Court Opinion

ID: 9471948
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:44:50.595841+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:39.414254
License: Public Domain

GOLDBERG, Circuit Judge,
with whom POLITZ and TATE, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting:
The majority apparently hears the death knell of the exclusionary rule; today’s holding swiftly propels that part of our jurisprudence towards its final demise. But I will not be a pallbearer yet — not until the Supreme Coroners have plainly pronounced the exclusionary rule dead. Continuing to adhere to the original panel decision in this case, I retract not a syllable from that original opinion. And, while I wholeheartedly concur in the dissent of my brother, Judge Jolly, my disagreement with the majority’s result and reasoning extends further than his. I pause, therefore, to express a few more paragraphs in support of the ideas articulated in the panel opinion and to provide an alternative rationale for the panel’s result.
I.
The en banc court’s majority holding, as expressed in the first two sentences of the opinion, is not especially troubling. Under the facts of this case the act of monitoring the beeper’s signal did not itself constitute an unreasonable search or seizure. The legitimate 4th Amendment inquiry, however, does not end there. This case involves much more than an act of monitoring. Questions concerning the physical presence of the device within a zone of privacy call out loudly for our attention. In order to make possible the tracking of an airplane by means of an electronic device, a customs agent intruded into the interior of a plane and installed a beeper. A warrant authorized that intrusion, but the beeper remained inside the plane past the time that the warrant allowed. Electronic tracking of the plane, in the period after the warrant’s expiration, produced evidence that was used to prosecute Butts.
As we held in the panel opinion, the beeper’s continued, unauthorized, physical presence inside the plane violated the defendant’s 4th Amendment rights. Individuals should be able to reasonably expect that monitoring instrumentalities of the *1522State will not be present in their protected zones of privacy. For a beeper is more than just the signal that it emits. It is both tangible and symbolic. It constitutes a continuing, constructive presence of the state. The federal officer’s initial intrusion into the vehicle interior, required to affix the tracking device, endured as long as the beeper remained.
Today’s majority fails to come to grips with, indeed fails to even address, this assault on 4th Amendment protections. This failure flows from a singular emphasis on the United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276, 103 S.Ct. 1081, 75 L.Ed.2d 55 (1983), and that case’s limited approval of warrantless beeper monitoring. Coupled with the majority’s narrowing of Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963), and the poisonous fruits doctrine, the emphasis on the act of monitoring produces what I believe is an incredible result.
Three major flaws exist in the majority’s train of reasoning. First, the majority’s analysis fails to recognize that the various procedures necessary for gathering beeper evidence all work to achieve a single end. While these procedures are indeed separable into installation, maintenance and monitoring components for purposes of some Fourth Amendment analyses,1 the activities are not separable in terms of their real-world, law enforcement function. Beeper procedures serve a single goal each time they are implemented — i.e., the gathering of evidence that will lead to the arrest and conviction of suspected criminals. A constitutional violation in any of the procedures taints the beeper evidence; for without each procedure the evidence cannot be obtained. Any meaningful constitutional review of the gathering of evidence through the use of beepers must take account of all component procedures. The violation of the Constitution in this case arose out of the maintenance component. Maintaining the beeper inside the plane past the period permitted by the warrant was just as necessary to the law enforcement objective as was the act of monitoring. Failure to recognize the single, overarching function of beeper procedures and failure to scrutinize each procedure for possible illegality has today allowed a constitutional violation to pass without redress.
The majority’s reasoning is also flawed because the scope of the exclusionary rule and the poisonous fruits doctrine is not nearly so narrow as today’s decision paints it. Wong Sun v. United States, supra, commands the exclusion of evidence “come at by the exploitation” of illegality. 371 U.S. at 488, 83 S.Ct. at 417 (1963). In this case, there exists both a causal relationship and a link of purposive behavior by law enforcement officers connecting the illegality to the evidence at issue. But for the installation and continued illegal presence of the beeper, agents would not have come into possession of the tracking information or the physical evidence seized on Butts’s arrest. Knotts's comparison of beeper monitoring to visual surveillance, to decide an issue concerning the act of monitoring, does not deny the reality that beepers allow police to obtain evidence that they would otherwise be unable to obtain. Much more than just a “but for” relationship, however, exists between illegal beeper procedures and the evidence at issue. The specific purpose of the entire beeper tracking process was realized in Butts’s arrest and the seizure of evidence. Moreover, nothing — no passage of time, no act by the defendant, no act by law enforcement officers — appears to purge the illegality tainting that evidence. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a more direct or solid link between the customs official’s violation of the law and the evidence at issue.
Precedent, relied on by the majority in narrowing Wong Sun, has a very different import in my mind. The analogy drawn between the circumstances in this case and those in United States v. Bailey, 691 F.2d 1009, 1016-17 (11th Cir.1982), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 103 S.Ct. 2098, 77 L.Ed.2d 306 (1983) and United States v. Nooks, 446 F.2d 1283, 1287-88 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 945, 92 S.Ct. 299, 30 L.Ed.2d 261 *1523(1971), will not withstand analysis. Both of the latter cases admit evidence obtained subsequent to an illegal arrest. In each case, though, the link between police illegality and the evidentiary fruits was attenuated by the defendant’s commission of a second crime. In fact, Bailey distinguishes a line of cases that suppress evidence and depend in part on “but for” causation between police illegality and discovery of evidence. Bailey actually acknowledges the “but for” causality factor as relevant in Wong Sun analyses. 691 F.2d at 1014 n. 3. Despite the existence of a “but for” link in Bailey, Judge Anderson found that the commission of a new crime mandated an exception to the traditional Wong Sun analysis. In explaining the rationale of its ruling and rationale of this circuit’s decision in Nooks, supra, the court declared:
Unlike the situation where in response to the unlawful police action the defendant merely reveals a crime that already has been or is being committed, extending the fruits doctrine to immunize a defendant from arrest for new crimes gives a defendant an intolerable carte blanche to commit further criminal acts so long as they are sufficiently connected to the chain of causation started by the police misconduct. This result is too far reaching and too high a price for society to pay in order to deter police conduct.
Id. at 1017. The “high price” incurred when a suspect commits further criminal acts is not relevant in the instant case. Rather, this case parallels closely the cases distinguished in Bailey, where the Fifth Circuit suppressed fruits of police misconduct. See United States v. Beck, 602 F.2d 726 (5th Cir.1979). (The court suppressed evidence where an illegal stop of a vehicle resulted in defendant’s tossing marijuana out of the window); Fletcher v. Wainwright, 399 F.2d 62, 64-65 (5th Cir.1968). (That stolen jewelry was found in a public area was irrelevant and did not render the search outside of the Fourth Amendment. The jewelry had been thrown from a motel window into the courtyard in response to an illegal entry into the defendant’s motel room.) It is United States v. Beck and Fletcher v. Wainwright, rather than Bailey or Nooks, that control the instant case.2 The evidence against Butts was the fruit of illegal law enforcement conduct. It was properly suppressed by the court below.
A third flaw in the majority’s analysis derives from the emphasis on information conveyed by the beeper. Focusing only upon the incriminating evidence itself, this kind of reasoning reveals an ironic fetishism. Under the majority’s interpretation of Wong Sun, unless the evidence exudes a special aura that places it into a class of protected matter, the exclusionary rule does not apply. Such an approach turns the exclusionary rule on its head, making the rule appear as an end rather than as a means to an end. The exclusionary rule exists primarily to ensure compliance with the Fourth Amendment. And, the Amendment’s purpose is plain from its language: to protect “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and *1524effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” Losing sight of the constitutional value to be protected and the law’s role in protecting that value can lead nowhere but to a wrong result. The costs of that wrong result are today visited upon defendant Butts and upon the whole of society.
II.
Constitutional values aside but not forgotten, a second justification exists for the district court's suppression of the evidence in this case. Based on his inherent supervisory power, the district judge acted properly in excluding the beeper evidence. The magistrate who had authorized installation of a beeper in the airplane included a clear and unequivocal command in the warrant: “You are also directed to remove the transponder from the aircraft no later than SO days from the expiration of the original court order.” While the customs agent sought and received one extension of this 30 day limit, he failed to carry out the warrant’s instruction after that extension expired. The magistrate’s command, carrying the force of law, gave the defendant a legal interest in removal of the beeper. As a direct result of violating federal law, and in derrogation of the defendant’s interest, officers were able to obtain evidence against Butts.
The supervisory power is a well established means by which federal courts deter violation of nonconstitutional law. See United States v. Payner, 447 U.S. 727, 736 n. 7, n. 8, 100 S.Ct. 2439, 2446-47 n. 7, n. 8, 65 L.Ed.2d 468 (1980); Rea v. United States, 350 U.S. 214, 217-218, 76 S.Ct. 292, 294-95, 100 L.Ed. 233 (1956); McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332, 341-42, 63 S.Ct. 608, 613-14, 87 L.Ed. 819 (1943). Exercise of that power frequently takes the form of excluding evidence from use in criminal trials. See, e.g., Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 80 S.Ct. 1437, 4 L.Ed.2d 1669 (1960); Mesarosh v. United States, 352 U.S. 1, 77 S.Ct. 1, 1 L.Ed.2d 1 (1956); McNabb v. United States, supra, 318 U.S. 332, 63 S.Ct. 608, 87 L.Ed. 819; United States v. Cortina, 630 F.2d 1207 (7th Cir.1980); United States v. Valencia, 541 F.2d 618 (6th Cir.1976); see generally “Thirteenth Annual Review of Criminal Procedure: United States Supreme Court and Court of Appeals 1982-83,” 72 Geo.L.J. 355 (1983). In McNabb v. United States, supra, 318 U.S. at 341-342, 63 S.Ct. at 613-14, the Supreme Court declared:
The principles governing the admissibility of evidence in federal criminal trials have not been restricted ... to those derived solely from the Constitution. In the exercise of its supervisory authority over the administration of criminal justice in the federal courts, this Court has, from the very beginning of its history, formulated rules of evidence to be applied in federal criminal prosecutions____ Quite apart from the Constitution, therefore, we are constrained to hold that the evidence elicited from the petitioner in the circumstances disclosed here must be excluded. For in the treatment of the petitioners, the arresting officers assumed functions which Congress has explicitly denied them.
The circumstances in which the statements admitted in evidence against the petitioners were secured revealed a plain disregard of the duty enjoined by Congress upon federal law officers____
[T]o permit such evidence to be made the basis of a conviction in the federal courts would stultify the policy which Congress has enacted into law [citations omitted].
318 U.S. at 341-45, 63 S.Ct. at 613-15.
A situation similar to the one that produced the McNabb decision exists in the case at bar. An individual has been prosecuted with evidence obtained in violation of federal law. The only difference is that the instant case involves a command from the judicial branch rather than a command of Congress. That difference hardly mandates a different result than the one reached in McNabb. Respect for and enforcement of court made law constitutes an important value, as worthy of protection as the mandates issuing from a coequal branch of government. See Rea v. United States, supra, 350 U.S. at 217-18, 76 S.Ct. at 294-95. (Discussing a violation of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure the Court declared that, “federal courts sit to enforce federal law” and “federal law ex*1525tends to the process issuing from those courts.”)
Admittedly, in recent cases the Supreme Court has cautioned against overzealous use of the supervisory power in reversing criminal convictions. For example, United States v. Payner, supra, 447 U.S. at 735, 100 S.Ct. at 2446, noted that the supervisory power should be applied “with some caution,” carefully weighing the interests in preserving judicial integrity and in deterring illegal conduct against the societal interest in presenting probative evidence to the trier of fact. However, in the same case the Supreme Court observed that its decision “does not limit the traditional scope of the supervisory power in any way; nor does it render that power ‘superfluous.’ ” Id. at 735-36 n. 8, 100 S.Ct. at 2446-47 n. 8.3
I believe that the balancing process in this case requires us to uphold the exclusion of evidence. On one side weighs the important interest always relevant in questions of exclusion: putting probative evidence of the defendant’s guilt, the confiscated marijuana, before the trier of fact. But, against that we balance the deterrence of blatantly illegal conduct by law enforcement officers. Here the conduct to be deterred is particularly egregious. A customs agent failed to obey the direct and unequivocal command of a federal magistrate. His actions manifested a complete disregard for a court order. Good faith on the part of that official was notably absent. See United States v. Williams, 622 F.2d 830, 841 (1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1127, 101 S.Ct. 946, 67 L.Ed.2d 114. (A good faith belief must be grounded in objective reasonableness.)4 Overall, in view of the necessity of discouraging such reprehensible scorn for judicial authority, the scale tips towards excluding the evidence. We should uphold the district court’s suppression of the evidence.
Adapting our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence to constantly evolving, high technology techniques of law enforcement presents a difficult challenge. We must not close our eyes.to possible illegality in such methods just because certain of their component procedures do not violate the law. The potential for seriously eroding respect for the law may well lurk in the other procedures necessary to implementing these ultra-modern police techniques. Today’s decision shirks the challenge before us. It beckons a future in which the citizenry’s rights to privacy and security will lie atrophied beyond recognition. I must respectfully dissent.

. See Majority Opinion p. 1516.

. Michigan v. Clifford, — U.S. -, 104 S.Ct. 641, 78 L.Ed.2d 477 (1983) is not to the contrary. That case holds that the existence of reasonable privacy interests in a fire damaged home impose a warrant requirement on post-fire arson investigations inside the home. The Supreme Court upheld exclusion of evidence found during a warrantless search of the home’s basement and upper areas. The Court did not require suppression of a fuel can, discovered by firefighters and subsequently placed in plain view in the home’s driveway. With regard to that can, the Court's comments were brief:
One of the fuel cans was discovered in plain view in the Clifford’s driveway. This can was seen in plain view during the initial investigation by the firefighters. It would have been admissible whether it had been seized in the basement by the firefighters or in the driveway by the arson investigators. Exclusion of this evidence should be reversed.
Id. at-, 104 S.Ct. at 649-50.
I can find no discussion to support the Butts majority’s conclusion that "if the arson squad had not gone upon the premises illegally, they could not have taken possession of this can.’’ Majority Opinion at 1519. Furthermore, I cannot read this cryptic passage by Justice Powell (joined by Justices Brennan, Marshall and White) as making the substantial reduction in Fourth Amendment protections suggested by today’s majority. Had the Court intended to impose such a sweeping change in the Wong Sun doctrine, it surely would have been much more explicit.

. The holding of Payner is not controlling in today’s case. Payner held that the balance of values tilted towards admission of the "tainted” evidence when the defendant was not himself the victim of the challenged practices.
Nor does the Court’s recent decision in United States v. Hasting, — U.S. -, 103 S.Ct. 1974, 76 L.Ed.2d 96 (1983) suggest that invocation of the supervisory power in this case would be inappropriate. Hasting noted that the existence of "means more narrowly tailored” than exclusion of evidence to deter illegality cut against exclusion. However, the decision actually rested upon the fact that the illegality at issue constituted harmless error in the defendant’s trial.

. The existence of good faith, in fact, has been found to be controlling in previous balancings to determine the appropriateness of exclusion. United States v. Caceres, 440 U.S. 741, 757-58, 99 S.Ct. 1465, 1474-75, 59 L.Ed.2d 733 (1979).