Court Opinion

ID: 9528527
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:41:48.355251+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:24.403333
License: Public Domain

WILLIAM A. BABLITCH, J.
(dissenting). The majority is in all likelihood correct in their interpretation of United States v. Montoya de Hernandez, 473 U.S. 531 (1985). Their result is incorrect.
Wisconsin citizens do not have to be bound by the United States Supreme Court's increasingly narrowly drawn interpretations of the protections afforded citizens by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Wisconsin has its own constitution. This court can provide Wisconsin citizens, by reference to our own constitution, with greater protections than those provided by the United States Constitution as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court. I would hold that art. I, sec. 11 of the Wisconsin Constitution limits these types of bodily intrusions to the existence of probable cause, not "reasonable suspicion." See State v. Bentley, 92 Wis. 2d 860, 864, 286 N.W.2d 153 (Ct. App. 1979) (requiring probable cause to conclude that a blood test might furnish evidence of a crime); see also 74 Op. Att'y Gen. 123, 124 ("In the absence of justification under the implied consent law, actual consent or a warrant, a blood sample may nevertheless be taken if there exists probable cause for arrest and search, exigent circumstances and a reasonable method and manner of drawing the blood.") *189State v. Zielke, 137 Wis. 2d 39, 52, 403 N.W.2d 427 (1987).1

When this rather bland, if not innocuous dissent was written, which urges a standard of probable cause rather than "reasonable suspicion" before blood can be drawn, the author hardly expected a response from the majority, much less an attack that involves some rather important and basic principles of jurisprudence.
The author of the majority opinion, Justice Ceci, responded to my suggestion that we look to art. I, sec. 11 of our own Wisconsin Constitution by accusing anybody who does this of 1) wanting to "grant more rights to defendants" than does the U.S. Supreme Court; and 2) attempting to confuse law enforcement officials by establishing differing standards. In addition, Justice Ceci points with pride to a majority of our court who have consistently interpreted art. I, sec. 11 as being controlled by the U.S. Supreme Court's interpretation of the fourth amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
All of these points deserve response.
I.
The majority accuses anybody who has the temerity to suggest that a state constitution might give greater rights to its own citizens than does the U.S. Constitution is guilty of wanting to "grant more rights" to criminal defendants than does the U.S. Supreme Court. By framing this issue in terms of "granting more rights" to criminal defendants, the majority (if it really means it) is, at worst, showing an alarming and fundamental misunderstanding of the role of a supreme court in addressing questions involving basic constitutional rights of its citizens; and, at best, mischaracterizing the role of a supreme court to a public that is in need of illumination of the role of our court in their everyday lives, not confusion.
When an issue comes to a supreme court involving a fundamental right guaranteed by either the U.S. Constitution or a state *190constitution, the issue invariably arises in the context of a criminal case with a criminal defendant. Unfortunate. It should hardly need saying, but apparently it does, that the defendant is only the vehicle by which the issue arrives in the supreme court. In determining the constitutional issue, the supreme court is engaging in one of its most important and fundamental roles: it is determining what the rights are of all of its citizens with respect to the issue under consideration.
When a supreme court says that John Q. Bad-Guy's telephone cannot be tapped by the government without a warrant, the court is saying that no citizen's phone can be tapped without a warrant. When a supreme court says John Q. Bad-Guy's blood can be withdrawn on "reasonable suspicion," the court is saying that everybody's blood can be withdrawn on "reasonable suspicion.”
Thus, it is not a question of "granting more rights" to criminal defendants; it is a question of determining, in Wisconsin, the rights of every one of its 4.5 million citizens under its constitution. When we speak, everyone is affected. That is fundamental. It is easily misunderstood by the public. It ought not be mis-characterized by those whose role it is to shed light, not confusion.
II.
The majority accuses those who would look to their own state constitutions as a source of rights of "confusing" law enforcement. To say that Wisconsin law enforcement officials would be "confused" by having a standard of "probable cause" for withdrawal of blood when some other states (certainly not all) have a standard of "reasonable suspicion" is an insult to the intelligence of Wisconsin police men and women. How can it be confusing? Again, it is an accusation that brings heat but no light. Wisconsin police have operated under the standard of probable cause under many different contexts for decades, including this one. It is not this dissenter that wishes to change the standard under which our police have operated with respect to the withdrawing of blood.
*191III.
Lastly, Justice Ceci points with pride to the fact that a majority of this court has "repeatedly rejected arguments which propose different state and federal standards for searches incident to an arrest. . It is true that our court for some time now has interpreted art. I. sec. 11 of the Wisconsin Constitution consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court's interpretation of the fourth amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But that does not mean that we should not even consider such arguments, much less attack those who urge us to do so. The manner in which Justice Ceci frames the issue ("an effort to grant more rights to criminal defendants") appears to be just such an attack. That kind of heat does little to advance a debate upon which legal scholars have widely differed.
Surely the majority has to be aware that art. I, sec. 11 was adopted in Wisconsin in 1848, some sixty plus years after the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted. Surely the framers of the Wisconsin Constitution, and the voters who approved it, did not intend art. I, sec. 11, to be a "potted plant." If they had intended it to be merely superfluous, if they had intended that we march lock-step with the U.S. Supreme Court over the centuries, as the majority in essence has apparently concluded, then why adopt it in the first place?
Art. I, sec. 11 of the Wisconsin Constitution is not and has never been intended to be a potted plant. It can serve, if this court chooses to give it life, as a bedrock of fundamental protections for all Wisconsin citizens.
And surely, the majority must recognize that this is not a radical notion at all. Even the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized, if not encouraged, the use of state constitutions for just such a purpose. It is consistent with our deeply held notions of federalism, our notions that states should be encouraged to be the laboratories of the nation.
I cannot agree with nor be silent with respect to this type of reaction of the majority that arises at even the suggestion that we look to our own constitution. It is a reaction that is visceral and instinctive, not reasoned. We may, in many if not most cases, *192reject an alternative interpretation. But we should at least look.