Court Opinion

ID: 9751402
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 16:23:56.342314+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:44.861276
License: Public Domain

STEIN, J.,
concurring.
The Court today holds that a consent to search a motor vehicle and its occupants is invalid unless the police officer, following a valid stop of the vehicle, possesses a reasonable and articulable suspicion that a search would reveal evidence of a crime. The Court’s holding applies only to consent searches of vehicles stopped for traffic-type violations, and is based on evidence in the record that the use by police officers of consent searches in those circumstances has been abused. The Court’s holding is consistent with the current State Police Standard Operating Procedures and the December 29, 1999 Consent Decree entered into by the State Police with the United States Department of Justice. The Court’s decision is one of great significance to all those who operate motor vehicles on our State’s roadways. With but one reservation, I enthusiastically join the Court’s disposition.
I
My reservation about the Court’s decision is based on its holding that our State Constitution is the source of the requirement that a police officer who requests a motorist to consent to a search of his vehicle after a lawful traffic stop must have in advance a reasonable and articulable suspicion that the search will reveal evidence of criminal activity. Ante at 647, 790 A.2d at 912. I would impose precisely the same condition as does the Court, but would not rely on the State Constitution as its source. Rather, based on the virtually uncontradicted evidence that some police officers in New Jersey frequently have abused the power to request consents to search motor vehicles after routine traffic stops — and that motorists routinely accede to those requests — I *656would hold that the requirement of reasonable and articulable suspicion that a search will reveal evidence of a crime is simply a prophylactic rule of law adopted by this court for the purpose of preventing abuses of the power of law enforcement officers to request motorists to consent to searches of their motor vehicles.
Two reasons counsel against constitutionalizing the Court’s holding. The first is that the Court’s analysis encourages fragmentation of the protections afforded by the State Constitution. As noted, the Court’s holding establishes a constitutional standard that applies only to requests for consents to search motor vehicles after a traffic stop, ante at 635, 790 A.2d at 905, but does not apply to the wide variety of other settings in which consent searches may be sought by police officers. Thus the Court’s newly established constitutional principle has no application to consent searches in airports, bus terminals, train stations, college dormitories, private homes, or business premises.
Our State constitution has been described as the State’s “organic law” and as a document that “embodies the will of the people, as the final law[.]” Gangemi v. Berry, 25 N.J. 1, 12-13, 134 A.2d 1 (1957). Its fundamental role is to function as the core of the legal principles that guide the operation of State government. In Vreeland v. Byrne, 72 N.J. 292, 310, 370 A.2d 825 (1977), the Court explained:
The cornerstone of our state government is our state Constitution. All state governmental action whether it be executive, legislative or judicial must conform to this organic law. Even though governmental action is generally clothed with a presumption of legality, the judiciary, which is the final arbiter of what the Constitution means, must strike down governmental action which offends a constitutional provision.
Because the Constitution serves as the State’s organic law, we ordinarily do not invoke its protections lightly, to apply only to some but not all aspects of the challenged activity. See State v. Novembrino, 105 N.J. 95, 158, 519 A.2d 820 (1987) (rejecting good-faith exception to exclusionary rule adopted by United States Supreme Court and holding inadmissible under New Jersey Con*657stitution evidence seized pursuant to warrant issued without probable cause where well-trained officer relied in good faith on warrant in gathering evidence); State v. Hunt, 91 N.J. 338, 346-48, 450 A.2d 952 (1982) (holding invalid under New Jersey Constitution warrantless search and seizure of toll billing records); State v. Alston, 88 N.J. 211, 226, 440 A.2d 1311 (1981) (holding under New Jersey Constitution that defendants, driver, and passengers in automobile owned by another had automatic standing to challenge admissibility of weapons found by police in warrantless search of vehicle, and holding that automatic standing rule under State Constitution applies to any persons charged with offense in which possession of seized evidence at time of contested search is essential element of guilt); State v. Johnson, 68 N.J. 349, 353-54, 346 A.2d 66 (1975) (holding that under Art. 1, par. 7 of New Jersey Constitution the validity of all consents to search “must be measured in terms of waiver[,]” requiring the State to bear “burden of showing that the consent was voluntary, an essential element of which is knowledge of the right to refuse”).
Secondly, from a law enforcement perspective, the Court’s unnecessary constitutionalization of its holding significantly limits the State’s use in criminal prosecutions of voluntary confessions, as well as other evidence of criminal conduct, that may directly result from a consent search conducted without the requisite level of reasonable and articulable suspicion. The Attorney General, undoubtedly reflecting similar concerns, strongly opposes constitutional or judicial limits on automobile consent searches and, citing to the Monitor’s Fifth Report by the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, asserts that enhanced training of police officers already has been effective in limiting abuses in the conduct of automobile consent searches. A significant difference exists, however, between the more substantial law enforcement implications of a constitutional holding compared to the less restrictive effect of a judicially imposed limitation on automobile consent searches.
*658This Court explained the distinction in State v. Hartley, 103 N.J. 252, 511 A.2d 80 (1986). There, after twice rejecting FBI requests to make a statement and asserting his right to remain silent, defendant was asked again — without new Miranda warnings — to make an inculpatory statement, and he did so. Immediately thereafter he gave a confession, after new Miranda warnings, to the Atlantic City police. This Court held that “the FBI’s failure scrupulously to honor Hartley’s previously-invoked right to silence was a violation of constitutional magnitude, and the federal statement is deemed to have been unconstitutionally and illegally (under state law) compelled.” Id. at 283, 511 A.2d 80. Because the confession to the Atlantic City police came “on the heels of — if not in tandem with — the first, unconstitutionally — obtained, compelled statement,” id. at 284, 511 A.2d 80, the Court applied the “ ‘fruit of the constitutional violation doctrine,’ ” id. at 283, 511 A.2d 80, and held that the confession to Atlantic City police was inadmissible because it was tainted by the constitutional violation. Id. at 283-84, 511 A.2d 80. The Court contrasted its holding with that of Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 105 S.Ct. 1285, 84 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985), where the accused, who initially provided police with a voluntary but unwarned inculpatory statement, subsequently provided a full confession, following Miranda warnings, that was held admissible. 470 U.S. at 307-08,105 S.Ct. at 1292-93, 84 L.Ed.2d at 231-32. In its Hartley opinion, the Court distinguished Elstad:
As now becomes obvious, the difference between Elstad and the case before us takes on critical importance. In Elstad the failure to have furnished the accused with his Miranda warnings resulted in exclusion of only his unwarned statement. Because that statement was indisputably voluntary, a subsequent confession was untainted. There having been no constitutional violation in connection with the obtaining of the first statement, the second statement could not be perceived as the fruit of a constitutional violation, and it was therefore admissible.
[103 N.J. at 282-83, 511 A.2d 80.]
The principle articulated in Hartley could preclude the admissibility not only of confessions, but also of other evidence of crime the existence of which was learned in the course of a consent search of a vehicle conducted without the required level of reasonable and articulable suspicion. See Wong Sun v. United States, *659371 U.S. 471, 485-86, 83 S.Ct. 407, 416, 9 L.Ed.2d 441, 454 (1963) (holding that where police officers’ unlawful entry into petitioner Toy’s living quarters resulted in declaration by Toy leading police to discover narcotics at residence of Yee, “fruit of poisonous tree” doctrine required exclusion of heroin found at Yee’s residence in government’s prosecution of Toy). Referring to the “fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine,” the Supreme Court in Elstad, supra, observed: “This figure of speech is drawn from Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963), in which the Court held that evidence and witnesses discovered as a result of a search in violation of the Fourth Amendment must be excluded from evidence. The Wong Sun doctrine applies as well when the fruit of the Fourth Amendment violation is a confession.” 470 U.S. at 305-06,105 S.Ct. at 1291, 84 L.Ed.2d at 230.
Similarly in Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433, 435, 94 S.Ct. 2357, 2359, 41 L.Ed.2d 182,187 (1974), the issue was
whether the testimony of a witness in respondent’s state court trial for rape must be excluded simply because police had learned the identity of the witness by questioning respondent at a time when he was in custody as a suspect, but had not been advised that counsel would be appointed for him if he was indigent.
The defendant had been questioned before the Court’s decision in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), but his trial occurred afterwards. The Court observed that the failure of police to warn defendant of his right to counsel implicated the Miranda procedural safeguards that “were not themselves rights protected by the Constitution but were instead measures to insure that the right against compulsory self-incrimination was protected.” Id. at 444, 94 S.Ct. at 2363, 41 L.Ed.2d at 193. The Court cited Wong Sun, supra, for the principle that “the ‘fruits’ of police conduct [that] actually infringed a defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights must be suppressed,” and observed that “we have already concluded that the police conduct at issue here did not abridge respondent’s constitutional privilege against compulsory self-incrimination, but departed only from the proplylaetic standards later laid down by this Court in Miranda to safeguard that privilege.” Id. at 445-56, 94 S.Ct. at 2364-65, 41 *660L.Ed.2d at 194. Because the evidence sought to be introduced was the testimony of a third party whose identity was not learned in the course of a constitutional violation, the Court held that the witness’ testimony was improperly excluded. Id. at 452, 94 S.Ct. at 2367-68, 41 L.Ed.2d at 197.
Accordingly, Wong Sun, Elstad Tucker, and this Court’s decision in Hartley make clear that evidence, confessions or the identity of witnesses uncovered as a result of a violation by police officers of the federal or state constitutions ordinarily will be inadmissible unless the taint is alleviated by the passage of time or intervening circumstances. In the case of evidence, confessions, or information about witnesses to crime indirectly resulting from a consent search of a motor vehicle that does not meet the Court’s new constitutional standard, exclusion of such collateral by-products of the search constitutes in my view too severe a restriction on the work and interests of law enforcement. In other appropriate circumstances the Court deliberately has elected to rest its holding on common-law rather than on constitutional principles. In State v. Reed, 133 N.J. 237, 262, 627 A.2d 630 (1993), the Court held that failure by police to inform a suspect in custody that an attorney retained by a friend was at police headquarters and had asked to confer with him rendered the suspect’s subsequent waiver of the privilege against self-incrimination invalid per se. The Court stated:
We now hold, however, that the failure of the police to inform defendant that an attorney was present and asking to speak with him violated defendant’s State privilege against self-incrimination. We decline, therefore, to resolve the issue of whether the police conduct was so egregious as to offend the due-process guaranteed by our State Constitution.
[Id. at 268, 627 A.2d 630(emphasis added).]
Moreover, embedding the Court’s requirement of reasonable and articulable suspicion in the Constitution “effectively prevents the other branches of government from exercising their own responsibility to protect a citizen’s right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.” Novembrino, supra, 105 N.J. at 171, 519 A.2d 820 (Handler, J., concurring). The Attorney General observes that State Police practices in conducting consent *661searches already have improved significantly. Constitutionalizing the Court’s holding diminishes the judiciary’s flexibility in this area if subsequent developments were to alter or modify the need for strict adherence to the standard adopted by the Court.
Because in my view a judicially imposed rule of law requiring reasonable and articulable suspicion of criminality as a predicate for consent searches of motor vehicles, rather than one mandated by the State Constitution, fully protects the interest of the motoring public without unduly burdening law enforcement interests, I would not rely on the State Constitution as the source of the Court’s holding.