Court Opinion

ID: 9686194
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:33:18.773517+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:15.877633
License: Public Domain

SABERS, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent.
The search warrant was invalid because it was based, in substantial part, upon confidential marital communications.
This case is controlled by SDCL 19-13-13, which provides: “An accused in a criminal proceeding has a privilege to prevent his spouse from testifying as to any confidential1 communication between the accused and the spouse.”
This statute applies to search warrants because SDCL 19-9-14 provides:
Except as otherwise provided in this section, chapters 19-9 to 19-18, inclusive, apply to all actions and proceedings in the courts of this state. Those chapters other than those with respect to privileges do not apply in the following situations:
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(5) Issuance of warrants for arrest, criminal summonses, and search warrants. (emphasis added.)
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Therefore, the marital communication privilege applies to all actions and proceedings in the courts of this state including the issuance of search warrants. Accordingly, Hart is an accused in a criminal proceeding and he has a privilege to prevent his spouse from testifying as to any confidential communication between him as the accused and his spouse. Since the privilege applies to search warrants, the search warrant itself was invalid because it was based upon privileged confidential communications. SDCL 19-13-13 and 19-9-14(5).
A similar situation was considered in Muetze v. State, 73 Wis.2d 117, 243 N.W.2d 393 (1976). A search warrant was issued based upon the confidential marital communications made by the accused to his wife. The wife reported these communications to the police who authorized a search of the defendant’s apartment which revealed stolen property. Id. 243 N.W.2d at 394-95.
In seeking to suppress this evidence, the defendant argued that the marital communication privilege precludes the repetition by a third person, in a judicial proceeding to obtain a search warrant, of unauthorized private marital communications by a spouse. He further contended that without his wife’s disclosures, there was no probable cause to issue the search warrant, that the search was illegal, and that the exclusionary rule prohibited the admission of any of the fruits of the search. Id. at 397.
In reversing the defendant’s conviction, the court stated:
We hold that unauthorized out-of-court disclosures of private marital communications may not be used in a proceeding before a magistrate to obtain a search warrant. Therefore the warrant in this case was issued without probable cause. The search of the defendant’s apartment was not legally authorized and the exclusionary rule set forth in Mapp v. Ohio (1961), 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 *681L.Ed.2d 1081, ... must apply to the fruits of that search.
Id. at 399.
In State v. McCreary, 82 S.D. 111, 142 N.W.2d 240 (1966), we adopted the Mapp v. Ohio exclusionary rule which holds evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the United States Constitution inadmissible in a state court. Id. 82 S.D. at 125, 142 N.W.2d at 247. We wrote:
It was not enough that the search was made under color of the authority of a search warrant issued by a magistrate; to be a reasonable search the warrant must have been valid. The warrant was valid only if there was probable cause for its issuance appearing to the magistrate from the supporting affidavit.
82 S.D. at 125, 142 N.W.2d at 247-248. Here, the evidence seized in reliance upon the search warrant should have been suppressed, and held inadmissible under McCreary as fruits of an illegal search violative of Hart’s rights under the Constitution of the United States and the State of South Dakota. See: U.S. Const. Amend., Art. 4, Article VI, § 11, Constitution of South Dakota.
The majority opinion proceeds on the (tentative) basis that the search warrant was valid even if the privileged marital communications were “excised” therefrom, 1.e., the basis being the testimony of the “acts” observed rather than the “communications” heard. A fair reading of the affidavit in support of the search warrant dispels that argument. In addition, the communications are so intertwined with the observations of the acts that the “excise” rule is both impractical and impossible to fairly administer. More importantly, the “excise” rule violates both the letter and the spirit of the marital communication privilege rules which prohibit a search warrant based on confidential communications between husband and wife. SDCL 19-13-13 and 19-9-14(5).
The potential dangers of restricting the protection of the marital communication privilege is greater to the individual than to the government. As stated in United States v. Neal, 532 F.Supp. 942 (D.Colo.1982):
Over at least the past decade, the circle of privacy surrounding each of us has drawn smaller with each new governmental incursion and each new technological advance. Courts have sought to preserve inviolable some small island of privacy as a refuge for the human spirit where government may not intrude. Here the question is whether one such sanctuary, protected by the common law for centuries, shall be breached, rendering the secrets told to wives by husbands fair game for government investigators.
The issue is whether in our free society the government may, by making a deal with one’s spouse, invade the confidences of marriage to turn those nearest and dearest into informers.[2] Once the marital confidential communication is breached, other like sanctuaries of testimonial privilege cannot prevail against similar invasions, for they are shielded only by similar evidentiary privileges of no less penetrable nature. Thus, by prearrangement with a criminal suspect’s priest, minister or rabbi, psychiatrist or other physician, or lawyer, the police could obtain much information of great value in combatting crime. The only question is whether the price would be too high.
Id. at 946.
This is the second major intrusion by this court upon the marital communication privilege within the last two months. See: State v. Witchey, 388 N.W.2d 893 (S.D.1986), Justices Wuest and Sabers, dissenting.
For what? For whom? Against ourselves! All we really know is that the price is too high.

. SDCL 19-13-12 provides: "A communication is confidential if it is made privately by any person to his or her spouse during their marriage and is not intended for disclosure to any other person.”

. Ample precedent from recent history demonstrates the "efficiency" of such police methods. See, e.g., Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 40 (Harper and Row 1973).