Court Opinion

ID: 9644784
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:04:49.730028+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:18.297926
License: Public Domain

STEPHENS, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
The Kentucky Constitution, Section 10 states:
The people shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and possessions, from unreasonable search and seizure; and no warrant shall issue to search any place, or seize any person or thing, without describing them as nearly as may be, nor without probable cause supported by oath or affirmation.
The United States Constitution’s Fourth Amendment states:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Nothing in either Section 10 nor the Fourth Amendment provides for a good faith exception to the warrant requirement. It is well settled that the provisions of the Federal Constitution are a limitation on the powers of the federal government and not a limitation on the powers of the states. See ante at 685. The Federal Constitution creates a floor of rights below which no state can go. However, a state can rise above this floor and grant its citizens more rights than are secured by the Federal Constitution. While the United States Supreme Court has carved such an exception into the Fourth Amendment, we are not required to do so.
Like the entire Bill of Rights, the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures restrains the power of the government as a whole. They do not apply to one branch and exempt the others. One responsibility of all three branches is to ensure that constitutional rights are respected. Today the majority not only eradicates that responsibility, as applied to the judiciary, it has taken a step toward cracking the very foundation of the Constitution of Kentucky. Such a decision as set forth today only serves to further minimize the basic rights of the people of our great Commonwealth.
The highest court of Kentucky stated in Benge v. Commonwealth, Ky., 321 S.W.2d 247, 250 (1959), that
[i]n forbidding unreasonable searches and seizures, Section 10 of the Constitu*691tion of Kentucky made certain procedural requirements indispensable for lawful searches and seizures.History, both before and after the adoption of the Fourth Amendment, upon which Section 10 of Kentucky’s Constitution is based, has shown good police intentions to be inadequate safeguards for certain fundamental rights of man.
To be free from unreasonable searches is a fundamental right. Moreover, it is an absolute right. This right is ingrained in the very foundation of the Constitution of Kentucky. The framers of Kentucky’s first Constitution sought to avoid the dangers of unlimited and unreasonable searches and seizures. They did so by incorporating section 9 of article 12 (which today is known as Section 10) into the 1792 Kentucky Constitution. This protection was placed in the Constitution by its framers for the same reason similar checks and balances were incorporated, to preserve to the people certain civil and political rights such as freedom of speech, due process of law, religious freedom and trial by jury. “These interdictions are and have been sheltering walls behind which the humble, uninitiated, but innocent citizen, may stand secure while the storms of bigotry and fanaticism beat thereon and waste away ‘reason against resuming sway.’ ” Sampson, Our Constitutional Prohibition against Unreasonable Searches and Seizures, 13 Ky.L.J. 247, 259 (1925).
Before the sanctity of the home or a person can be invaded, it is the responsibility of the Commonwealth to prepare affidavits to substantiate and support a search warrant. The Commonwealth has the resources to ensure that the affidavits pass constitutional muster. It is not too great a burden to require the Commonwealth, with its vast resources, to be in compliance with the Constitution.
In the case at bar, the affidavit underlying the search warrant was defective in that it failed to establish probable cause. To reiterate, Section 10 states that “no warrant shall issue to search ... without probable cause.” It does not state ‘ no warrant shall issue to search ... without probable cause or good faith intentions of the police.” The clear and unequivocal language of Section 10 creates an absolute right. The majority creates an exception where no exception was ever intended to exist.
The majority declares the overriding purpose of the exclusionary rule to be the deterrence of police misconduct. Ante at 687. However, that is only one part of the rationale for the exclusionary rule. Another major function is to ensure compliance with the Fourth Amendment and with Section 10. With the majority’s decision, any incentive on behalf of the police to devote great care and attention to providing sufficient information to establish probable cause is lost. Now, such attention is replaced with a mechanical assumption that the document signed by a magistrate comports with the Constitution. Today’s decision will encourage representatives of the Commonwealth to become slovenly, less careful and less prepared in their work. We have been asked to balance the rights of the protections of Section 10 against the rights of the Commonwealth to enforce the laws. Because of the Commonwealth’s resources and due to the fundamental right guaranteed by Section 10, the balance should have fallen in favor of the rights of individuals to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Instead, the majority has modified Section 10 by judicial fiat and in so doing has minimized a basic right established by the framers of Kentucky’s Constitution.
COMBS and REYNOLDS, JJ., join this dissenting opinion.