Court Opinion

ID: 9628562
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:24:38.923991+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:26.079639
License: Public Domain

*558Rosellini, J.
(concurring in the result) — I agree with the majority. The falsification of judicial warrants by police officers to obtain peaceful entry into defendant's home did not violate his due process rights. I also agree that we, as a court, cannot condone such activity on the part of law enforcement officers. These individuals are sworn to uphold and enforce the law; not to bend or break it to effectuate even desirable ends. Because I believe that this court must today forbid improper use of judicial documents, I concur only in the majority's result.
In falsifying an arrest warrant, the police engaged in activity which, if not illegal, came dangerously close to illegality. For instance, their activity seems to be prohibited by the forgery statute, RCW 9A.60.020. That statute makes it a crime to deceive someone with a written instrument that is not authentic because the ostensible maker is fictitious.
Here, a police officer signed the name of a fictitious judge as authorization for the bogus arrest warrant. Thus, the police conduct fits squarely within the terms of subsection (1) of the statute. Nonetheless, the majority asserts that the police officers did not intend to commit a crime.
While this may be technically true, the police activity clearly violates general notions of fair play and justice. Moreover, such actions on the part of law enforcement officers must inevitably result in an erosion of public confidence in the warrant system and the judiciary by denigrating its integrity.
The importance of this integrity has been a frequent subject of the United States Supreme Court. For example, Justice Clark has written:
There are those who say, as did Justice (then Judge) Cardozo, that under our constitutional exclusionary doctrine ”[t]he criminal is to go free because the constable has blundered." People v. Defore, 242 N. Y., at 21, 150 N. E., at 587. In some cases this will undoubtedly be the result. But, as was said in Elkins [v. United States, 364 U.S. 206 (1960)], "there is another consideration — the imperative of judicial integrity." 364 U. S., at 222. The criminal goes free, if he must, but it is the law that sets *559him free. Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence. As Mr. Justice Brandéis, dissenting, said in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, 485 (1928): "Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. ... If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."
(Footnote omitted.) Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 659, 6 L. Ed. 2d 1081, 81 S. Ct. 1684, 84 A.L.R.2d 933 (1961).
Furthermore, while history has taught us the general need for public confidence in our judicial system, the warrant requirement, in particular, depends upon voluntary compliance and public belief in a warrant's authenticity. Suspects willingly open the doors when they are certain that the police have probable cause to arrest them. Without that belief in the warrant's authenticity, the suspect will, in future cases, resist execution of arrest and search warrants in the belief that they are acting within their rights. Contrary to Justice Dimmick's assertions, this must eventually result in more, not less, police/suspect confrontations.
To avoid additional confrontation and to preserve public respect for the warrant system, I would take the same approach in this case as we did in State v. Bonds, 98 Wn.2d 1, 653 P.2d 1024 (1982). There, we recognized the illegality of the police activity and put law enforcement officials on notice that repeated impropriety would result in exclusion in the next case. Where police officers falsify a judicial document, I would do no less.