Court Opinion

ID: 9585262
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:58:22.00954+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:37:11.393486
License: Public Domain

LOUIS J. CECI, J.
(concurring). Although I join Justice Steinmetz’s concurrence, I write separately to emphasize the proper characterization of Hoyer v. State, 180 Wis. 407, 193 N.W. 89 (1923). Justice Abrahamson's concurrence states that Hoyer stands for the proposition that the exclusionary rule has been established in this jurisdiction on grounds independent of the federal constitution and United States Supreme Court decisions. Although superficially appealing to some, such a proposition may not accurately be inferred from the Hoyer decision. On the contrary, Hoyer *462suggests that the protections extended under art. I, sec. 11 of the Wisconsin Constitution and under the federal fourth amendment are coextensive.
There is no question that the Hoyer court, after noting that art. I, sec. 11 is identical with the fourth amendment, Hoyer at 411, relied on federal case law in developing this state's exclusionary rule. Id. at 415. Such reliance must not be so insouciantly cast aside.
Indeed, there is inherent logic in looking toward the federal courts for guidance in interpreting our own constitution, particularly when the relevant provisions are virtually identical, as here. When the committee on the bill of rights to the Wisconsin constitutional convention drafted a bill of rights, it proposed a section against unreasonable searches and seizures. The section was and is identical in wording to the fourth amendment. See, Journal of the Convention to Form a Constitution for the State of Wisconsin at 124, October 28, 1846, entry (B. Brown, printer, 1847). That section was approved by the convention on November 23, 1846.1
*463One may properly conclude that the committee on the bill of rights to the Wisconsin constitutional convention modeled art. I, sec. 11 after the federal fourth amendment and deemed such section sufficient to attain the desired protection. Cf., Wisconsin Historical Publications, The Convention of 1846 at 375, Collections vol. XXVII, Constitutional Series vol. II (M. Quaife ed. 1919) (wording of proposed section in Wisconsin bill of rights regarding the impairment of the validity of contracts also found in U. S. Constitution and may other states' constitutions; that section, as proposed, deemed not to have desired effect of sufficiently restraining legislatures in those jurisdictions; amendment to proposed section therefore urged for this jurisdiction); see also, Thornton v. State, 117 Wis. 338, 347, 93 N.W. 1107 (1903). As art. I, sec. 11 is modeled after the fourth amendment, it is only logical to interpret the modeled provision, art. I, sec. 11, in terms of the model, the fourth amendment. This court has undertaken exactly that analysis in the past, as evidenced in Hoyer, and should continue to undertake the same analysis in the future.

 In its preratification existence, art. I, sec. 11 promoted little recorded discussion, although the debate on the proposed bill of rights in general created much "human outrage" when introduced by the committee on bill of rights to the constitutional convention, see, Wisconsin Historical Publications, The Struggle Over Ratification 1846-47 at 79, Collections vol. XXVIII, Constitutional Series vol. Ill (M. Quaife ed. 1918). The identical precursor to art. I, sec. 11 was apparently one of only two sections of the bill of rights to "escape the knife" and was approved without amendment. Id.; see also, Wisconsin Historical Publications, The Convention of 1846 at 526, 749, Collections vol. XXVII, Constitutional Series vol. II (M. Quaife ed. 1918).