Court Opinion

ID: 9727857
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:51:17.756655+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:43.614727
License: Public Domain

STEPHENS, J.
I respectfully dissent.
To countenance the blatant violation of federal criminal sections (title 18 U.S.C. §§ 912, 913) is unconscionable. People v. Ramirez (1970) 4 Cal.App.3d 154 [84 Cal.Rptr. 104] and People v. Superior Court (1970) 5 Cal.App.3d 109 [84 Cal.Rptr. 778] and others cited by the majority are overly extended in reaching for supportive authority. In fact, the underlying concept of such cases does not support the instant holding. In no case to which we have been directed is there criminal action involved in the ruse. Here the entry was made without compliance with Penal Code section 844 for the ruse made it nonconsensual.
*146Here the impersonation by the officer of a postman subjected him (if not all participants) to criminal prosecution, but the majority opinion’s approval of the acts practically effect immunity.
In People v. Williams (1975) 51 Cal.App.3d 346, 350-351 [124 Cal.Rptr. 253], the court states:
“On June 10, 1788, John Marshall addressed the Virginia Convention called to ratify the Constitution of the United States: ‘What are the favorite maxims of democracy? A strict observance of justice and public faith and a steady adherence to virtue. These, sir, are the principles of a good government. No mischief, no misfortune, ought to deter us from a strict observance of justice and public faith.’ (Marshall on the Federal Constitution, in 3 The World’s Famous Orations (1906) p. 144.)
“The agents of the government must observe the law in enforcing it.
“ ‘If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites eveiy man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.’ (Brandeis, J. dissenting in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 485 [72 L.Ed. 944, 960, 48 S.Ct. 564, 66 A.L.R. 376].)
“ ‘It is morally incongruous for the state to flout constitutional rights and at the same time demand that its citizens observe the law.’ (People v. Cahan, 44 Cal.2d 434, 446 [282 P.2d 905].)
“ ‘Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence.’ (Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 659 [6 L.Ed.2d 1081, 1092, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 84 A.L.R.2d 933].)”
The law must be that a search warrant may only be legally served and that was not done here.1
“The purpose of the exclusionary rule is to deter unlawful police conduct.” (Lockridge v. Superior Court (1970) 3 Cal.3d 166, 171 [89 Cal.Rptr. 731, 474 P.2d 683].) In the instant case, as distinguished from Lockridge, the warrant service was illegal (in Lockridge the warrant was subsequently found to be insufficient)-, the contraband was the direct product of the illegal entry; the very purpose of the illegal entry was to *147obtain the evidence directly involved with the warrant. I cannot understand how the majority read Lockridge' ás supportive for the violation of law by the impersonating officer, which they approve.2
The entry and service of the warrant being the product of a federal penal violation, the order of the trial court should be affirmed.
Respondents’ petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied March 23, 1978. Bird, C. J., and Mosk, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

Officer Jones was not in possession of the search warrant at any time, and the purpose of his entry was stated by him to be “for the other officers to make the search.”

It is not necessary here to determine whether a less offensive subterfuge, not involving a criminal act, would have been permissible.