Court Opinion

ID: 9741806
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:02:25.978985+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:58:14.581419
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE CLARK, also dissenting: Because I cannot acquiesce in this judicial repeal of the fourth amendment, I strongly and categorically dissent. The majority reaches out to achieve a result which is at best suggested, and hardly compelled, by the Supreme Court’s case law and by our own. In fact, the few cases directly on point, which the majority does not cite or distinguish, clearly hold that suppressed evidence cannot be admitted to “impeach” or rebut the testimony of any witness other than the defendant himself. (See United States v. Hinckley (D.C. Cir. 1982), 672 F.2d 115; State v. Burnett (Mo. 1982), 637 S.W.2d 680 (en banc)) People v. Walls (1973), 42 A.D.2d 575, 344 N.Y.S.2d 435; State v. Kilborn (1983), 143 Vt. 360 , 466 A.2d 1175; State v. Hubbard (1985), 103 Wash. 2d 570, 693 P.2d 718; see also 4 W. LaFave, Search & Seizure §11.6(a), at 495-96 (2d ed. 1987).) The majority’s contrary decision is, for several reasons, simply mistaken. First, the majority relies upon a reading of the applicable case law which is, to say the least, extremely tendentious. It is well-settled that under the fourth amendment exclusionary rule evidence obtained in violation of the amendment must be suppressed and may not be introduced at trial. (Wong Sun v. United States (1963), 371 U.S. 471, 9 L. Ed. 2d 441, 83 S. Ct. 407; Nardone v. United States (1939), 308 U.S. 338, 84 L. Ed. 307, 60 S. Ct. 266; Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States (1920), 251 U.S. 385, 64 L. Ed. 319, 40 S. Ct. 182.) In other words, the prosecution may not use illegally obtained evidence as substantive evidence of the defendant’s guilt. Nor is this restriction limited to the prosecution’s case in chief: “[The] Constitution guarantees a defendant the fullest opportunity to meet the accusation against him. He must be free to deny all the elements of the case against him without thereby giving leave to the Government to introduce by way of rebuttal evidence illegally secured by it, and therefore not available for its case in chief.” (Walder v. United States (1954), 347 U.S. 62, 65, 98 L. Ed. 503, 507, 74 S. Ct. 354, 356.) Any other rule would unduly encourage law enforcement authorities to violate the fourth amendment routinely so as to garner evidence which could be held in reserve, thereby inhibiting the accused from presenting evidence in his own defense. There are some situations in which illegally obtained evidence may be used. Outside of the trial context, such evidence may be used, for example, to locate witnesses identified by the evidence (Michigan v. Tucker (1974), 417 U.S. 433, 41 L. Ed. 2d 182, 94 S. Ct. 2357) or to question witnesses during grand jury proceedings (United States v. Calandra (1974), 414 U.S. 338, 38 L. Ed. 2d 561, 94 S. Ct. 613). Under the Federal Constitution, illegally obtained evidence may also be used as substantive evidence of the defendant’s guilt so long as it is the product of a facially valid warrant executed by law enforcement authorities acting in good faith. (United States v. Leon (1984), 468 U.S. 897, 82 L. Ed. 2d 677, 104 S. Ct. 3405.) Of course, none of these exceptions are pertinent to this case. The only two exceptions which might even arguably apply are the use of illegally obtained evidence to either (1) impeach a defendant’s credibility either on cross-examination or direct (United States v. Havens (1980), 446 U.S. 620, 64 L. Ed. 2d 559, 100 S. Ct. 1912; Oregon v. Hass (1975), 420 U.S. 714, 43 L. Ed. 2d 570, 95 S. Ct. 1215; Harris v. New York (1971), 401 U.S. 222, 28 L. Ed. 2d 1, 91 S. Ct. 643; 4 W. LaFave, Search & Seizure §11.6(a) (2d ed. 1987); see also Walder v. United States (1954), 347 U.S. 62, 98 L. Ed. 503, 74 S. Ct. 354) or to (2) respond to defense tactics which seek to take extraordinary advantage of the fact of suppression and thereby “open the door” to the admission of the suppressed evidence (Walder v. United States (1954), 347 U.S. 62, 65, 98 L. Ed. 503, 507, 74 S. Ct. 354, 356; United States ex rel. Castillo v. Fay (2d Cir. 1965), 350 F.2d 400; People v. Payne (1983), 98 Ill. 2d 45; Commonwealth v. Wright (1975), 234 Pa. Super. 83, 339 A.2d 103; 4 W. LaFave, Search & Seizure §11.6(b) (2d ed. 1987)). The majority’s opinion confuses these two distinct exceptions and thereby creates a rationale for the admission of illegally garnered evidence far broader than any actually contained in these cases. As to the first, or impeachment, exception, the majority ignores the language in the Supreme Court cases clearly limiting it to the defendant who testifies. For example, the Havens Court, commenting on its earlier cases of Harris and Hass, noted: “In both cases, the Court stressed the importance of arriving at the truth in criminal trials, as well as the defendant’s obligation to speak the truth in response to proper questions. We rejected the notion that the defendant’s constitutional shield against having illegally seized evidence used against him could be ‘perverted into a license to use perjury by way of a defense, free from the risk of confrontation with prior inconsistent utterances.’ *** *** We have repeatedly insisted that when defendants testify, they must testify truthfully or suffer the consequences.” (Emphasis added.) Havens, 446 U.S. at 626, 64 L. Ed. 2d at 565-66,100 S. Ct. at 1916. Not a line of Harris or Havens suggests that their holdings are intended to apply to witnesses other than the defendant. Moreover, it is clear that both Harris and Havens are premised at least partially upon a waiver theory utterly inapplicable to witnesses other than the defendant. “Having voluntarily taken the stand, petitioner was under an obligation to speak truthfully and accurately, and the prosecution here did no more than utilize the traditional truth-testing devices of the adversary process.” {Harris, 401 U.S. at 225, 28 L. Ed. 2d at 4, 91 S. Ct. at 645-46.) The interpretation of Harris as an example of waiver is not, as the majority seems to suggest, merely a commentator’s theory or the defendant’s own invention. In State v. Burnett (Mo. 1982), 637 S.W.2d 680, the Missouri Supreme Court adopted the same interpretation: “In each of the United States Supreme Court cases, including Havens, the Court recognized that the defendant's right not to have illegally seized evidence used against him, but found a waiver of that right when and if the defendant testified in his own defense in the manner set forth in those cases. It was the defendant who was not to be allowed the benefit of the exclusionary rule so as to permit him to freely commit perjury. This constituted a waiver as to rebuttal evidence directly contradicting the defendant’s testimony. In the instant case, the defendant did not testify and, therefore, cannot be held to have waived his Fourth Amendment rights with respect to the suppressed evidence so as to permit its introduction as impeachment of his direct testimony. There was no testimony of the defendant to impeach.” Waiver, of course, does not apply to a witness who may testify voluntarily or under process, may or may not be telling the truth, and is in any case no mere surrogate for the defendant. We are long past the days when a party was held to “vouch for” his witness and to be bound by what his witness said. Moreover, the majority’s contention that Jewel Henderson perjured herself is speculation, unsupported by anything in the record. A second distinction between this case and the impeachment cases is that those cases involved impeachment, “a traditional truth-testing device of the adversary process,” whose value outweighed the benefits of the exclusionary rule in that particular instance. But, as the majority’s use of quotation marks around the word “impeachment” suggests, the use of the defendant's statement to rebut Jewel Henderson’s testimony is not impeachment as traditionally understood. In usual practice, a witness may be impeached by reference to his own prior inconsistent statements. I have yet to hear of a case in which a witness was impeached by the use of someone else’s prior inconsistent statements. If I testify to something at trial, the fact that I previously said something else may tend to prove that I am lying. But the fact that someone else has previously said something inconsistent proves nothing at all. For this reason, the trial court’s instruction to the jury that “evidence that the defendant made statements following his arrest may be considered by you only as it may affect the believability of Jewel Henderson” made no sense. Under traditional rules of evidence, the defendant’s statement could have come in as a prior inconsistent statement if he testified, or as a party-admission, even if he did not. In the first case it would have constituted impeachment, and in the second case, substantive evidence. But its use to “impeach” the testimony of another witness is wholly unprecedented — and flows solely from the attempt to shoehorn the facts of this case into the narrow confines of Harris and Havens. It is therefore not surprising that the prosecution, the defense counsel, and the court all stumbled so badly over the question of instructing the jury. The only pattern jury instruction available clearly referred to the witnesses’ prior inconsistent statements, not the defendant’s. It is true that a witness may sometimes be impeached by extrinsic facts if the facts are not collateral. Noncollateral facts include “facts relevant to substantive issues in the case,” “facts which are independently provable by extrinsic evidence to impeach or disqualify the witness,” (e.g., bias, interest, conviction of crime, etc.) and, lastly, ordinarily collateral facts which are so vital to the witnesses’ story that proof of them will tend to disprove it: “the contradiction of any part of the witness’s account of the background and circumstances of a material transaction, which as a matter of human experience he would not have been mistaken about if his story were true.” (McCormick, Evidence §47, at 99 (2d ed. 1972).) McCormick nowhere suggests that extrinsic proof as to any of these three types of facts can include the prior contradictory statement of someone other than the witness. None of McCormick’s examples of the third type of exception involve statements of another witness: See, e.g., East Tennessee V & G. Ry. Co. v. Daniel (1893), 91 Ga. 768, 18 S.E. 22 (witness who claimed to see incident while stopping to buy tobacco impeached by testimony of storekeeper that he did not stop to buy tobacco); Stephens v. People (1859), 19 N.Y. 549, 572 (witness who claimed that arsenic was kept to kill rats in cellar where provisions were kept impeached by witness who testified that no provisions were kept in cellar); Commonwealth v. Jackson (Ky. 1955), 281 S.W.2d 891 (impeachment by inconsistent statement of witness). I have yet to find a case where a defense witness was impeached by evidence of the defendant’s statements. Of course, the real crux of the matter is the exclusionary rule, not evidence law. But the confusion about impeachment points up the confusion in the majority’s opinion. The color of the defendant’s hair was not a collateral issue — it was clearly material because it directly related to his identity and his guilt. Therefore the State was free to use extrinsic evidence to prove the color of his hair on the day in question. That is not really the question. The real question is whether the State can use suppressed evidence to prove that extrinsic fact. Normally such evidence could be admitted — both to impeach the witness and as substantive evidence, without any limiting instruction. But Walder, Harris, and Havens seem to limit the admission of suppressed evidence to impeachment — evidence admitted not as substantive proof of the defendant’s guilt, but only as tending to prove that he is not telling the truth. This distinction, while obviously fragile, would be completely destroyed by the majority’s decision. In fact, although the majority’s opinion is not clear on this point, admission of the defendant’s statement makes sense not as impeachment but as rebuttal, substantive evidence introduced to contradict a specific point in the defendant’s evidence. In other words, what the majority really means is that a defendant who puts on a defense thereby waives his fourth amendment right to the exclusion of suppressed evidence which contradicts his defense. While I will deal with the merits of this position below — and its impact on the exclusionary rule — I would note here only that it is far removed from the narrow impeachment exception recognized in Harris and Havens. The second possible exception to the exclusionary rule, the “opening the door” exception, is also inapplicable. A defendant does not open the door to the admission of suppressed evidence merely by mounting a defense. Instead, he must engage in “tactics which *** seek to gain extraordinary advantage from the fact of suppression.” (Emphasis added.) (4 W. LaFave, Search & Seizure §11.6(b), at 497 (2d ed. 1987).) One typical tactic, for example, is to affirmatively assert the nonexistence of the suppressed evidence, or to berate the prosecution for failing to produce it. For example, in our own case of People v. Payne (1983), 98 Ill. 2d 45, 49-50, defense counsel, through cross-examination, gave the misleading impression that a search of the defendant’s apartment had been fruitless. (See also Walder v. United States (1954), 347 U.S. 62, 65, 98 L. Ed. 503, 507, 74 S. Ct. 354, 356 (defendant made sweeping assertion that he had never in his life possessed drugs); United States ex rel. Castillo v. Fay (2d Cir. 1965), 350 F.2d 400 (defense counsel gave misleading impression on cross-examination by eliciting response that no narcotics had been found during search; State allowed to rebut with evidence of narcotics paraphernalia); Commonwealth v. Wright (1975), 234 Pa. Super. 83, 339 A.2d 103 (defense counsel created confusion during cross-examination as to whether admitted packet of heroin had ever been chemically analyzed, confusion which could only be alleviated by reference to nine other packets which had been suppressed).) In this case, if defense counsel argued that his client was innocent because he had not while in police custody made any statements, I would have not hesitated to hold that he had “opened the door” to at least a limited admission of the fact that defendant had made certain statements. But if merely presenting a witness whose testimony contradicts suppressed evidence “opens the door” to its admission, then the fourth amendment has only a very limited meaning. This I cannot accept. Even were the majority’s use of the pertinent case law less questionable and more accurate, I would still be deeply troubled by its treatment of, and attitude towards, the fourth amendment exclusionary rule. The rule is not some legal nicety invented to bedevil hapless prosecutors and policemen. It is our only bulwark against the most common and hurtful abuses of governmental power. It expresses the long-held view that: “The poorest man may, in his cottage, bid defiance to all the force of the Crown. It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter; the rain may enter; but the King of England may not enter; all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement.” N. Lasson, The History and Development of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, at 49 (1937). After today’s decision, a police officer deciding whether to “cross the threshold of the ruined tenement” in violation of the law will know that anything he finds there can be used as substantive evidence of the defendant’s guilt so long as the defendant presents any evidence in his own defense. That knowledge can only weaken his incentive to obey the law. In response, the majority argues that the effect of its decision will not, after all, be very great, since few defendants will actually present “perjured” testimony. Leaving aside the question of how we are to determine whether testimony is in fact perjurious, this argument is premised upon a profound misunderstanding of the purpose of the exclusionary rule. Preventing the admission of reliable evidence which tends to prove the guilt of the defendant is not its ultimate purpose, although that is its immediate effect. The ultimate purpose of the rule is to deter improper police conduct. (Dunaway v. New York (1979), 442 U.S. 200, 217-18, 60 L. Ed. 2d 824, 839, 99 S. Ct. 2248, 2259; People v. White (1987), 117 Ill. 2d 194, 226; People v. Gabbard (1979), 78 Ill. 2d 88, 98-99.) The principal beneficiaries of the rule’s deterrent effect are not the criminals in whose cases the rule is applied but society at large: “all those citizens who never break laws more serious than those prohibiting overtime parking” (Dworkin, Fact Style Adjudication & the Fourth Amendment: The Limits of Lawyering, 48 Ind. L.J. 329, 330-31 (1973)) but are nevertheless protected from illegal searches and seizures. Therefore, the number of defendants who will present perjured testimony and so suffer the admission of illegally obtained rebuttal evidence is simply irrelevant. Law enforcement officials contemplating illegal activity have no way of knowing in advance whether the persons subjected to that activity will eventually attempt to present a defense inconsistent with the evidence the officers may gamer, and if so whether their illegally obtained evidence may be useful for rebuttal. Whether the number of admissions is few or many, the knowledge that the evidence may eventually prove useful — either to deter a defendant from presenting inconsistent evidence or to rebut evidence actually presented — cannot help but influence police behavior. It is true that this effect will be limited by the inability of the State to use illegally obtained evidence on its case in chief. Where law enforcement authorities know in advance that the only evidence against a potential defendant can only be obtained through unlawful means they may hesitate. But in any case in which the police officers can, through lawful means, acquire enough evidence to make out a case against a suspect, they will be strongly tempted to secure additional evidence illegally. I would not argue that we will face an epidemic outbreak of police illegality overnight. Our law enforcement authorities have lived with the exclusionary rule for over 60 years. Habit, custom, and residual respect for the law will doubtless prevent any sudden increase in the number of illegal searches and seizures. But eventually the more ambitious and aggressive policemen and prosecutors, engaged as they are in the highly competitive business of ferreting out crime, will discover a handy new tool in their arsenal. I am not so sanguine about human nature as to believe that they will all be scrupulous enough not to use it. We are all members of a court which adopted the exclusionary rule decades before it was applied to the States. (People v. Brocamp (1923), 307 Ill. 448.) With this case we take a significant step towards its weakening and eventual disintegration. Since I cannot agree with this view, I dissent, and would affirm the undivided holding of the appellate court. JUSTICE STAMOS joins in this dissent.