Court Opinion

ID: 9492249
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:36:14.253337+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:12.418745
License: Public Domain

FLETCHER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
In affirming the district court’s denial of an evidentiary hearing on the Fourth Amendment issue, the majority relies on a “zone of primary interest” test that is unfaithful to Supreme Court precedent, in conflict with precedent from this court, and seriously misguided on its own terms. I cannot agree, and therefore respectfully dissent.
I.
The majority holds that the district court need not have assessed the legality of the two searches executed against Medina in order to admit the evidence gained from those searches in Medina’s trial.1 This holding relies on a reading of the “primary zone of interest” test that conflicts with clear Supreme Court precedent, most notably Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 80 S.Ct. 1437, 4 L.Ed.2d 1669 (1960).
In Elkins, the Supreme Court interpreted the exclusionary rule to prohibit the admission in a federal criminal trial of evidence obtained by state officers during a search which, if conducted by federal officers, would have violated the Fourth Amendment. Elkins, 364 U.S. at 223, 80 S.Ct. 1437. In that case, state police offi*1084cers procured a search warrant for the defendant’s home in an effort to retrieve obscene motion pictures. Id. at 207 n. 1, 80 S.Ct. 1437. The search revealed no obscene pictures, but the police did find and seize paraphernalia they believed to have been used in making illegal wiretaps. Id. When state officials were unable to use the seized material, federal officers obtained the material and brought federal criminal charges against the defendant. Id. The district court determined that because federal officers did not participate in the search, there was no need for an inquiry into whether the state search had been lawful. Id. at 207, 80 S.Ct. 1437. The Supreme Court reversed, rejecting the “silver platter doctrine.” It held that “evidence obtained by state officers during a search which, if conducted by federal officers, would have violated the defendant’s immunity from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment is inadmissible over the defendant’s timely objection in a federal criminal trial.” Id. at 223, 80 S.Ct. 1437.
The majority concedes that Elkins “continues to forbid the federal government from making the argument that another sovereign conducted the search, therefore it can ignore the methods by which the search was conducted.” Majority Opinion at 6714. The majority goes on, however, to credit a version of just such an argument. It holds that because the searches at issue in this case were conducted by state law enforcement officers with “no knowledge or anticipation of Medina’s subsequent prosecution,” the unconstitutionality of the searches is no bar to the federal government’s use of the evidence. Majority Opinion at 6715. This version of the “zone, of primary interest” test is at odds not only with the clear holding of Elkins, but with subsequent Supreme Court precedent as well.
The “zone of primary interest” test was first articulated by the Supreme Court in United States v. Janis, 428 U.S. 433, 96 S.Ct. 3021, 49 L.Ed.2d 1046 (1976). In that case, the Court held that evidence illegally obtained by state officers in the course of a state criminal investigation could be used in a subsequent federal civil tax case. The Court reasoned that a state law enforcement officer is likely to be deterred from illegal action by the exclusion of evidence in all criminal proceedings, but he is not likely to be further deterred by excluding the evidence from civil proceedings b'ecause such proceedings are outside his “zone of primary interest.” Id. at 458, 96 S.Ct. 3021. Accordingly, the Court held the evidence admissible.
Although the majority opinion does not cite it, Janis remains the governing Supreme Court case on the “zone of primary interest” issue. Rather than looking directly to Janis, the majority relies on two cases from our court that cite Janis but distort it beyond recognition. See United States v. Basinger, 60 F.3d 1400 (9th Cir.1995); United States v. Lopez-Martinez, 725 F.2d 471 (9th Cir.1984). Those cases, in turn, relied on United States v. Raftery, 534 F.2d 854 (9th Cir.1976), which was decided before Janis. Together, Raftery, Lopez-Martinez, and Basinger held that evidence illegally obtained by state or federal officers could be used in subsequent federal prosecutions, provided the officers who acted illegally did not have the subsequent federal prosecution within their “zone of primary interest.” See Lopez-Martinez, 725 F.2d at 476; Basinger, 60 F.3d at 1407. This extension of the “zone of primary interest” test to cases involving federal criminal prosecutions is in direct violation of Elkins and Janis. By relying on Lopez-Martinez and Raftery, the majority in this case compounds our court’s error.
It is true, of course, that Janis ’ “zone of primary interest” test does limit the El-kins rule to some extent. That limitation, however, assumes Elkins’ continuing applicability to cases such as ours. Janis found that the remoteness of federal civil tax proceedings from state criminal investigations, “coupled with the existing deter*1085rence effected by the denial of use of the evidence by either sovereign in the criminal trials with which the searching officer is concerned,” justified not applying the exclusionary rule in such instances. Janis, 428 U.S. at 458, 96 S.Ct. 3021. That is, Janis ’ conclusion that deterrence concerns did not warrant applying the exclusionary rule to federal civil tax proceedings relied on the continued application of the exclusionary rule ■ to criminal proceedings, whether state or federal. Far from adhering to Janis, our decisions in Raftery, Lopez-Martinez, Basinger, and .this case erode the foundation on which Janis built the “zone of primary interest” test.
We have a responsibility to correct our deviations from Supreme Court precedent. The fact that our circuit has ignored Janis and Elkins over the course of many years does not lessen this responsibility.2 We should hear this case en banc so we can overrule Lopez-Martinez, Basinger, and Raftery to the extent they conflict with Janis and Elkins.
II.
Not only does the majority opinion flout Supreme Court precedent, it perpetuates an intra-circuit conflict as well. In United States v. Perez-Castro, 606 F.2d 251 (9th Cir.1979), a ease decided before Lopez-Martinez and Raftery but cited by neither of them, this court held that evidence gained pursuant to an illegal search by local police was inadmissible in a subsequent federal trial. Citing Elkins, Perez-Castro held that “[t]he Government may not successfully assert that the illegal act was done by state or local officers and therefore the statements subsequently taken are admissible in a federal prosecution, without concern as to the method by which they were obtained.” Id. at 253. It is difficult to see how Lopez-Martinez and Basinger can be reconciled with Perez-Castro. Inasmuch as the latter is faithful to Elkins and Janis, this intra-circuit conflict highlights the extent to which Lopez-Martinez and Basinger — and, now, this case — have strayed from Supreme Court precedent.
The majority apparently finds no conflict between its holding and Perez-Castro. After finding no “showing of a connection or ‘nexus’ in time, place, or purpose between the searches and.the subsequent prosecution” in this case, the majority cites Perez-Castro as an example of a case where there was such a showing. See Majority Opinion at 1082 & n.3. Perez-Castro, however, did not turn on a specific showing of a connection between local police activity and the subsequent federal prosecution. Indeed, Perez-Castro noted no such connection. Instead, the outcome in that case was dictated by the Elkins rule that the federal government may not avoid the exclusionary rule simply by “assertfing] that the illegal act was done by state or local officers.” Perez-Castro, 606 F.2d at 253. If we were to apply that rule here, the evidence Medina challenges would have to be suppressed. Thus, the majority’s opin*1086ion is irreconcilable with Perez-Castro. We should hear this case en banc to resolve this intra-circuit conflict.
III.
If we leave aside its disregard of Supreme Court precedent, the majority’s application of the “zone of primary interest” test is flawed on its own terms.
First, it is sheer sophistry to suggest that state law enforcement officers have no interest in the conviction, in federal court, of suspects they have been pursuing, particularly where the suspect cannot be prosecuted in state court. As Justice Thomas recently noted on behalf of the Court, “[wjhere the person conducting the search is a police officer, the officer’s focus is not upon ensuring compliance with parole conditions or obtaining evidence for introduction at administrative proceedings, but upon obtaining convictions of those who commit crimes.” Pennsylvania Bd. of Probation v. Scott, 524 U.S. 357, 118 S.Ct. 2014, 2022, 141 L.Ed.2d 344 (1998) (emphasis added). Thus, while parole hearings, like civil tax proceedings, might fall outside state law enforcement officers’ zone of primary interest, surely federal criminal prosecutions do not. The mind is not strained to imagine circumstances under which state law enforcement officers, realizing they have no state case against a suspect but hoping that a federal case might ultimately be brought, would perform illegal searches in the hope of obtaining evidence useful in a federal case. By not heeding the limits imposed by Janis on the “zone of primary interest” test, our court encourages such behavior.
Second, deterrence is not the only purpose served by the exclusionary rule. As Elkins emphasized, the exclusionary rule also serves “the imperative of judicial integrity.” Elkins, 364 U.S. at 222, 80 S.Ct. 1437; see Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia, 448 U.S. 555, 594 n. 19, 100 S.Ct. 2814, 65 L.Ed.2d 973 (1980) (“[T]he exclusionary rule is prompted not only by the accused’s interest in vindicating his own rights, but also in part by the independent imperative of judicial integrity.” (quotation omitted)). The principle here is simple: the courts must not countenance violations of the Constitution: “In a government of laws, existence of the Government will be impe-rilled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. ... If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.” Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 485, 48 S.Ct. 564, 72 L.Ed. 944 (Brandeis, J., dissenting). The integrity of the judiciary depends on its ability to protect against such risks. The exclusionary rule serves that end.
Our court has recognized the exclusionary rule’s continuing importance as a safeguard of judicial integrity:
[I]n addition to deterrence, the exclusionary rule serves the vital function of preserving judicial integrity.... [Where] the police unreasonably violate[ ] the defendant’s fourth Amendment rights, the integrity of the courts [is] implicated. Federal courts cannot countenance deliberate violation of basic constitutional rights.
Adamson v. C.I.R., 745 F.2d 541, 546 (9th Cir.1984); see Gonzalez-Rivera v. INS, 22 F.3d 1441, 1448-49 (9th Cir.1994) (quoting Adamson); see also Matta-Ballesteros v. Henman, 896 F.2d 255, 262 (7th Cir.1990) (“the imperative of maintaining judicial integrity may play some role in the exclusionary rule calculus”). The admission of evidence in criminal proceedings without regard to the legality of the means by which-that evidence was acquired compromises the integrity of the judiciary.
As Elkins recognized, to a person subjected to an illegal search “it matters not whether his constitutional right has been invaded by a federal agent or by a state officer,” for “[t]he Constitution is flouted equally in either case.” 364 U.S. at 215, 80 S.Ct. 1437. Institutional distinctions between state and federal are cold comfort *1087for an individual facing, criminal charges born of governmental lawlessness. We have long recognized that the pursuit of justice “must satisfy the appearance of justice.” Offutt v. United States, 348 U.S. 11, 14, 75 S.Ct. 11, 99 L.Ed, 11 (1954). Justice will appear to be done when we return to the Supreme Court’s teaching in Elkins and Janis. Because today’s opinion joins a line of cases straying from both the letter and the spirit of Elkins and Janis, I respectfully dissent.

. The legality of the search on Medina's car is seriously in doubt. As the majority notes, state charges against Medina relating to the gun recovered from the car were dropped after a state court granted Medina’s motion to suppress on the. grounds that the police lacked a reasonable suspicion to stop the car.

. Today’s majority opinion seems partially informed by a view that the exclusionary rule has lost favor with the Supreme Court of late, and that the views of the current Court are rather different from the views of the Elkins Court. Such considerations, even if correct, have no place in our decision-making. The Supreme Court has made it clear that "[i]f a precedent of this Court has direct application in a case, yet appears to rest on reasons rejected in some other line of decisions, the Court of Appeals should follow the case which directly controls, leaving to this Court the prerogative of overruling its own decisions.” Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/American Express, 490 U.S. 477, 484, 109 S.Ct. 1917, 104 L.Ed.2d 526 (1989). It may be that "judges who must apply a body of decisional law that they have not themselves made, and which they lack final authority to change, may find it tempting to view their job as one of making predictions. They should resist the temptation because ... prediction ... undermines the rule of law by over-emphasizing the role of individual judges.” Michael C. Dorf, Prediction and the Rule of Law, 42 UCLA L.Rev. 651, 715 (1995). The exclusionary rule continues to be mandated by Supreme Court precedent. We must not drain it of vitality on the suspicion that the current Supreme Court feels differently about the rule than did the Courts of past eras.