Court Opinion

ID: 9791643
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:15:06.145892+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:37.560407
License: Public Domain

MARTONE, Justice,
dissenting.
The court concludes that “[wjhether the erroneous computer record was the fault of police or justice court personnel should be of no consequence____” Ante, at 203, 866 P.2d at 871. Thus today the court holds that the exclusionary rule serves to deter judicial error as well as police misconduct. This proposition is directly contrary to United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984). Because I cannot agree with the court’s expansion of the exclusionary rule, I dissent.
The court assumes that the exclusionary rule applies to all unlawful searches. It does not. The exclusionary rule is a “judicially created remedy designed to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights generally through its deterrent effect, rather than a personal constitutional right of the party aggrieved.” United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 348, 94 S.Ct. 613, 620, 38 L.Ed.2d 561 (1972). Its application “has been restricted to those areas where its remedial objectives are thought most efficaciously served.” State v. Atwood, 171 Ariz. 576, 667, 832 P.2d 593, 684 (1992), quoting Calandra, 414 U.S. at 348, 94 S.Ct. at 620. Specifically, “the rule’s primary purpose is to deter future unlawful police conduct and thereby effectuate the guarantee of the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures.” Calandra, 414 U.S. at 347, 94 S.Ct. at 619-20 (emphasis added). Thus the range of application of the exclusionary rule is narrower than the range of unlawful searches.
In United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3430, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984), the Court *205considered whether the exclusionary rule served to deter judicial as well as police misconduct. In concluding that it did not, the Court stated:
Judges and magistrates are not adjuncts to the law enforcement team; as neutral judicial officers, they have no stake in the outcome of particular criminal prosecutions. The threat of exclusion thus cannot be expected significantly to deter them. Imposition of the exclusionary sanction is not necessary meaningfully to inform judicial officers of their errors, and we cannot conclude that admitting evidence obtained pursuant to a warrant while at the same time declaring that the warrant was somehow defective will in any way reduce judicial officers’ professional incentives to comply with the Fourth Amendment, encourage them to repeat their mistakes, or lead to the granting of all colorable warrant requests.
Leon, 468 U.S. at 917, 104 S.Ct. at 3417-18. The Court held the exclusionary rule inapplicable when police officers act in objectively reasonable good faith on a warrant later invalidated due to judicial error because “[penalizing the officer for the magistrate’s error, rather than his own, cannot logically contribute to the deterrence of Fourth Amendment violations.” Id. at 921, 104 S.Ct. at 3419.
This case falls squarely within the rule of Leon. The police officer who stopped defendant found an outstanding warrant for defendant’s arrest when he ran a customary computer check. He arrested defendant and found marijuana during the search incident to the arrest. The computer gave no indication that the warrant was invalid. The evidence suggests that a justice court clerk failed to contact police department employees to inform them that the warrant had in fact been quashed. The police department was not responsible for the error. The officer arrested defendant in good faith on a facially valid warrant. Indeed, not even the court suggests that the police officer could have done anything other than arrest the defendant. It would have been misfeasance to ignore the warrant.
The court believes that Leon is distinguishable because the officers in Leon relied on a facially valid warrant while here “no warrant at all was in existence at the time of the arrest.” Ante, at 203, 866 P.2d at 871. But the officer relied upon facially valid computer information. When the computer shows an outstanding arrest warrant, the officer is expected to make an arrest. He is in the same position as one who holds an arrest warrant in his hand. It makes no difference whether, after issuance, a warrant is quashed or otherwise invalid. In both cases the warrant is without effect, yet it appears to the officer to be facially valid. In either case, Leon controls.
The court also concludes that applying the exclusionary rule is proper here because a court employee, and not a judge, committed error. But what does it matter? The exclusionary rule applies to police misconduct, not judicial department error.
Finally, the court concludes that the police cannot advance a “good faith” argument because the arrest was not a “reasonable judgmental error” as defined in A.R.S. § 13-3925. Section 13-3925 is wholly inapplicable to this case. It expressly addresses the exclusion of evidence “because of the conduct of a peace officer in obtaining the evidence.” A.R.S. § 13-3925(A) (emphasis added). Here, the conduct of the arresting officer is not challenged. Moreover, § 13-3925 was added to the criminal code in 1982 to provide a statutory good faith exception to the exclusionary rule. The United States Supreme Court sanctioned the good faith exception in 1984 when it decided Leon. After Leon, we held “that the exclusionary rule to be applied as a matter of state law is no broader than the federal rule.” State v. Bolt, 142 Ariz. 260, 269, 689 P.2d 519, 528 (1984). Because our exclusionary rule cannot be narrower than the federal rule, and because we have held it to be no broader, we do not read into § 13-3925(A) that which is not required by the federal rule.
Leon requires us to determine who is responsible for error before applying the exclusionary rule. This is true for errors on *206police car computers.1 Both divisions of our court of appeals recognize that the exclusionary rule is properly limited to police misconduct.2 Today’s decision, holding that the source of error is irrelevant, is a major departure from state and federal law. If it is not clear whether, the police or court employees were responsible for the error, we should remand for findings on this issue. We cannot conclude that a dispositive issue is irrelevant.
To be sure, we should like to minimize computer error3 But the way to do this is through education, training and rigorous standards. We limit the exclusionary rule to police misconduct because its costs are so high. “[Hjighly probative and often conclusive evidence of a criminal defendant’s guilt is withheld from the trier of fact.” Duckworth v. Eagan, 492 U.S. 195, 208, 109 S.Ct. 2875, 2882, 106 L.Ed.2d 166 (1989) (O’Con-nor, J., concurring). Its purposeless application defeats the truthfinding process, frees the guilty, and generates disrespect for the law and the administration of justice with no offsetting benefits. Atwood, 171 Ariz. at 667, 832 P.2d at 684.
I, too, am concerned with the loss of “human liberty.” Ante, at 204, 866 P.2d at 872. But the exclusionary rule will not restore liberty to the innocent and should not restore it to the guilty. I dissent.

. For example, the Appellate Court of Illinois decided a case very similar to the one we decide today. See People v. Joseph, 128 Ill.App.3d 668, 83 Ill.Dec. 883, 470 N.E.2d 1303 (1984). However, the computer error at issue in Joseph was caused by the police department. The court held that the exclusionary rule was proper because ‘‘[t]he situation in the instant case reflects a matter within the responsibility and control of police authorities who failed to update their records to accurately reflect defendant’s current status.” Id., 83 Ill.Dec. at 886, 470 N.E.2d at 1306.

. In State v. Peterson, 171 Ariz. 333, 830 P.2d 854, our court of appeals, Division 1, held that the exclusionary rule was a proper remedy to deter computer error when ”[a]ny mistake was that of the police.” Id. at 340, 830 P.2d at 861. Division 2 also decided the exclusionary rule was properly applied to suppress evidence found incident to an arrest caused by computer error if the error was caused by the police. State v. Greene, 162 Ariz. 383, 783 P.2d 829 (App.1989). The court stated, ”[i]f police misconduct, whether it be negligent or deliberate, caused or contributed to the arrest notation being in the computer system, the police department would be responsible for not keeping its computer entries up to date.” Id. at 384, 783 P.2d at 830. Thus the divisions are not in conflict on this issue.

. Today we deal with computer error, not intentional misconduct. That "mischief," ante, at 204, 866 P.2d at 872, is far more likely to be deterred by the threat of a civil action for damages than by the exclusion of evidence.