Court Opinion

ID: 9568400
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:03:11.781885+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:24:42.656802
License: Public Domain

DYKMAN, J.
(dissenting). Because I conclude that Marty R. Caban has waived the issue of whether the police had probable cause to search his automobile, I do not join in the majority opinion. Permitting Caban to raise this issue for the first time on appeal advances the concept of trial by ambush, will result in needless appeals, and will waste the time of trial courts.
Caban moved to suppress evidence police officers seized during a search of his automobile. His motion did not assert that the officers lacked probable cause for the search and instead focussed on an absence of exigent circumstances:
4. That the vehicle from which the property was seized was not occupied by the defendant nor any person at the time of the seizure, nor was he in any close proximity thereto, and in addition, the vehicle did not, in and of itself, pose any threat or danger to any law enforcement officers at the scene.
At the suppression hearing, Caban argued that the search was invalid because:
There [were] no exigent circumstances whatever that may or may not be these days. He was not operating or behind the vehicle at the time that they went to it and proceeded to search it. It was not pursuant, for example, to a traffic arrest or stop. They could have obtained a search warrant. Telephonic search warrant's a term I've just recently heard. There obviously must be one if I've heard it somewhere.
*431In any event, they could have obtained a search warrant very easily for the vehicle. It was not a threat to anyone. They could have waited and done their search at that time....
... I think that the state in this instance really should have obtained a search warrant before they proceeded to look in the vehicle.
From reading Caban's motion and from his arguments in the trial court, the State correctly assumed that Caban was contesting the existence of exigent circumstances, one of the necessary elements of the probable cause-exigent circumstances exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. Now, for the first time on appeal, Caban has changed his attack to an assertion that the police did not have probable cause to search his automobile.
The State has the burden of showing that a war-rantless search comes within an exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. State v. Pozo, 198 Wis. 2d 706,*711 n.2, 544 N.W.2d 228, 230 (Ct. App. 1995). But an appellant must still raise an issue in the trial court before he or she may raise it before us. "Our supreme court has repeatedly stated that absent a showing of compelling circumstances, an appellate court will not review a claim that was not raised before the trial court." State v. Dean, 105 Wis. 2d 390, 402, 314 N.W.2d 151,157-58 (Ct. App. 1981). This rule should apply here despite the trial court's mention of the words "probable cause" in passing. Since Caban did not dispute the existence of probable cause in the trial court, the court assumed that Caban conceded the issue and that a finding of probable cause was therefore warranted.
I agree that we may, in our discretion, address matters not raised in the trial court. Cheatham v. *432State, 85 Wis. 2d 112, 120-21, 270 N.W.2d 194, 198 (1978). But, by considering whether the officers had probable cause to search Caban's automobile despite the waiver of this issue, we encourage sandbagging and ambushes at suppression hearings.
The message we send today is that motions to suppress will have a better chance of success on appeal if defendants fail to alert the State or the trial court of the real reason for the motion. This may lead the State and the trial court to wrongly assume that the defendant is asserting one of many possible infirmities. If this feint is successful, the State and the trial court will focus on the wrong issue, and an incomplete record will be made as to the issue the defendant intends to raise on appeal. Then, on appeal, that other issue will be raised and the defendant will argue, as here, that no record exists to support the trial court's determination.
I do not believe that permitting defendants to raise new issues on appeal advances rights given to defendants by statute or the federal or state constitutions, nor does it protect them from possible State overreaching. Prosecutors will have to spend more time at suppression hearings negating all possible attacks on searches and seizures. Occasionally, an inadvertent omission will result in constitutionally obtained evidence being suppressed. Most of the time, the only result will be a waste of time. I see no reason to depart from our usual rule that a defendant waives matters he or she has not raised in the trial court. I therefore respectfully dissent.