Court Opinion

ID: 9560276
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:46:27.474868+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:12:37.005336
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON REHEARING
PARKS, Judge:
The appellant, Dennis Bates Fletcher, was convicted in the District Court of Oklahoma County, Case No. CRF-81-5144, of Concealing Stolen Property. On November 5, 1986, this Court reversed that conviction because of faulty search warrants. The State has petitioned for a rehearing. In order to dispel some of the confusion about the status of a Rule Six appeal that resulted from our decision in this case, the rehearing is hereby granted.
Our decision in this case did not change, nor was it intended to change, the scope of a Rule Six appeal. Since the inception of Rule Six, the reviewing judge has had the authority to reverse a magistrate’s ruling only on the basis of “and error of law.” State ex rel. Fallis v. Caldwell, 498 P.2d 426, 429 (Okl.Cr.1972). Of course, many legal issues involve “mixed questions of law and fact” meaning questions “which require the application of a legal standard to the historical-fact determinations....” Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 309 n. 6, 83 S.Ct. 745, 755 n. 6, 9 *1197L.Ed.2d 770 (1963). The question of whether probable cause exists to issue a search warrant is a mixed question of law and fact. See Booth v. State, 67 Okl.Cr. 413, 94 P.2d 846, 850 (1939). Pure factual issues deal with basic, primary or historical facts, in the sense of a recital of external events and the credibility of their narrators. Townsend, supra. Based on the foregoing, when a district court reviews an examining magistrate’s decision in the context of a Rule Six appeal, the district court must give appropriate deference to the basic, primary or historical facts found by the magistrate unless such findings have no support in the record. The scope of review of the district court, in the Rule Six appeal process, is thus limited to conclusions of law based either on mixed questions of law and fact or pure questions of law.
For example, a magistrate’s determination of the time at which the sun sets on a particular day or the actual time at which the police serve a warrant are purely questions of fact which are not reviewable unless the magistrate’s findings have no support in the record. Conversely, the determination of what constitutes the “nighttime” in Oklahoma is purely a question of law. Under 47 O.S.1981, § 11-801, nighttime starts thirty minutes after sunset and ends thirty minutes before sunrise. Accordingly, like the determination of multiple representation under Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U.S. 335, 342, 100 S.Ct. 1708, 1714, 64 L.Ed.2d 333 (1980), or ineffective assistance of counsel under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 697, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2070, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), the issue of whether a warrant was served in the nighttime is a mixed question of law and fact which must be decided on appeal by applying the reviewing court’s legal determinations to the magistrate’s findings of fact which are supported by the record. In this case, the preliminary hearing magistrate was presented competent evidence from which he could reasonably conclude that the warrants were executed more than thirty minutes after sunset and, on this record, such a factual finding was necessarily included in his conclusion that the warrants were executed in the nighttime. Insofar as the record before the magistrate supported a finding that the warrants were in fact executed at a time more than thirty minutes after sunset, the district court was required to give deference to this factual finding. Moreover, when the legal standard of what constitutes nighttime in Oklahoma, see 47 O.S.1981, § 11-801, is applied to the foregoing factual determination which was properly supported by the record, it is clear that the magistrate was correct as a matter of law in determining that the warrants were executed in the nighttime.
Accordingly, in the context of a Rule Six appeal, the district court is not entitled to make an independent redetermination of purely factual questions which have been resolved by the preliminary hearing magistrate, and which are supported by the record. Thus, the district court could not reverse the examining magistrate’s finding that the warrant had in fact been executed thirty minutes after sunset so as to have been served in the nighttime, unless there was no evidence in the record to support such a finding.
Furthermore, our review of the record clearly indicates that under the factual findings of the magistrate, the reliability of the confidential informant was not established and probable cause to issue identical search warrants for two different addresses could not exist as a matter of law. Moreover, we conclude that two identical affidavits used to support two search warrants issued simultaneously to search for thirty-five specific items of stolen office furniture at two different addresses, are insufficient as a matter of law to meet the requirement that affidavits “be positive that the property is ... in the place to be searched” so as to justify service during the nighttime. See 22 O.S.1981, § 1230.
We believe that limiting the scope of review of the District Court, in the Rule Six appeal process, to “errors of law” serves the desirable purpose of foreclosing some of the problems associated with forum shopping for magistrates. See Nicodemus v. State, 473 P.2d 312, 316 (Okl.Cr.1970). Such a limitation achieves a proper *1198balance between the State’s right to appeal what it perceives to be an erroneous ruling by the examining magistrate and the need for a degree of independence on the part of examining magistrates so as to prevent unnecessary harassment of the accused by way of shopping around for a magistrate who will render a favorable decision.
We emphasize that the scope of review of the district court is limited to errors of law only in the Rule Six context when the district court is sitting as an appellate court in review of the ruling made by a preliminary hearing magistrate. The district court, when acting in its traditional role as the trial court, is not bound by pretrial rulings on the admission of evidence but is entitled to make an independent determination of the factual findings. See Mosier v. State, 671 P.2d 62, 66 (Okl.Cr.1983). This is because the Rule Six process was created solely to provide a remedy to the prosecutor whose case was improvidently dismissed at preliminary hearing. Id. We believe that this distinction is justified for the reasons previously given, and because of the uniquely different roles to be served by the preliminary hearing magistrate and the trial court. The preliminary hearing magistrate makes initial rulings on motions to suppress for the purpose of determining whether the crime charged has been committed and, if so, whether there is probable cause to believe the accused committed it. See State v. Benson, 661 P.2d 908, 909 (Okl.Cr.1983); Allen v. State, 527 P.2d 204, 207 (Okl.Cr.1974). The trial court is responsible for ensuring that an accused receives a fair- and impartial trial, and that the State presents sufficient evidence from which a rational trier of fact could find the existence of each element of the crime charged beyond a reasonable doubt. See Spuehler v. State, 709 P.2d 202, 203-04 (Okl.Cr.1985); Smith v. State, 405 P.2d 1020, 1022 (Okl.Cr.1965).
One of the problems in the instant case was that the district court judge who reversed the magistrate’s order suppressing admission of the items taken pursuant to the search warrant refused to state the reasons for his ruling despite defense counsel’s urging him to do so. With no record to review, it was impossible for this Court to determine whether the reversal was premised on purely factual questions or on errors of law. Since this Court had no way of knowing the basis for the district court’s ruling, we independently reviewed the only record available — the magistrate’s detailed order — and found no errors of law. Accordingly, the case was reversed. In order to avoid this problem in the future, this Court finds that from this date forward, whenever a district judge reviews a magistrate’s ruling in a Rule Six appeal, he shall commit to writing the reasons for his decision, specifically noting the errors of law found, regardless of whether the magistrate’s ruling is affirmed or reversed.
Accordingly, we reaffirm our prior decision in this case.
BRETT, J., concurs.
BUSSEY, J., not participating.