Court Opinion

ID: 9714887
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:48:04.344663+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:29.239377
License: Public Domain

Carter, J.,
dissenting,
I wholly disagree with the reasoning of the majority opinion for the reasons so aptly set forth in the dissent of Judge Newton. In my judgment, the time has come to clearly set out my concept of the law applicable to the case and the deep-rooted principles which, as I view it, are wholly abandoned by the holdings of this opinion.
In 1865, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was enacted. While the validity of its enactment has been and is still questioned in many quarters, its meaning also has become a most serious subject of controversy. The intention of the amendment at the time of its submission was to give to the *604recently freed slaves the same rights as other citizens, including equal privileges and immunities guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. Its purpose was to give slaves the same rights as other free men; not to transfer power from the states to the federal government.
The language of the amendment in accomplishing this intent and purpose contained a provision stating that: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; * * The purpose of this provision was primarily to prevent the former slave states from defeating the intent of the Fourteenth Amendment by state legislation. Prior to the enactment of the foregoing provision, “due process of law” was determinable under similar provisions of state constitutions and the laws of the state, and was a subject outside the powers granted to the federal government. By a series of decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States, commencing with the Slaughter-House Cases in 1873, the United States Supreme Court swept aside the contention that the reference to due process as used in the Fourteenth Amendment was solely a protection to the newly made free men, that they were entitled to the same existing due process as other citizens, and was held to be a transfer to the federal government of the power of the states to fix and determine what amounted to due process of law in the state courts. The fear that such a result might occur is evidenced by a letter of Senator Orville H. Browning of Illinois, published in The Cincinnati Commercial on October 26, 1866, in which he said: “If the proposed amendments be adopted, they may and certainly will be used substantially to annihilate the State judiciaries. * * * Be assured, if this new provision be engrafted in the Constitution, it will, in time, change the entire texture and structure of our government, and *605sweep away all the guarantees of safety devised and provided by our patriotic sires of the revolution.” A casual reference to recent cases demonstrates the correctness of Senator Browning’s prophecy. The intention and purpose of the amendment is completely ignored in favor of one by which the Supreme Court of the United States seizes power that was intended to remain with the states.
While I am wholly in disagreement with the method employed by the Supreme Court of the United States in determining due process in the state courts by judicial fiat at the expense of the states., this court is required under the supremacy clause to recognize and be bound by the holdings of that court when rooted into the Constitution. But in the absence of specific holdings applicable to factual situations before us, I do not subscribe to the expansion of the ritualist rules of that court which can only serve to strap down and mitigate the efforts of law enforcement officers in the performance of their duties in enforcing the law.
The ritualistic limitations imposed on law enforcement officers by the Supreme Court of the United States are justified by that court on the ground that they are necessary to restrict over zealous officers from exceeding their authority. That some officers occasionally have done so, I do not deny. But instead of providing sanctions, civil or criminal, against officers who abuse their lawful authority, the court burdens all law enforcement officers, the innocent and guilty alike, with ritualistic limitations that hamper all law enforcement officers in the performance of their duty. It is a case of burning the house down to eliminate the invading cockroach. The result is that law enforcement is breaking down, criminals are permitted to continue their nefarious ways, and the certainty of punishment for criminal wrongdoing becomes less and less a deterrent to crime.
In most criminal cases coming before us, including those related to punishment for crime, the guilt or innocence of the defendant is not an issue. Such is the case here. *606The issues which confront us are largely whether the constitutional rights of the defendant have been abridged; rights which are such because the Supreme Court of the United States proclaims them to be such, and which then roots them into the due process clause of the Constitution to avoid decisions adverse to their encroachment.
The limitations imposed on law enforcement officers for the purpose of coercing police activities, whether or not they are prejudicial to the rights of the defendant, utterly fail to consider the constitutional rights of the victim of the crime and the right of the public to be safe in their person and property. The public interest is completely ignored in favor1 of those who willfully violate the law. The result is an ever growing crime rate and a judicially supported inability of law enforcement officers to maintain law and order. Such a failure has precipitated the destruction of every major republican form of government in the past and there is no reason to believe that it will not have the same effect now and in the future.
We as judges are obligated to support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Nebraska, and not to subvert either. This I propose to do within the limits of my ability. This means that we are obligated to follow the Constitution of the United States as interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States. This I will do whether or not I agree with its holdings. But I do not feel that I am under any obligation to forecast or prophecy what that court may or may not hold in the future, particularly where I am in disagreement with the interpretations it has placed on the plain intent of the Fourteenth Amendment from which it asserts the source of its power.
In the instant case, the majority opinion expands the constitutional meaning of due process far beyond any decision rendered by the Supreme Court of the United States. It is for that court and not this one to expand, limit, or recede from the decisions it has rendered.
*607With these views on which I hold deep convictions, I cannot join in the majority opinion. I cannot, in good conscience, subscribe to its rationale and thereby participate in the furtherance of a judicial policy that not only offends my sense of justice, but also tends to destroy the maintenance of law and order so essential to the preservation of government by a free people. The drafters of the Constitution placed their full confidence in the Supreme Court of the United States to maintain it in accordance with its meaning when it was adopted and provided no means by which the states could defend themselves against misconstruction and encroachment. Under such circumstances, it is the duty of state courts to defend their jurisdictions within the limits of the oaths of office they have assumed. To do otherwise is to meekly submit to encroachment and concur in the reduction of the power of the state to a condition of vassalage.
In the enforcement of the criminal law, state courts are not devoid of intelligence, integrity, and a proper regard for justice as the Supreme Court of the United States seems to imply. Instead of spending our time in the writing of quibbling opinions concerning the scope of some ritualistic formula imposed upon us, the court should engage itself in determining the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The criminal law has become a labyrinth of ritualistic rules which operate for the benefit of the criminal in escaping just • punishment for his crimes. The present case is a glaring example of the misapplication of rules already senseless in their origin and purpose. It is time that we take the handcuffs off law enforcement officers and put them back on the criminal where they belong. The verdict of the jury and the sentence of the learned trial court in this case should be affirmed.
White, C. J., and Newton, J., join in this dissent.