Court Opinion

ID: 9532894
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:25:53.835375+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:51.922225
License: Public Domain

*482MATTHEWS, Justice,
dissenting in part.
I agree that we should adopt as a matter of state law the inevitable discovery exception. Further, I think the prosecution should have the burden of proving inevitable discovery by clear and convincing proof, and the exception should not be available in cases where the police have intentionally or knowingly violated a suspect’s rights.
My concern is with the additional test imposed by today’s opinion, namely that the evidence must have been discoverable by “predictable investigatory procedures.” In many cases, this test may be merely surplus-age. When the prosecution can show that evidence would inevitably have been discovered, such a showing will often necessarily encompass a demonstration that predictable investigatory procedures would have uncovered the evidence. However, the court’s reference to “a series or chain of standard and routine investigatory procedures” may assume a standardization of procedures which does not exist in many police departments in Alaska. Further, some investigations may not be routine or standard because of the unique nature of the crime involved. Nonetheless, even in the absence of standardized procedures and even in unique investigations it may well be possible to prove inevitable discovery by clear and convincing evidence.
Finally, requiring discovery through predictable investigatory procedures may exclude from the coverage of the exception cases that do not fit the independent source exception but in which the questioned evidence is actually discovered by legal means. Assume for example that Officer O’Brien wrote down Smith’s address obtained from the vehicle registration check and subsequently mislaid the paper on which she wrote this information. Assume also that she later obtained the address from Smith, as was done in this case, and used it to obtain the warrant. Finally, assume that she discovered the missing note soon after the warrant was issued. Such a case would not fit the independent source exception for it was the illegally obtained evidence that was used to obtain the warrant. However, inevitable discovery would be established by clear and convincing evidence as the evidence was actually discovered by legal means. Nonetheless, under the formulation of the inevitable discovery exception propounded by the court today, the admissibility of that evidence would founder on the predictable investigatory procedures test.
Similarly, if shortly after the warrant were obtained a neighbor of Smith’s, having observed his arrest, were to call the pólice and give them Smith’s address, again inevitable discovery of the address would be established by clear and convincing evidence, but the discovery would be the product of luck rather than predictable investigatory procedures.1
In summary, although the predictable investigatory procedures test has been suggested by a number of legal commentators and adopted by the courts of several states,2 I do not favor its adoption because, in my opinion, it is not necessary to protect the rights of the accused and it needlessly narrows the logical scope of the inevitable discovery exception.

. The Nebraska Supreme Court was confronted with a similar situation in State v. Andersen, 232 Neb. 187, 440 N.W.2d 203 (1989). The defendant’s house was illegally searched and the police seized an address book containing the names of persons who, it would turn out, led the police to B.T., who had been sexually abused by the defendant. Id., 440 N.W.2d at 212. Previously, a concerned neighbor had given the name of B.T. to other police officers conducting an independent investigation. Id. at 213. Although it was the evidence in the illegally seized address book that was used to locate B.T. — thus precluding the application of the independent source rule — -B.T. was allowed to testify under the inevitable discovery doctrine. This conclusion was reached, in part, because B.T.’s name had already been discovered by legal, though serendipitous, means. Id. at 214.

. E.g., Clark v. State, 555 So.2d 823 (Ala.Crim.App.1989); State v. Cook, 106 Idaho 209, 677 P.2d 522 (Idaho App.1984); Oken v. State, 327 Md. 628, 612 A.2d 258 (1992); State v. Sugar, 100 N.J. 214, 495 A.2d 90 (1985); State v. Barnaul, 136 Or.App. 167, 902 P.2d 95 (1995); State v. Richman, 85 Wash.App. 568, 933 P.2d 1088 (1997).