Court Opinion

ID: 9465585
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:50:21.253766+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:15.473026
License: Public Domain

*97CHARLES CLARK, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
This unique case carries the application of the exclusionary rule to an extreme that ignores its purpose and could harm the interests of justice. An officer who had previously arrested a narcotics runner, knew she had been convicted and knew she was free on a bond which provided limitations designed to stop her criminal activities, saw that criminal in a situation which obviously violated those bond limitations. As Judge Simpson’s opinion demonstrates, the agent’s arrest of this woman for “bail jumping” was legally wrong. If this were a suit for false arrest, I would have no difficulty in concurring in the majority’s impeccable reasoning. But it is not such a trial. It is a criminal prosecution brought because a search pursuant to the invalid arrest established that the criminal was repeating her prior role as a heroin courier. Because the majority would deny to her trial this positive evidence of the plain truth without any prospect such denial would have a proper deterrent effect, I respectfully dissent.
The purpose of the exclusionary rule is to take away any temptation of law enforcement officials to knowingly violate the rights of citizens by denying to the public proof of criminal conduct disclosed by such wrongful police activity. Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 486, 96 S.Ct. 3037, 3048, 49 L.Ed.2d 1067 (1976); United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 348, 94 S.Ct. 613, 620, 38 L.Ed.2d 561 (1974). “[T]he application of the rule has been restricted to those areas where its remedial objectives are thought most efficaciously served.” United States v. Calandra, supra, 414 U.S. at 348, 94 S.Ct. at 620. In order for the exclusionary rule to serve its deterrent purpose, the officer must act in a way he either knew or should have known was wrongful. This is not such a case.
Officer Markonni did what any reasonable, practical officer would have considered the law required him to do. He did what reasonable, practical citizens would expect him to do. When he stopped and searched Williams he knew she had violated bond limitations designed to protect the public from future repetitions of her past criminal conduct. An officer in the field is to be judged by considerations of common sense. “These are not technical; they are the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which everyday men, not legal technicians, act.” Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 175, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 1310, 93 L.Ed. 1879 (1949). While the bright light of post-incident litigation permits trained legal minds to ágree that Officer Markonni made a mistake of law, such post hoc rationalization should not be the basis for judging his actions for purposes of applying the exclusionary rule.
No proper deterrent effect is accomplished by the suppression of the evidence in this case. Field officers are seldom trained as legal technicians. Even those who are may have mistakenly thought that Officer Markonni’s arrest was proper. Since the officer whose future actions are to be affected will not realize his actions are wrongful when he is compelled to make a quick decision in an apparently valid arrest situation which complicated legal analysis may later establish to be invalid, we cannot expect him to be deterred. If today’s ruling does serve as any sort of deterrent, it may have the deleterious effect of making the officer on the line overcautious *98to act in a situation where proper and reasonable instinct tells him that the activity he observes is criminal. If he hesitates to act lest he later be criticized for denying to the process of justice evidence of crime, we have hindered, not furthered, the interests of justice. Unless an officer knows or should know his activities transgress the bounds of law, the evidence discovered by such activity ought not be suppressed. Everyday practical common sense is the standard by which officers’ actions ought to be judged for exclusionary rule purposes. The stringent standard applied to Markonni’s actions here is, I respectfully submit, plainly wrong. United States v. Caceres, 436 U.S. 943, 98 S.Ct. 2843, 56 L.Ed.2d 784 (1979).
Furthermore, under the novel factual situation involving the difficult point of law presented here, application of the exclusionary rule should not be required until such time as repeated cases involving this technical legal mistake occur. United States v. Wolffs, 594 F.2d 77 (5th Cir. 1979).