Court Opinion

ID: 9630882
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:23:21.678435+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:45.617889
License: Public Domain

STEWART, Justice,
concurring in the result:
I concur generally in the lead opinion. While I have taken the position that Utah ought not depart from federal search and seizure law in construing article I, section 14 simply because of some inconsistency in that law, or minor disagreement with it, I am not inclined to adopt the “compelling circumstances” standard proposed by Justice Rus-son. Thus, I think it important to discuss the nature of the duty of this Court to construe provisions of this state’s Declaration of Rights that are similar or identical to provisions in the United States Bill of Rights.
*1240If this Court were to view its constitutional duty to construe the provisions in the Utah Declaration of Rights in the exact same manner as the United States Supreme Court construes analogous provisions in the Bill of Rights, we would violate the spirit and intended effect of Utah constitutional law and policy as established by the framers of the Utah Constitution. Although we have con-cededly followed federal law in many instances, that should not be surprising given the fact that the same historical foundations underlie most of the parallel provisions in the two constitutions. To some extent, we have followed federal precedent because there are occasions when departing from that precedent would be counterproductive in securing constitutional liberties. Indeed, in the context of state search and seizure law as applied in routine traffic stops of vehicles, I have previously taken the position that this Court ought not embroider the margins of an already highly complicated area of the law by creating relatively insignificant departures from federal search and seizure law simply because some comparatively minor aspect of that law seems to be ill-founded or inconsistent with other federal law. Further complicating an already extremely intricate and complex area of the law would, in my view, not only have the adverse effect on law enforcement of compounding confusion in that area of the law but, more importantly, it would undermine the very liberty values that the search and seizure provisions of the Utah and federal constitutions are designed to protect. As I have earlier written, “[0]ne untoward consequence of such an approach is to impose two different and possibly conflicting constitutional standards on law enforcement officers with the unintended effect of diminishing, not increasing, protection for rights of privacy.” State v. Poole, 871 P.2d 531, 536 (Utah 1994) (Stewart, J., concurring).
Nevertheless, that policy is subject to limitations within the area of search and seizure and certainly in other areas of the law guaranteeing personal liberties. The framers of the Utah Constitution necessarily intended that this Court should be both the ultimate and final arbiter of the meaning of the provisions in the Utah Declaration of Rights and the primary protector of individual liberties. That general principle pertaining to state protection of civil liberties was also the premise on which the framers of the United States Constitution acted. In 1895, when the Utah Constitution was adopted, none of the specific provisions in the federal Bill of Rights was deemed binding on the states. The Bill of Rights restricted only federal, not state, action. Barron v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, 32 U.S. (7 Pet.) 243, 8 L.Ed. 672 (1833); see also Slaughter House Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36, 21 L.Ed. 394 (1872). The incorporation of various provisions of the Bill of Rights into the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment so as to make them applicable to the states did not occur until several decades after the adoption of the Utah Constitution. Given that history, the framers of the Utah Constitution, like the framers of all other state constitutions, viewed their own state constitutional provisions as the sole source of constitutional protection for those individual liberties enshrined in state bills of rights and declarations of rights.1
Because the framers of the Utah Constitution modified certain provisions in the Bill of Rights before they were placed in the Utah Constitution, and even added certain provisions not found in the federal constitution, this Court should not be bound to construe Utah constitutional provisions in light of federal law, except in “the most compelling circumstances.” Indeed, this Court has, on a number of occasions, construed state constitutional provisions differently than the United States Supreme Court has construed similar federal provisions. See, e.g., State v. Thompson, 810 P.2d 415, 418 (Utah 1991); cf. Sims v. State Tax Comm’n, 841 P.2d 6 (Utah 1992).2
*1241In short, this Court cannot legitimately abdicate its responsibility to construe state constitutional provisions to any other court, even the United States Supreme Court. Concededly, the provisions of our state constitution may not be construed in a more narrow fashion than analogous federal provisions in the federal Bill of Rights, but what the United States Supreme Court may decide in any case should not necessarily define the outer limit of the personal liberties and civil rights that the citizens of this state are entitled, and were intended, to enjoy.

. It can hardly be denied that those state constitutional provisions purportedly protecting individual liberties were hollow promises to a very large degree during the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century.

. Justice Durham cites several Utah cases that depart from federal law, but in almost all instances the state constitutional provisions are different from their federal counterparts.