Court Opinion

ID: 9585436
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:00:27.057773+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:35:41.482434
License: Public Domain

WALTERS, Justice (dissenting). I respectfully dissent. The rule promulgated by this Court, NMSA 1978, Crim.P.R. 17(b) (Repl.Pamp. 1980), is an implicit statement that, in New Mexico, night-time searches are per se unreasonable, else the requirement that reasonable cause be shown to permit service of search warrants between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. is itself without a basis in reason or in policy. If those seeking search warrants are not required to show reasonable cause on the face of the affidavit, but are allowed to rectify an insufficient affidavit, after the search has taken place, all kinds of mischief become permissible and take on the approval of the Court. The whole purpose of the exclusionary rule is to prevent police officers from shortcutting constitutional protections from unreasonable searches and seizures. The rule operates effectively by requiring suppression of evidence seized through invalid warrants or illegal searches. If the conduct of a night-time search is improper and illegal except “for reasonable cause shown,” it is only common sense to insist that the record support a showing of reasonable cause before the warrant issues. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example * * * If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt of law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. So said Mr. Justice Brandéis more than fifty years ago in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 48 S.Ct. 564, 72 L.Ed. 944 (1928). As an arm of the government, the judiciary .should not condone circumvention by any other government agency or officials of what this Court’s rule establishes as a constitutional requirement for issuance and execution of a valid night-time search warrant. Judge Lopez accurately analyzed the issue in the opinion of the Court of Appeals. Being unable to agree with the result reached by the majority concerning the need for reasonable cause to search at night to be shown in the affidavit, I respectfully dissent. SOSA, Senior Justice I am also unable to join the majority in this opinion and therefore concur with the views expressed by Justice Walters in her dissent.