Court Opinion

ID: 9666933
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:30:25.374344+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:33.611283
License: Public Domain

KELLEY, Justice
(concurring specially):
I concur in the majority opinion. I write only to note that, in my opinion, even had the appellant timely raised the issue in the trial court relative to the alleged applicability of article I, section 10 of the Minnesota Constitution, the claim would nonetheless have been meritless. As the majority noted, article I, section 10 is virtually identical to the applicable portion of the fourth amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In such case, this court will not lightly reject a Supreme Court interpretation of identical, or substantially similar language, nor “cavalierly construe our constitution more expansively than the United States Supreme Court has considered the federal constitution.” State v. Gray, 413 N.W.2d 107, 111 (Minn.1987). The court historically has not, nor should it, absent unique or distinctive Minnesota conditions, depart from the general principle favoring unanimity merely because of its philosophical rejection of a particular constitutional interpretation emanating from the federal Supreme Court. See, e.g. Galie, The Other Supreme Courts: Judicial Activism Among State Supreme Courts, 33 Syracuse L.Rev. 731 (1982); Collins, Reliance on State Constitutions — Away from a Reactionary Approach, 9 Hastings Const.L.Q. 1 (1981); Developments in the Law — The Interpretation of State Constitutional Rights, 95 Harv.L.Rev. 1324, 1359 (1982).