Court Opinion

ID: 9790889
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:00:55.763984+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:32.366961
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
concurring specially in the major portion of the Court’s opinion.
State v. Lindsey, 115 Idaho 184, 765 P.2d 695 (1988) was a fourth amendment case decided by the Court of Appeals on December 7, 1988. This Court denied the defendant’s petition requesting that we grant review by an order entered March 13, 1989. 115 Idaho 795, 770 P.2d 804. I felt compelled to question that denial because of a discrepancy between the Court of Appeals’ reasons for finding credibility in the public informant and the trial court’s factual finding. 115 Idaho at 795-796, 770 P.2d 804. More importantly, my concern was that this Court eschewed the opportunity to address head-on an important question left untouched by the Court of Appeals in its opinion, although directly involved in the trial court’s decision:
In addition to the naked factual problems, this case presents an important question of law unaddressed by the Court of Appeals. As noted, the trial court ruled that under the Leon exception to the exclusionary rule, the illegally seized evidence would not be suppressed. First, this Court has not adopted — nor rejected — the Leon ‘good faith’ exception to the exclusionary rule. State v. Johnson, 110 Idaho 516, 716 P.2d 1288 (1986).
Second, the trial court’s application of Leon, even assuming the doctrine might be applicable in this jurisdiction, is flawed. The trial judge did not find good faith; he found only a lack of bad faith. [Footnote omitted.] I submit that the two are not synonymous. Between the quantum of proof required to establish good faith on the one hand, and a lack of bad faith on the other, is an often nebulous, but all important, shade of gray.
Thus, not only do the factual inconsistencies between the findings of the trial judge and Court of Appeals opinions cause one to pause, but the teaching of Leon requires this Court’s attention. As noted above, the good faith rule of Leon states that the exclusionary rule will be applied ‘where the warrant clearly lacks a probable cause basis.’
Lindsey, 115 Idaho at 796, 770 P.2d 804.
State v. Johnson, cited in the first paragraph of the foregoing quote, was one of the earlier Idaho cases acknowledging the Leon opinion of the United States Supreme Court, doing so initially in 110 Idaho 516, 525, 716 P.2d 1288, 1297 (1986), footnote 10, in connection with an exhaustive discussion of the exclusionary rule under both federal and state of Idaho law:
[I]n United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 3419-20, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984), the Court held that the exclusionary rule should not be applied so as to bar the use of evidence in the prosecu*964tion’s case in chief obtained by an officer acting in reasonable reliance on a search warrant issued by a detached and neutral magistrate but ultimately found to be invalid.
Johnson, 110 Idaho at 525, 716 P.2d at 1297. The opinion thereafter dealt at some length with applying Leon to the evidentiary facts of Johnson, and finally concluded that Leon was indeed inapplicable, and that Segura1 was applicable instead:
Leon and Segura have generated much debate. [Footnote omitted.] We need not enter that debate and decide whether Leon’s ‘good faith’ exception should be adopted as part of Idaho constitutional law, because we find it to be inapplicable to the facts of this case.
Johnson, 110 Idaho at 528-529, 716 P.2d at 1300-1301.
Even before our opinion in Johnson, the Court of Appeals had paused to examine Leon with considerable thoroughness in the\ very same year that the High Court announced its “good faith” exception to the exclusionary rule. State v. Schaffer, 107 Idaho 812, 693 P.2d 458 (1984). In concluding the discussion in Schaffer, Judge Burnett in his usual scholarly style first explained what Leon was all about, and why it would be applied in deciding the fourth amendment issue in Schaffer. 107 Idaho 812, 820, 693 P.2d 458, 466 (1984). He also philosophized as to the future should Idaho’s counterpart to the fourth amendment be modified to include the Leon innovation:
In United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984), the Supreme Court adopted a limited good faith exception. The Court held that when a search warrant has been obtained and executed by the police in good faith, the fourth amendment exclusionary rule may not be invoked to suppress evidence merely because the warrant is later found defective for lack of probable cause. The underlying premise of Leon is that the exclusionary rule exists solely to deter the police from wrongful conduct, and no such purpose can be served if the police have acted in good faith. The Supreme Court also has taken the position in Leon that the exclusionary rule is not a constitutional adjunct of the fourth amendment but is merely a judicial prophylaxis to be employed according to the Court’s perception of the social costs and benefits ascribed to it.
Of course, the Idaho Supreme Court has not yet subscribed to Leon, as it has to [Illinois v.] Gates [462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983)] and Franks. Our Supreme Court may do well to defer this choice for a reasonable time, until the federal experience under Leon can be evaluated. [Footnote omitted.] However, the instant case cannot await this determination. We must decide the case now, and we deem ourselves constrained to do so in compliance with our Supreme Court’s declaration that the search-and-seizure provision of the Idaho Constitution is to be construed consistently with the fourth amendment. Leon represents the latest construction of the fourth amendment. Accordingly, we will consider the implications of Leon for this case, but we intimate no view that Leon ultimately should be adopted in Idaho.
When such a profound difference in the result turns upon such a subtle variation in the analysis, we have cause for concern that the fourth amendment is becoming enmeshed in a network of fine distinctions. We are also reminded how delicately the police power of the state is balanced against the right of all people to be secure in their homes. As probable cause is relegated to a lesser place in the fourth amendment, the impact of magistrate decisions upon this critical balance will grow. That, in the final analysis, is the lesson of Leon.
Schaffer, 107 Idaho at 820-822, 693 P.2d at 466-468 (emphasis added).
Today this Court embarks on the “experiment” which Judge Burnett mentioned the United States Supreme Court had initiated *965in its Leon opinion. We get there by two routes. One route is finding merit in the ratio decedendi by which the higher court arrived at its destination, notwithstanding the contrary and better-reasoned views of Justices Brennan and Stevens.
The other, far less acceptable route, is that taken by Justice Johnson. He asserts that we arrived at our Leon destination in December of 1988 in Hays v. State, 115 Idaho 315, 316, 766 P.2d 785, 786, wherein this Court’s only activity was to deny a petition for review. In Hays Justice Johnson asserted that, “[bjecause we denied review in Brooks [Brooks v. State, 108 Idaho 855, 702 P.2d 893 (Ct.App.1985) ], that case became controlling precedent in this state with regard to any new principles of law announced there.” 115 Idaho at 316, 766 P.2d at 786. By denying review in Brooks, however, this Court said nothing whatsoever about the merits of the Court of Appeals decision in Brooks. A vote was taken on the petition for review, and there were not the three votes necessary to grant review. Again, nothing whatever was written. When the vote is to grant, nothing is written, and the votes are simply recorded and an order issues. Occasionally when one member of the Court believes that review should not have been denied, a short opinion will allow the petitioner the small gratification which comes with knowing that one or two members of the Court took the time to painstakingly read what was painstakingly written. Other than that, an opinion dissenting from the denial serves no purpose. So far as I know, although it might change a vote, I do not recollect that this has happened. Therefore, denial of review by this Court should carry no more weight than a denial of certiorari by the United States Supreme Court — such a denial “means only that, for one reason or another which is seldom disclosed, and not infrequently for conflicting reasons which may have nothing to do with any view of the merits taken by a majority of the Court, there were not four [three] members of the Court who thought the case should be heard.” Daniels v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 492, 73 S.Ct. 437, 439, 97 L.Ed. 469 (1953).
Also of concern here is that the Court of Appeals is greatly fettered by this new Johnson Rule of stare decisis. That court may now be precluded from having a change of mind over the years on a point of law which it has been the first Idaho appellate court to announce, simply because this Court did not grant a petition for review of the Court of Appeals’ decision.
To support his assertion in Hays Justice Johnson cited as authority only “[s]ee Nash v. Overholser, 114 Idaho 461, 757 P.2d 1180 (1988),” specifically the special concurring opinion of Justice Johnson, which was joined by Huntley, J., and Bistline, J. Hays, 115 Idaho at 316, 766 P.2d at 786. That special concurring opinion was written for the purpose of advancing another theory for affirming the holding in Nash.2 The majority opinion was based on application of res judicata. Justice Johnson wrote to affirm on the basis of principles of claim preclusion. In that specially concurring opinion, 114 Idaho at 464, 757.P.2d at 1180, Justice Johnson did not deal solely with the Court of Appeals’ Aldape v. Akins opinion, 105 Idaho 254, 668 P.2d 130 (1983). Instead he inserted two extraneous sentences which he did not even purport to substantiate with any authority whatever, primarily because there was no authority. He wrote: “In my opinion the result of the failure of this Court to grant a petition for review is that the decision of the Court of Appeals becomes the law of this state with regard to any new principles of law announced in the decision ... The decision of the Court of Appeals in Aldape has, since the denial of review by this Court, constituted the law of this state on the subject of res judicata.” 114 Idaho at 463-64, 757 P.2d at 1182-83 (emphasis added). Although as the voting took place, I at one point concurred in Justice Johnson’s opinion because it adopted the well written opinion of the Court of Appeals, ultimately I wrote my own opinion in which I concurred “only in this Court’s judgment affirming the trial court’s judgment.” Every *966member of this Court was aware of my reasons, which were fairly and accurately stated. Unfortunately, West Publishing Co., although it did observe that I had written separately to concur only in the affirming of the district court judgment, failed to recognize that such was inconsistent with my own special concurrence. This failure was not a fault attributable to West Publishing, but to clerical error in not making certain that my name had been re-, moved from the two opinions authored by Justices Huntley and Johnson.
With the published opinions erroneously showing the line-up of the membership, in Hays Justice Johnson was facially able to point to his opinion in Nash as a three-member opinion which it appeared to be. But it was not a holding. It was, and remains, a gratuity. There was already in place an affirming majority for the Huntley opinion. Moreover, neither party to the appeal had requested any ruling that denial of a petition for review was tantamount to making a particular case the precedential law for the state of Idaho. In reviewing the briefs it is readily established that neither party in Hays in their Statement of Issues or Points and Authorities made any suggestion that Nash v. Overholser or any of its opinions, or extraneous statements therein contained, and specifically the purported rule of law which is being discussed, should have any application. Apparently there are contrary views among us as to whether precedential case law was made, as Justice Johnson asserts to be so, by reason of Nash and Hays. Some members of the Court may be joining the theory of his sequel opinion issued this day regarding Leon. As may be so with other members of the Court, I concur in the result, but do so only on the basis of temporarily engaging in “the federal experiment” as Judge Burnett so regarded Leon. Other than for Justice Johnson’s insistence that case law precedent was made by reason of wholly gratuitous remarks in Nash and in Hays, with which I strongly disagree, I find the Court’s opinion in Prestwick well written and accordingly concur therein albeit perhaps only temporarily where the federal experiment of Leon is concerned.

. Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796, 104 S.Ct. 3386, 3391, 82 L.Ed.2d 599 (1984).

. This was much the same as I did this year in Hall v. Hall, 116 Idaho 483, 777 P.2d 255 (1989).