Court Opinion

ID: 9738258
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:47:00.71599+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:04.927254
License: Public Domain

MICHAEL J. GABLEMAN, J.
¶ 75. (dissenting). I part with the majority because it departs from the United States Supreme Court's well-articulated principles governing exclusion of evidence resulting from unlawful searches and seizures. First, the majority begins with a presumption of exclusion and looks for an exception to that presumption in contravention of the pronouncements of the United States Supreme Court. Second, it justifies its application of the exclusionary rule on the grounds of judicial integrity — a purpose long since discarded by the United States Supreme Court — while ignoring the singular animating purpose of exclusion: deterrence of police misconduct. Finally, the majority leaves confusion as to whether and when the Eason requirements are applicable to the issuance of bench warrants.
¶ 76. I follow the dictates of the United States Supreme Court: I begin with a presumption of admissibility and then address whether the remedy of exclusion is appropriate. Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135, 129 S. Ct. 695, 700-01 (2009). I conclude that exclusion is unwarranted in this case because it will not serve to deter police misconduct and its application here cannot justify the "substantial social costs" exclusion imposes. Id.
I. THE EXCLUSION EXCEPTION
¶ 77. One year ago, the United States Supreme Court issued a landmark opinion summarizing and clarifying its prior case law regarding exclusion of *561evidence resulting from unlawful searches and seizures. Exclusion, the Court explained, is an "extreme sanction" that should only be applied as a "last resort." Id. at 700.
¶ 78. "[IJmportant principles [] constrain application of the exclusionary rule," the Court explained. Id. Exclusion is not a right, nor is it a necessary consequence of a Fourth Amendment violation. Id. The remedy of exclusion should apply only where it accomplishes the goal of deterrence, and only if the benefits of deterrence outweigh the substantial social costs of exclusion — most significantly, the toll upon the truth-seeking and law enforcement objectives underlying the criminal justice system. Id. at 700-01.
¶ 79. The United States Supreme Court has made clear that exclusion is aimed at deterrence of police misconduct, not judicial misconduct.1 Id. at 701. The Court explained that judicial employees "were unlikely to try to subvert the Fourth Amendment," and that application of the exclusionary rule in cases involving judicial misconduct made no sense because it would have no significant effect in deterring the errors. Id.
¶ 80. The court went further, and stated that the exclusionary rule is appropriate only in cases involving "intentional conduct that was patently unconstitu*562tional." Id. at 702. Errors arising from "nonrecurring and attenuated negligence" are "far removed from the core concerns that led [the Court] to adopt the rule in the first place." Id.
¶ 81. The United States Supreme Court then summarized the operative rule for application of the exclusionary rule:
To trigger the exclusionary rule, police conduct must be sufficiently deliberate that exclusion can meaningfully deter it, and sufficiently culpable that such deterrence is worth the price paid by the justice system. As laid out in our cases, the exclusionary rule serves to deter deliberate, reckless, or grossly negligent conduct, or in some circumstances recurring or systemic negligence.

Id.

¶ 82. The United States Supreme Court's decision in Herring has been widely seen as establishing broad principles that dramatically narrow application of the exclusionary rule. See, e.g., Russell L. Weaver, The Irrelevancy of the Fourth Amendment in the Roberts Court, 85 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 191, 203-04 (2010) (recognizing that the broad language in Herring "signals a dramatic restriction in the application of the exclusionary rule," and "represents a significant recasting of modern exclusionary rule theory").
¶ 83. What says the majority about these developments? Not much. Not much at all. Instead, the majority states: "We have never expanded the good-faith exception nor limited the exclusionary rule in the absence of United States Supreme Court precedent, and we decline to do so here." Majority op., ¶ 53 n.6. If the majority is looking for United States Supreme Court precedent regarding exclusion and the good-faith exception, I respectfully suggest that it take a closer look at the most recent Supreme Court pronouncements.
*563¶ 84. The most troubling thing about the majority opinion is that it completely ignores the development of the law in this area.2 For example, the majority spends two paragraphs discussing this court's decision 83 years ago in State v. Kriegbaum, 194 Wis. 229, 215 N.W. 896 (1927) (see majority op., ¶¶ 29-30), and a mere two sentences referencing Herring, where it states a cabined and fact-specific summary of its holding (see majority op., ¶ 45). Commentators agree that the logic and sweeping language in Herring is hard to ignore. See Michael Vitiello, Herring v. United States: Mapp's "Artless" Overruling?, 10 Nev. L.J. 164, 164 (2010) ("While arguably a narrow decision, few readers can miss its sweeping logic, effectively eroding the general application of the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule.").3 Somehow, the majority does just that.
¶ 85. The majority begins from the wrong starting point. While the nomenclature suggests an "exclusionary rule" and a "good-faith exception" to the rule, the law as it stands today is exactly the opposite. It would not be a stretch to say that the recent jurisprudence of the United States Supreme Court makes admission of unlawfully obtained evidence the rule, and authorizes an exclusionary exception in limited circumstances. See id.
*564II. THE PURPOSE OF EXCLUSION
¶ 86. The majority justifies applying the remedy of exclusion here on the grounds of "judicial integrity." Majority op., ¶¶ 63-67. But time and time again, the United States Supreme Court has reiterated that exclusion is not only unnecessary but inappropriate unless it will serve to deter knowing constitutional violations by police:
• "[T]he exclusionary rule is designed to deter police misconduct rather than to punish the errors of judges and magistrates." United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 916 (1984).
• "[E]vidence obtained from a search should be suppressed only if it can be said that the law enforcement officer had knowledge, or may properly be charged with knowledge, that the search was unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment." Leon, 468 U.S. at 919 (quoting United States v. Peltier, 422 U.S. 531, 542 (1975)) (emphasis added).
• "[W]here the officer's conduct is objectively reasonable, 'excluding the evidence will not further the ends of the exclusionary rule in any appreciable way.'" Id. at 919-20 (quoting Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 539-40 (1976) (White, J., dissenting)) (emphasis added).
• "[A]pplication of the exclusionary rule properly has been restricted to those situations in which its remedial purpose is effectively advanced." Illinois v. Krull, 480 U.S. 340, 347 (1987) (emphasis added).
• "Where 'the exclusionary rule does not result in appreciable deterrence, then, clearly, its use... is unwarranted.'" Arizona v. Evans, 514 U.S. 1, 11 (1995) (quoting United States v. Janis, 428 U.S. 433, 454 (1976)) (emphasis added).
*565• " '[M]arginal or nonexistent benefits produced by suppressing evidence obtained in objectively reasonable reliance on a subsequently invalidated search warrant cannot justify the substantial costs of exclusion.'" Id. at 12 (quoting Leon, 468 U.S. at 922) (emphasis added).
• "[The exclusionary rule is] applicable only where its deterrence benefits outweigh its 'substantial social costs.'" Pa. Bd. of Prob. & Parole v. Scott, 524 U.S. 357, 363 (1998) (quoting Leon, 468 U.S. at 907) (emphasis added).4
¶ 87. Accordingly, evidence seized in violation of a defendant's right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures should not be excluded if the police were acting in the objectively reasonable belief that their conduct did not violate the constitution.5 See Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (no exclusion when police act in objectively *566reasonable reliance on a search warrant later deemed invalid); Krull, 480 U.S. 340 (no exclusion when police act in objectively reasonable reliance on binding law later deemed unconstitutional).
¶ 88. The exclusionary rule applies, then, only when there is: (1) police conduct that the police knew or should have known was in violation of the Fourth Amendment (for simplicity's sake, "police misconduct"); and (2) sufficient capability of deterring that conduct6 worth the substantial societal cost of exclusion. Herring, 129 S. Ct. at 702. Furthermore, the police conduct cannot be merely negligent, but must be "deliberate, reckless, or grossly negligent" or part of a pattern of "recurring or systemic negligence." Id.
¶ 89. The majority rejects these rules from the United States Supreme Court and embraces the "judicial integrity" purpose for exclusion — a purpose long-since abandoned by our highest Court. See majority op., *567¶ 3. The United States Supreme Court has explained "judicial integrity" as follows:
The primary meaning of "judicial integrity" in the context of evidentiary rules is that the courts must not commit or encourage violations of the Constitution. In the Fourth Amendment area, however, the evidence is unquestionably accurate, and the violation is complete by the time the evidence is presented to the court. The focus therefore must be on the question whether the admission of the evidence encourages violations of Fourth Amendment rights. As the Court has noted in recent cases, this inquiry is essentially the same as the inquiry into whether exclusion would serve a deterrent purpose. The analysis showing that exclusion in this case has no demonstrated deterrent effect and is unlikely to have any significant such effect shows, by the same reasoning, that the admission of the evidence is unlikely to encourage violations of the Fourth Amendment.
Janis, 428 U.S. at 458 n.35 (emphasis added) (citations omitted).
¶ 90. Thus, while early exclusion cases did discuss "judicial integrity" as a secondary purpose of the exclusionary rule, judicial integrity for Fourth Amendment violations has effectively been subsumed under the main goal of deterring police misconduct.7 See id. at 456 n.34. This explains why judicial integrity has received *568little treatment in the case law. Notably, in the five United States Supreme Court cases addressing the good-faith exception since Leon (Massachusetts v. Sheppard, 468 U.S. 981 (1984); Krull, 480 U.S. 340 (1987); Evans, 514 U.S. 1 (1995); Groh v. Ramirez, 540 U.S. 551 (2004); Herring, 129 S. Ct. 695 (2009)), not one of them even mentions judicial integrity;8 each focuses solely on whether exclusion would deter the police conduct giving rise to the constitutional violation. The majority now breathes new life into a legal theory put to rest long ago.9
III. THE EASON REQUIREMENTS
¶ 91. I write further to address the appropriateness of applying the additional requirements of Eason to bench warrants. This court, in State v. Eason, adopted two additional requirements during the search warrant application process, making them necessary in order to shield any seized evidence from suppression if the search warrant is later deemed invalid. 2001 WI 98, ¶ 74, 245 Wis. 2d 206, 629 N.W.2d 625. The State must "show that the process used in obtaining the search *569warrant included a significant investigation and a review by either a police officer trained and knowledgeable in the requirements of probable cause and reasonable suspicion, or a knowledgeable government attorney." Id. (emphasis added). Such safeguards, we held, were required by Article 1, Section 11 of the Wisconsin Constitution. Id.10
¶ 92. These requirements are wholly inappropriate in the context of bench warrants, which normally need not involve any police investigation.
¶ 93. Bench warrants are available in criminal, civil, and contempt proceedings. See Wis. Stat. § 968.09 (2007-08)11 (bench warrants in criminal cases for defendants or witnesses who fail to appear or violate bond); Wis. Stat. ch. 818 (bench warrants in civil cases for defendants who fail to pay judgments or fines and other defendants from whom something is required); Wis. Stat. § 818.01(2) (bench warrants for parties subject to contempt proceedings under chapter 785). None of the proceedings requires police to apply for the warrant. See § 968.09 (court may issue warrant on its own); ch. 818 (court may issue warrant upon request of plaintiffs); Wis. Stat. § 785.03 (court may issue warrant upon request of aggrieved parties or on its own).
*570¶ 94. Because of this, applying the Eason requirements to bench warrants makes no sense. How are officers to ensure a "significant investigation" has taken place preceding the issuance of a bench warrant that the police had no role in? And what sort of review should the arresting officer in this case have undertaken before acting on what he understood was a valid arrest warrant? The majority first suggests that the Eason requirements are not necessary in situations where police are not involved in seeking a bench warrant, see majority op., ¶ 57, but later implies that some investigation or review could have saved the evidence in this case from exclusion, see majority op., ¶ 60.
IV CONCLUSION
¶ 95. Applying the proper legal principles here is straightforward. Instead of starting with exclusion and attempting to fit this case into a recognized exception, I follow the dictates of the United States Supreme Court and begin with the presumption of admissibility and then address whether the remedy of exclusion is appropriate.
¶ 96. The threshold question is whether the police engaged in deliberate, reckless, or grossly negligent conduct, or whether these facts evince a recurring or systemic negligence. Herring, 129 S. Ct. at 702. As the majority implicitly recognizes, this case reflects no police misconduct at all; the officer acted in objectively reasonable reliance on a warrant he had no reason to know was invalid. Therefore, exclusion is unwarranted because it will not serve its intended purpose of deterring police misconduct, and its application here cannot justify the "substantial social costs" exclusion imposes. Id. at 700-01.
*571¶ 97. The majority, on the other hand, is enmeshed in an outdated analytical framework. The United States Supreme Court has recognized that its early approach to exclusion was too broad. It has since recast the exclusionary rule as a drastic remedy that is justified in only limited circumstances where exclusion will deter flagrant police misconduct. See id. at 700-02. Because the majority fails to appreciate and apply the clear instructions of the United States Supreme Court, I respectfully dissent.
¶ 98. I am authorized to state that Justice PATIENCE DRAKE ROGGENSACK joins this dissent.

 Justice Breyer, joined by Justice Souter, dissented on the grounds that the unlawful search at issue in Herring involved police error, and exclusion is appropriate when the error resulting in a Fourth Amendment violation is the police's. Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135, 129 S. Ct. 695, 710-11 (2009) (Breyer, J., dissenting). He explained that United States Supreme Court precedent on the exclusionary rule "was premised on a distinction between judicial errors and police errors," and the exclusionary rule was designed to deter the latter, not the former. Id. at 710.

 See generally Robert W Smith, Herring v. United States: The Continued Erosion of the Exclusionary Rule, 61 Mercer L. Rev. 663 (2010) (discussing the evolution of the exclusionary rule from a straightforward pseudo-right to a much more narrow rule applying in certain factual situations).

 See also Matthew Allan Josephson, To Exclude or Not to Exclude: The Future of the Exclusionary Rule After Herring v. United States, 43 Creighton L. Rev. 175, 176 (2009) (discussing the fact that Herring's logic is hard to ignore).

 This court has recognized the same principles:
The exclusionary rule is a judicially created remedy, not a right, and its application is restricted to cases where its remedial objectives will best be served. That means that just because a Fourth Amendment violation has occurred does not mean the exclusionary rule applies. Rather, exclusion is the last resort. The application of the exclusionary rule should focus on its efficacy in deterring future Fourth Amendment violations. Moreover, marginal deterrence is not enough to justify exclusion; the benefits of deterrence must outweigh the costs.
State v. Dearborn, 2010 WI 84, ¶ 35, 327 Wis. 2d 252, 786 N.W.2d 97 (internal citations removed); see also State v. Ward, 2000 WI 3, ¶ 46, 231 Wis. 2d 723, 604 N.W.2d 517 ("Application of the [exclusionary] rule 'has been restricted to those areas where its remedial objectives are thought most efficaciously served.'") (quoting United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 348 (1974)).

 This is termed the "good faith exception" to the exclusionary rule. See Arizona v. Evans, 514 U.S. 1, 14 (1995). As noted *566above, a more appropriate phraseology under current doctrine might be the "exclusionary exception" to the good faith rule.

 The United States Supreme Court has categorically rejected the notion that the exclusionary rule was meant to (or even can) deter judges:
To the extent that proponents of exclusion rely on its behavioral effects on judges and magistrates in these areas, their reliance is misplaced. First, the exclusionary rule is designed to deter police misconduct rather than to punish the errors of judges and magistrates. Second, there exists no evidence suggesting that judges and magistrates are inclined to ignore or subvert the Fourth Amendment or that lawlessness among these actors requires application of the extreme sanction of exclusion. Third, and most important, we discern no basis, and are offered none, for believing that exclusion of evidence seized pursuant to a warrant will have a significant deterrent effect on the issuing judge or magistrate.
United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 916 (1984) (citation omitted).

 Until now, this court had agreed. See State v. Knapp, 2005 WI 127, ¶¶ 79-81, 285 Wis. 2d 86, 700 N.W.2d 899 (noting that preserving judicial integrity refers to preventing the judicial process from being subverted by law enforcement officers' unconstitutional actions); State v. Eason, 2001 WI 98, ¶ 44, 245 Wis. 2d 206, 629 N.W.2d 625 (noting that the exclusionary rule protects judicial integrity by ensuring that "the judiciary would refuse to give its imprimatur to police misconduct by relying upon evidence obtained through that misconduct").

 The majority concludes that "these cases simply refused to exclude evidence based on judicial integrity on the specific facts of those cases." Majority op., ¶ 65. Not so. They never even applied a judicial integrity test. The majority can point to no United States Supreme Court case involving the good faith exception that even mentions judicial integrity since Leon, 26 years ago.

 Despite resting its holding on "judicial integrity," the majority does not tell us what this means. It states only that "judicial integrity is implicated when a judge issues a warrant that does not comply with statutory requirements and without the constitutionally required oath or affirmation." Majority op., ¶ 63.

 The Eason court's reasoning for requiring these additional measures can charitably be described as meager. Seeming to forget that exclusion is not a constitutional right, but a judicial remedy, the Eason court nonetheless asserted that these additional procedural safeguards were required by the Wisconsin Constitution. Eason, 245 Wis. 2d 206, ¶ 63. For support, the court appears to have rested almost entirely on a law review article it found persuasive. See id. Because these requirements suggested by a law professor were "not [] onerous or unreasonable," they became constitutional mandates. Id.

 All subsequent references to the Wisconsin Statutes are to the 2007-08 version unless otherwise indicated.