Court Opinion

ID: 9481198
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:11:00.745642+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:09.208648
License: Public Domain

KRUPANSKY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Although I am aware of the sanctity of the home against unreasonable searches and seizures, the majority opinion is not supported by the law or the facts of the case. I must respectfully dissent.
An indictment, “ ‘fair upon its face,’ and returned by a ‘properly constituted grand jury,’ conclusively determines the existence of probable cause and requires the issuance of an arrest warrant without further inquiry.” Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 118, n. 19, 95 S.Ct. 854, 865, n. 19, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (citations omitted). Because an indictment requires the issuance of an arrest warrant without further inquiry, this substitution of the grand jury’s judgment for that of a neutral and detached magistrate “is attributable to the grand jury’s relationship to the courts and its historical role of protecting individuals from unjust prosecution.” Id. (citations omitted).
Tennessee recognizes that the indictment establishes probable cause in Rule 9(a) of the Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure:
(a) Issuance: After the return of an indictment or presentment by the grand jury, the clerk shall issue a capias or a criminal summons for each defendent named in the indictment or presentment who is not in actual custody.... The clerk shall issue a criminal summons instead of a capias upon the request of the district attorney general or by direction of the court. Upon like request or direction he shall issue subsequent process for the same defendant. He shall deliver the capias or criminal summons to the sheriff or other person authorized by law to execute or serve it.
(b) Form. The form of the capias shall be the same as that for an arrest warrant and shall be signed by the clerk. The capias shall describe the offense charged and it shall command that the defendant be arrested and brought before the court in which the charge was pending. The criminal summons shall be in the same form as the capias except that it shall summon the defendant to appear before the court at a stated time and place and shall give notice to the defendant that his failure to appear as *1299ordered shall constitute contempt of court.
(c) Execution; Return. The capias and criminal summons shall be executed and served as provided in Rule 4(d). The peace officer executing a capias shall make return thereof to the court. At the request of the district attorney general any unexecuted capias shall be returned and cancelled.
(d) Reissuance. At the request of the district attorney general made at any time while the indictment is pending, or upon its own initiative, the court may direct the clerk to deliver to the sheriff or other authorized person for execution or service a capias returned unexecuted and not canceled....
Tennessee Code Annotated, Court Rules Annotated, Rule of Criminal Procedure 9 (Michie 1990).
Thus, once the indictment is returned, the issuance of the capias is merely a ministerial function of the court clerk. The district attorney is vested with authority to determine whether a capias or summons shall issue, to cancel an unexecuted capias, and to reissue a capias or summons.
In the instant case, the arresting police officers, an agent for the Tennessee Bureau of Identification (TBI) and the sheriff for White County, Tennessee, had brought with them a copy of the indictment when they arrived at the defendant’s home. The local district attorney had endorsed the indictment with instructions to arrest the defendant and suggested a bond of $100,000. Probable cause had been proven to the satisfaction of the grand jury as evidenced by the indictment, and the district attorney had determined that the defendant should be arrested rather than summoned. The only element missing in this arrest equation was the rote issuance of the capias itself by the clerk of courts, who performs this function as an instrument of the district attorney. Under these circumstances, the clerk’s ministerial act does not afford additional protection against unreasonable seizures, and, under the law of Tennessee, the indictment carried by the officers was tantamount to a warrant of arrest.
Apart from the foregoing legal resolution of this controversy, the facts of this case do not support the reasoning of the majority disposition. For purposes of fourth amendment analysis, the critical point in time was the instant that Bradley met the police officers at the door to his residence. Absent exigent circumstances, the fourth amendment prohibits “the police from making a warrantless and noncon-sensual entry into a suspect’s home in order to make a routine felony arrest.” Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 576, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 1375, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980) (emphasis added). The voluntariness of consent must be determined by examining all the surrounding circumstances, and “account must be taken of subtly coercive police questions, as well as the possibly vulnerable subjective state of mind of the person who consents.” Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 229, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 2049, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973)
Although the majority opinion asserts that the officers informed Bradley of his arrest “[ajlmost immediately upon the defendant’s answering the door,” the record of the testimony is to the contrary. Burl Smith, the Federal Bureau of Investigation agent who accompanied the two state officers, testified that the defendant was not immediately taken into custody. Rather, when Bradley came to the door the officers requested permission to enter his home to speak with him. Bradley recognized the sheriff and the TBI agent. He invited the officers to enter his residence. It was not until after the officers were in the house that Bradley was advised he was under arrest. The police officers displayed no weapons and exerted no coercion. The majority opinion conjectures that Bradley was vulnerable due to his medicated state, but this ignores Bradley’s voluntary cooperation during not just the first search at his house, but during the second search, which took place after he had been in jail several days. Under the totality of the circumstances presented here, Bradley consented to the police officers’ entry into his house.
It is no “result-oriented logic” that compels the conclusion that the fruits of the *1300concedingly consensual search should not be suppressed. Rather, the majority opinion misconstrues the facts by elevating the importance of the clerk’s rote act and deemphasizing Bradley’s consent to the officers’ entry. Bradley consented to the officers’ entry and his arrest was legal. Thus, the arrest could not taint his consent to search, and the fruits of that search should not be suppressed.
Accordingly, I enter my dissent to the majority's disposition.