Court Opinion

ID: 9640482
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:06:58.344273+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:30.181097
License: Public Domain

GANT, Justice,
dissenting.
I must respectfully dissent. On July 22, 1985, a search warrant was issued to the Kentucky State Police empowering them to search the respondent's premises in Hickman County. Both the affidavit and the warrant meticulously described the premises to be searched and directions to said premises. It also described two vehicles, and authorized the seizure of any marijuana “manufactured, cultivated or possessed” in violation of KRS 218A.990 and any paraphernalia. While searching the described premises, the police found 322 plants of marijuana and also found a locked brief case under the bed which was unlocked by respondent when asked to do so. In the brief case was found a rolled dollar bill containing cocaine, loose powder, a bag of powder marked “Superior Inositol” and two spoons. The respondent was convicted of possession of cocaine, sentenced to five years in the penitentiary and fined $5,000.
This conviction was reversed by a 2-1 decision of the Court of Appeals “on the ground that was never urged below, or on appeal.” The majority of that panel ruled that, since the affidavit and the search warrant made no mention of the brief case or of cocaine, the seizure was invalid and the conviction could not stand under § 10 of the Kentucky Constitution.
This holding of the Court of Appeals ignores two things. First, there was no issue made in the lower court of the seizure of the cocaine. As the court held in Relford v. Commonwealth, Ky.App., 558 S.W.2d 175 (1977), when no opportunity is given to the prosecution to show the circumstances of the seizure, especially under the “plain view doctrine,” we will not speculate that there was any impropriety. Also, as this court held in Basham v. Commonwealth, Ky., 675 S.W.2d 376, 383 (1984), citing Jones v. Commonwealth, Ky., 416 S.W.2d 342, 343 (1967): “While engaged in a legitimate search under a search warrant describing specific articles, it is proper to seize stolen or contraband property ... though the items [seized] are not described in the warrant.” In Lindsay v. Commonwealth, Ky., 500 S.W.2d 786, 789 (1973), the court stated: “We have always held that where, in the course of a legal search, other contraband is found, the searching officer has the right to seize it.”
The respondent herein filed a cross-motion for discretionary review, asking that, if this court did not accept the opinion of the Court of Appeals in this case, the court consider the original and only ground which he presented in his appeal before the Court of Appeals. That ground is that the search warrant was signed and issued by a Trial Commissioner who resided in Fulton County, Kentucky, and who respondent argues was without authority under SCR 5.030 to issue a search warrant in Hickman County, where this warrant was executed.
To me, the rules indicate that if the Fulton County Trial Commissioner issued this search warrant in the county in which he was appointed, for any of the four counties in his district, he was acting within his authority. However, we do not need to consider that point under the circumstances of this case.
I would follow the rulings and reasoning of the Supreme Court of the United States in United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984), and in Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U.S. 79, 107 S.Ct. 1013, 94 L.Ed.2d 72 (1987), in which the court stated that evidence is admissible if it is obtained by officers in reasonable reliance on a search warrant, even though the warrant is ultimately found to be “invalid.”
In the present case, there is no question that the officers were reasonable in their reliance upon the validity of the search warrant. On its face, it was regular in all respects. Whether the Trial Commissioner *631had jurisdiction or authority should never even have entered this case. It is exactly the type of case envisioned by the United States Supreme Court in Leon, supra, when the court stated, as appears in the syllabus:
An examination of the Fourth Amendment’s origin and purposes makes it clear that the use of fruits of a past unlawful search or seizure works no new Fourth Amendment wrong. The question whether the exclusionary sanction is appropriately imposed in a particular case as a judicially created remedy to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights through its deterrent effect, must be resolved by weighing the costs and benefits of preventing the use in the prosecution’s case in chief of inherently trustworthy tangible evidence. Indiscriminate application of the exclusionary rule — impeding the criminal justice system’s truth-finding function and allowing some guilty defendants to go free — may well generate disrespect for the law and the administration of justice.
The majority opinion attempts to distinguish Leon, but that is exactly what was anticipated by Leon. In Leon, supra, the court made it clear that each case would be considered on its own merits and on its own facts and that, unless there was some violation of the safeguards guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment, there would be no exclusionary sanction applied.
In the instant case, I can see no violation of the origin and purpose of the Fourth Amendment. I can, however, see that in this case the officer relied upon the advice of counsel; relied upon a judicial officer; conducted what he considered a valid search; and the warrant was subsequently determined to be invalid. As a result, the officer is penalized, and a convicted felon is turned loose on the street.
I would reverse the Court of Appeals in its obviously unjustified holding in its opinion. I would also affirm the lower court on the cross-motion for discretionary review filed by the respondent in reliance upon United States v. Leon and, in all, uphold the verdict of the Hickman Circuit Court.
VANCE, J., joins in this dissent.