the provisions of this statute. Our statutes largely were a codification of the common law and have stood the test of time, and it seems to me that under the circumstances and legislation here no authorities need be canvassed save those of our own state.
If it be determined as a preliminary matter that the officer had no reasonable cause to believe the accused to be the felon, that is one thing, and should be considered in determining admissibility and the quantum and quality of proof with respect to the offense for which the accused was sought. In like fashion the officer should be protected if factually there were such reasonable cause to believe the accused to be the felon, but in fact the officer’s judgment proved inaccurate, in which case, nevertheless, admissibility of evidence as to another offense, such as a misdemeanor, would not invade the accused’s rights as to the offense for which he was sought out, but would assuage the danger of recurrence of the latter.
The novelty of the Mapp decision could .loom large, for example, in a hypothetical case where an officer, having reason to *71believe a person to have committed adultery, enters the latter’s home without a warrant, discovers no adulterous conduct, but finds conclusive evidence of a murder. Such evidence, under the Mapp case, I take it, would be inadmissible in proving the murder.
I concede that a man’s home is his castle, the unlawful invasion of which gives him a right of redress civilly or by physical counter-attack. But if, during that invasion which subjects the intruder to damages, a murder is discovered, evidence of such murder should not be inadmissible because of the prior compensable invasion of the right to privacy. They are two different things, akin to a case where one unlawfully assaults another and in doing so unearths evidence of a felony. The assaulted can obtain redress for his bruises against his attacker, or could knock him out or perhaps kill him, but the assault itself should be no reason for suppression of evidence unearthed in the affray that perhaps conclusively and solely points to the fact that the one attacked was a murderer.
■ It 'seems to me that there may be a difference between illegally obtained evidence and accidentally obtained evidence. In the Mapp case they did not break in to obtain evidence with respect to pornographic literature, but to investigate a felonious bombing. . The illegal entry was complete when the door was sprung in an effort to accumulate evidence as to a bombing. Had Mrs. Mapp been charged with the bombing itself, I would concede that any evidence discovered as to that offense might be inadmissible, as offensive to the American traditional sense of fair play alone, — not necessarily because of the IV Amendment or any other amendment — although the Mapp case puts it on the latter ground, — a matter which seems to prove the growing tendency, if not insistence by the few, not the many, on the emasculation of state rights in favor of totalitarian federal 'Control, heralding the ultimate destruction of the fundamental font of government in which our forebears bathed in each’s blood;
In the nature of things I accept • the decisions of the Supreme Court, but reserve the right, until bondage pre-empts, it, to criticize them. I reserve to the citizens of my state the same privilege with respect to my opinions. But here is the rub: The citizens of my state have the right and the privilege and the honor and the duty to remove me from office at the polls if I err, at a free election, but no such right, privilege, honor or duty is given the electorate so far as the federal counterparts are concerned,
With respect to the instant case, oúr course is clear under our state statute,with^ out any Mapp to guide" us. •