Court Opinion

ID: 9788844
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:20:10.013957+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:43:13.815329
License: Public Domain

ORME, Judges
(concurring and dissenting).
24 I concur in the small portion of the majority's opinion devoted to the single issue actually before us on appeal. I dissent from the gratuitous treatment of matters not at issue in this appeal. My limited purpose in writing separately is to call attention to the fact that most of the main opinion is dicta, pure and simple, and thus without any prece-dential value.
1 25 It is important to understand that this case is in an unusual posture. It is not the typical Fourth Amendment case in which a defendant appeals, challenging the trial *1060court's conclusion at every step in the analytic chain and necessarily requiring this court to treat each step. See, e.g., State v. Chapman, 921 P.2d 446 (Utah 1996); State v. Leonard, 825 P.2d 664 (Utah Ct.App.1991), cert. denied, 843 P.2d 1042 (Utah 1992). Rather, this is one of those rare appeals by the State. In bringing its appeal, the State agrees with the trial court's initial conclusions, begging to differ only with its last one. And Defendant did not cross-appeal, thereby placing the preliminary determinations in issue. While the preliminary determinations entail admittedly interesting questions, and I can understand the temptation to reach out and provide answers to such questions, a long tradition of self-discipline precludes appellate courts from offering advisory opinions. See State v. Smith, 817 P.2d 828, 830 (Utah Ct.App.1991). In the exercise of judicial restraint, appellate courts should limit their decisions to actual controversies. See State v. Herrera, 895 P.2d 359, 371 (Utah 1995).
26 In this case, the State does not disagree with the trial court's decision about when a detention for Fourth Amendment purposes first occurred. Most importantly, the State does not even hint at the possibility that the detention was anything other than fully lawful at its inception. Concomitantly, the State raises no issue about the propriety "of seizing a third party during the execution of an arrest warrant," despite the majority's claim that the "reasonableness" of so doing "must" be examined, ostensibly because of the "specific facts of this case." The only challenge mounted by the State in this appeal is to the trial court's determination that once Defendant's hands were revealed, there was no legal basis on which to extend the detention and require him to produce identification. That is the single issue this court should be addressing, although Judges Thorne and Davis, caught up in discussing the intriguing non-issues, do not even get to it until paragraph 20 of their opinion.
T27 I have no problem whatsoever with the majority's treatment of the issue properly before us, and thus concur in paragraphs 20 and 21 of the lead opinion. I dissent from the balance of the opinion, because such a sweeping foray into Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is not appropriate given the single, simple, straightforward issue raised by the State.