Court Opinion

ID: 9675238
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:46:25.124388+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:32.623685
License: Public Domain

SEILER, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. I am unable to concur in the proposition that a claim of illegal search and seizure is not a matter which may be raised in a collateral attack upon a judgment of conviction.
Despite the fact that rule 27.26 provides that a motion to vacate may be filed by a prisoner “. . . claiming a right to be released on the ground that such sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution ... of .. . the United States . . . ” and that “. . . trial errors affecting constitutional rights may be raised even though the error could have been raised on appeal”, our divisional decisions have written Fourth Amendment claims out of rule 27.26. If the defendant does not file a motion to suppress and follow it with appropriate motions and objections, he is held to have waived the point. If he files the proper motions and objections but loses on appeal, he is foreclosed because he is then said to be using 27.26 as a second appeal. It is true many early Missouri decisions took the view the only way to reach an illegal search and seizure was by motion to suppress and this view has been carried forward into our application of rule 27.26, even after its revision in 1967, but I do not believe it is tenable in view of Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 83 S.Ct. 745, 9 L.Ed.2d 770; and Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 83 S.Ct. 822, 9 L.Ed.2d 837.
The basic question is, who is going to hear federal constitutional search and seizure questions arising from Missouri state convictions ? Our divisional position is that it is to be done by the federal courts, Fields v. State (Mo.Sup.) 468 S.W.2d 31. This leads to conflicts and does not promote finality. If there is a defect in our state proceedings, it seems to me we should handle it, rather than turning it over to the federal courts. A defendant cannot constitutionally be convicted on evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, Kaufman v. United States, 394 U.S. 217, 89 S.Ct. 1068, 22 L.Ed.2d 227; Townsend v. Sain, supra, and we accomplish little by declining to meet the issue, particularly in a case where there is no evidence of any abuse of process by the defendant.
This is the view adopted in the Standards Relating to Post-Conviction Remedies of the American Bar Association Project on Minimum Standards for Criminal Justice. See 2.1(a) (ii), dealing with grounds for relief, and 6.1(b) dealing with waiver.
I would reverse and remand this case for a full evidentiary hearing on the legality of the arrest which was made of defendant on what is stated in the record to be a request from a police department in a nearby municipality, but with no evidence as to the basis for the request. The legality of the arrest which produced the finger prints on which the conviction rests has not yet been gone into in any court.