Court Opinion

ID: 9546179
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:25:52.085913+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:06.565847
License: Public Domain

DUBOFSKY, Justice,
concurring:
I agree with Justice Quinn that the statutory “good faith exception,” § 16-3-308, 8 C.R.S. (1978), is inapplicable to the facts of this ease, and I join in Part III of his concurring opinion. However, I do not agree with Justice Quinn that police reliance on the affidavit in this case was “entirely unreasonable” within the meaning of United States v. Leon, — U.S. -, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984). Rather, I conclude that the evidence here was properly admissible under a limited constitutional “good faith exception” to the exclusionary rule. In so concluding, however, I cannot share in Chief Justice Erickson’s wholesale and uncritical adoption of the “good faith exception” announced in Leon. In my view, the broad principles announced in Leon sweep far beyond any analysis necessary to decide this case, and, when applied to future cases, may ultimately lead to results incompatible with the deterrence rationale of the exclusionary clause. Instead, I would confine our analysis to the narrow facts of this case, and hold that the underlying rationale of the exclusionary rule permits the introduction of the challenged evidence here solely because the objective circumstances of this case demonstrate unequivocally that the police officer possessed probable cause at the time of the search, and that his failure to supply such information in the search warrant application was truly inadvertent.
I.
In United States v. Leon, — U.S. -, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984), the Supreme Court held that evidence seized pursuant to a good faith, reasonable reliance upon a warrant later found invalid may be admitted into evidence during the prosecution’s case-in-chief in a criminal trial. The Court reasoned that the purpose of the exclusionary rule is to deter police mis*1158conduct, and that costs associated with application of the rule are justified only where the purpose of deterrence is served. 104 S.Ct. at 3419-20. If the police act in objectively reasonable reliance upon a warrant, they have done all that is within their power to ensure a legal search, and there is no misconduct to deter. Id. The Court further implied that police reliance upon a warrant is per se reasonable, subject to certain exceptions, and that therefore the exclusionary rule will not apply to most illegal searches conducted under color of a warrant. 104 S.Ct. at 3421-22. Among the situations delineated by the Court in which police reliance upon a warrant would not be considered reasonable is one in which the underlying affidavit is “so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable.” Id. 104 S.Ct. at 3422 (quoting Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 610-11, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 2265, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975) (Powell, J., concurring in part)).1
I do not believe, as does Justice Quinn, that the affidavit in this case may be fairly placed within this exception to the rule of Leon. Justice Quinn finds that the police officer’s reliance on the warrant in this case was “entirely unreasonable” because the warrant was “totally lacking in any indicia of probable cause.” Slip op. at 8 (Quinn, J., concurring). However, it is to invalid warrants — those unsupported by probable cause — that the rule of Leon is addressed in the first instance. In excepting from this rule those cases in which police reliance upon the warrant is “entirely unreasonable,” the Court clearly intended to encompass those situations in which not only is probable cause lacking, but also in which the lack of probable cause is so patent that no reasonable police officer could believe that the warrant is valid.
Whatever else the Supreme Court may have meant by this exception, it is clear to me that the affidavit in this ease does not fall below this minimal standard. As discussed in Part III infra, the affiant in this case possessed probable cause to search the residence at 3300 West Ohio Avenue, and inadvertently omitted from the affidavit the information linking the defendant to that address. Moreover, the affidavit contained extensive information summarizing the results of the officer’s investigation, including facts linking the defendant to a number of sexual assaults in which the items sought by the search warrant played a role. The affiant clearly believed that he had provided the magistrate with all the information he himself had collected. Although the affiant erred in failing to review the affidavit to make certain that he had provided the magistrate with all that he knew, I cannot say that this failing is so egregious as to render reliance on the warrant “entirely unreasonable.”2
II.
Although I do not share Justice Quinn’s view that the police reliance on the warrant here was “entirely unreasonable” within the meaning of that exception to the rule of Leon, neither do I join in Chief Justice *1159Erickson's wholesale adoption of the "good faith exception” outlined in Leon. I do not believe that every potential application of the apparently broad “good faith exception” announced in Leon will prove compatible with the deterrence rationale of the exclusionary rule. There may arise instances, not yet before us, in which police conduct was not “entirely unreasonable,” but in which the admission of the illegally obtained evidence could encourage future police misconduct.
In applying section 16-3-308, Chief Justice Erickson imports into his analysis the “good faith exception” to the exclusionary rule announced in Massachusetts v. Sheppard, — U.S. -, 104 S.Ct. 3424, 82 L.Ed.2d 737 (1984). In Sheppard, the police prepared a search warrant affidavit requesting permission to search for evidence in a homicide investigation and appended to it a standardized warrant form permitting a search for controlled substances and related paraphernalia. A magistrate approved the warrant without deleting the references to controlled substances or altering the warrant to indicate the actual objects of the search. No party contended that the affidavit failed to establish probable cause or particularize the items to be seized; nonetheless, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held the warrant invalid and suppressed the evidence seized under its authority because the warrant incorrectly particularized the items to be seized. The United States Supreme Court reversed, holding that, although the warrant was invalid, the police officers acted in reasonable reliance upon the warrant, and the exclusionary rule therefore did not require suppression of the evidence seized. 104 S.Ct. at 3429. In so holding, the Supreme Court relied entirely upon the principles announced in Leon.
In the present case, the affidavit failed to state probable cause because no facts were set forth linking the items to be seized with the place to be searched. People v. Arnold, 181 Colo. 432, 434, 509 P.2d 1248, 1249 (1973) (affidavit must state probable cause as to each place to be searched). The Chief Justice likens this omission to the facial invalidity of the warrant in Sheppard, and concludes that Sheppard provides an appropriate standard for determining what constitutes a “technical violation” under section 16-3-308(2)(b).
Such a sweeping analysis is unnecessary to the resolution of this case. The analogy to Sheppard is forced and inapt; there, the warrant and affidavit read together supplied probable cause and limited the objects of the search, see Leon, 104 S.Ct. at 3448-49 (Stevens, J., concurring and dissenting), while here probable cause appeared nowhere on the face of the warrant application. The forced analogy to Sheppard obscures the particular facts before us that should provide the basis for decision, and instead adopts wholesale the “good faith exception” that was announced in Leon and that provides the sole rationale for the decision in Sheppard.
The “good faith exception” adopted in Leon has been criticized on a number of grounds. See generally Leon, 104 S.Ct. at 3446-57 (Stevens, J., concurring and dissenting); S. Wasserstrom and W. Mertens, The Exclusionary Rule on the Scaffold: But Was It a Fair Trial?, 22 Am.Crim.L. Rev. 85 (1984) (hereinafter “Wasserstrom and Mertens”). As Part III below makes clear, I believe that many of these criticisms expose dangers in the approach of the Leon Court. In addition, it is unclear what the parameters of Leon’s broad language — much of it unnecessary to its holding — will be when the United States Supreme Court applies it in the future. See note 1 supra. Therefore, our most prudent course in this case should be to determine whether a “good faith exception” is warranted by the particular facts before us. In so doing, I would reserve the option of proceeding independently under the state constitution should such a course become necessary as the full import of Leon emerges in future factual situations. See note 2 infra. However, under the particular circumstances of this case, I believe that a limited “good faith exception” is warranted, and that such a limited exception responds both to the rationale of Leon and to the concerns voiced by the critics of the exception.
*1160III.
The exclusionary rule is a “judicially created remedy designed to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights generally through its deterrent effect, rather than a personal constitutional right of the party aggrieved.” United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 348, 94 S.Ct. 613, 620, 38 L.Ed.2d 561 (1974). Therefore, the rule is inapplicable where the deterrence purpose is not served, or where the benefits associated with the rule are minimal in comparison to the costs associated with the exclusion of probative evidence. Leon, 104 S.Ct. at 3412-16; People v. Casias, 193 Colo. 66, 72, 563 P.2d 926, 931 (1977).3
Application of the exclusionary rule in the present case would not advance its purpose. The objective circumstances of this case convincingly demonstrate that the police officer possessed probable cause at the time he applied for the warrant, and that his omission from the affidavit of facts sufficient to establish probable cause was inadvertent. Allowing admission of the evidence under these narrow circumstances will not encourage police officers in the future to conduct searches upon less than probable cause, nor to deliberately apply for warrants when probable cause is lacking.4 On this basis, I would hold that the exclusionary rule does not apply to the illegally seized evidence in the present ease.
A.
Both the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution and article II, section 7 of the Colorado Constitution prohibit “unreasonable” searches and seizures. Although in certain limited contexts a search and seizure may be found reasonable when unaccompanied by probable cause, see, e.g., Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968); Stone v. People, 174 Colo. 504, 485 P.2d 495 (1971), the entry into an individual residence is never reasonable unless supported by probable cause. The Supreme Court, in Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 585, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 1379, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980) (quoting United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297, 313, 92 S.Ct. 2125, 2134, 32 L.Ed.2d 752 (1972)), declared that “[physical entry of a home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed.” Therefore, in the absence of “a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions,” Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 514, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967), a warrant supported by probable cause for arrest or search is always necessary to enter an individual residence. Payton, 445 U.S. at 590, 100 S.Ct. at 1382; Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 390, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 2412, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978); People v. Roark, 643 P.2d 756, 770 (Colo.1982). Even when exigent circumstances permit a warrantless entry, the police may not enter a private home in the absence of probable cause to search the residence or arrest someone inside. People v. Bustam, 641 P.2d 968, 972 (Colo.1982); People v. Thompson, 185 Colo. 208, 212, 523 P.2d 128, 131 (1974) (probable cause requirements for warrantless search are “at least as strict” as requirements for warrant).
Therefore, one of the functions of the exclusionary rule under both the United States and Colorado Constitutions must be to deter police officers from conducting residence searches in the absence of proba*1161ble cause. Critics of Leon have charged that it will weaken the deterrence function by encouraging the police to submit warrant applications when the existence of probable cause is uncertain with the hope that a warrant will issue and the evidence obtained will be admissible. Leon, 104 S.Ct. at 3454-55 (Stevens, J., concurring and dissenting); Wasserstrom and Mertens at 113-14. Because the existence of probable cause is the bedrock requirement for state intrusion into the homes of private citizens, I agree that we must be careful not to create exceptions to the exclusionary rule that may encourage even occasional evasion of the probable cause requirement. Before any “good faith exception” to the exclusionary rule is applied, I would require that the police officer possess probable cause to conduct the search at issue.
Such a requirement, while creating a narrower “good faith exception” than that apparently fashioned in Leon, is consistent with the rationale of that case. The deterrence objective of the exclusionary rule, the Court wrote, is not served “when the offending officers acted in the objectively reasonable belief that their conduct did not violate the Fourth Amendment.” Id. 104 S.Ct. at 3419. Such an “objectively reasonable belief” cannot be present unless probable cause is also present. We have held that probable cause “depends upon probabilities and not certainties, on knowledge grounded in the practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent persons act.” People v. Chase, 675 P.2d 315, 317 (Colo.1984). Therefore, probable cause is established when, viewing the facts in a “practical, commonsense” manner, there is a “fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place.” Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 2332, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983). Under this standard, the police must possess probable cause in order to permit the inference that reliance on a subsequent warrant was reasonable: by definition, a police officer lacking probable cause lacks a reasonable basis for search or arrest; under these circumstances, it cannot be “objectively reasonable” for the officer to believe that he has fully complied with the dictates of the fourth amendment. See Leon, 104 S.Ct. at 3450-51, 3455 (Stevens, J., concurring and dissenting).
In the present case, there is no doubt that Detective Foster possessed probable cause to search the defendant’s residence. Two days before obtaining the search warrant, Detective Foster had learned from the defendant’s employer that the defendant lived at 3300 West Ohio Avenue. That day, the detective served a Crim.P. 41.1 warrant on the defendant at 3300 West Ohio Avenue. When he and Detective Dinan arrived there, they were admitted by a woman, later identified as the defendant’s wife, who told them that the defendant was in the upstairs bedroom. The detectives served the warrant in the bedroom. While there, Detective Dinan noticed that one of the items later enumerated in the search warrant, a pair of the defendant’s tennis shoes, was on the floor. Upon either entering or leaving, Detective Foster noticed that a car bearing license plate number CN-4714 was parked in the driveway. This was the license plate number described by one of the victims, and Detective Foster had previously determined that a car bearing that license plate was registered to Jerry I. Deitchman. Based upon this information, Detective Foster possessed probable cause to believe that the defendant resided at 3300 West Ohio Avenue and that the objects of the search would be found there. Admitting the evidence under these circumstances cannot encourage police officers to conduct residence searches or seek warrants without probable cause.
B.
A finding that the police officer was aware of facts sufficient to constitute probable cause does not end the analysis. As noted above, the warrantless search of a residence is presumptively unreasonable unless it falls within one of a few previously-established exceptions to the warrant requirement.5 The Supreme Court has re*1162jected any suggestion that the warrant requirement may be easily disregarded:
We are not dealing with formalities. The presence of a search warrant serves a high function. Absent some grave emergency, the Fourth Amendment has interposed a magistrate between the citizen and the police. This was done not to shield criminals nor to make the home a safe haven for illegal activities. It was done so that an objective mind might weigh the need to invade that privacy in order to enforce the law. The right of privacy was deemed too precious to entrust to the discretion of those whose job is the detection of crime and the arrest of criminals.... And so the Constitution requires a magistrate to pass on the desires of the police before they violate the privacy of the home. We cannot be true to that constitutional requirement and excuse the absence of a search warrant without a showing by those who seek exemption from the constitutional mandate that the exigencies of the situation made that course imperative.
Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 761, 89 5.Ct. 2034, 2039, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969) (quoting McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451, 455-56, 69 S.Ct. 191, 193, 93 L.Ed. 153 (1948)). In Payton, the Court reaffirmed the importance of a neutral determination of probable cause prior to any intrusion into a private home:
In terms that apply equally to seizures of property and seizures of persons, the Fourth Amendment has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house. Absent exigent circumstances, that threshold may not reasonably be crossed without a warrant.
445 U.S. at 590, 100 S.Ct. at 1382. See also People v. McGahey, 179 Colo. 401, 404, 500 P.2d 977, 978 (1972); People v. Brethauer, 174 Colo. 29, 32-33, 482 P.2d 369, 373-74 (1971).6
In cases not before the court today, the broad and uncertain rule of Leon may have the unintended result of weakening the deterrent effect of the exclusionary rule by encouraging police behavior designed to circumvent the warrant requirement. See W. LaFave, The Fourth Amendment in an Imperfect World: On Drawing “Bright Lines” and “Good Faith”, 43 U.Pitt.L.Rev. 307, 353-54 (1982); Wasser-strom and Mertens at 109.7 Ultimately, Chief Justice Erickson’s view that failure to state probable cause in a search warrant affidavit is a simple formal mistake, obviat*1163ing all necessity for the exclusion of evidence, may reduce the warrant clause to a vestigial formality requiring only shadow compliance. Rather than accept all of the possible ramifications of the Chief Justice’s concurring opinion, I prefer to consider adopting exceptions to the exclusionary rule on a case-by-case basis.
Under the facts presented here, there is little danger that police officers will be encouraged to evade the warrant requirement. Detective Foster testified at the suppression hearing that the omission of facts from the affidavit linking the defendant to 3300 West Ohio Avenue was inadvertent. Because Detective Foster possessed such facts at the time of the search warrant application, his testimony is highly credible. Admitting the evidence here will not encourage police officers to cut corners in investigation, deliberately approach magistrates with less than probable cause, or engage in magistrate shopping.
IY.
In sum, I would hold that it is consistent with the aims of the exclusionary rule under both the federal and state constitutions to admit illegally obtained evidence where, as here, the objective circumstances of the case convincingly demonstrate that the police officer possessed probable cause at the time of the warrant application, and the circumstances further show that any omission of facts from the underlying affidavit was truly inadvertent. I would save for another day the question of whether to adopt the rule of Leon in other contexts, or whether we should chart an independent course under article II, section 7 of the Colorado Constitution.
I am authorized to say that Justice LOHR joins this concurrence.

. The Court also held that the "good faith exception” to the exclusionary rule will not apply where the affiant supplies false information, where the magistrate wholly abandons his judicial role, or where a warrant is so facially defective (for example, in failing to particularize the place to be searched) that police cannot reasonably presume it to be valid. United States v. Leon, — U.S. -, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 3421-22, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984). It is not entirely clear whether this list was intended to be exhaustive. In a footnote, the Court raises the possibility of a case-by-case inquiry into "whether a reasonably well-trained officer would have known that the search was illegal despite the magistrate’s authorization.” Id. 104 S.Ct. at 3421 n. 23; see S. Wasserstrom and W. Mertens, The Exclusionary Rule on the Scaffold: But Was It a Fair Trial?, 22 Am.Crim.L.Rev. 85, 116 (1984) (hereinafter "Wasserstrom and Mertens”).

. Neither can I subscribe to Justice Quinn’s conclusion that the admission of the tennis shoe with the name "Janet” printed on it was error harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The description of the tennis shoe, later found in the defendant's bedroom, was central to the prosecution’s case. Any doubts that the jury might have entertained as to the credibility of the witnesses’ testimony about the shoe were resolved by the admission of the shoe into evidence. In addition, the introduction of the tennis shoe into evidence may have led to the defendant’s highly damaging admission that the shoe was his.

. The characterization of the exclusionary rule as a "judicially created remedy” casts doubt upon the federal constitutional status of the rule. Therefore, the extent to which state courts are bound by federal interpretations of the exclusionary rule remains unclear. In addition, this court has not yet considered the question of whether and to what extent the exclusionary rule is required by article II, section 7 of the Colorado Constitution. See People v. Casias, 193 Colo. 66, 72 n. 6, 563 P.2d 926, 931 n. 6 (1977). Because I resolve the issue presented here within the parameters of Leon, I do not address the status of the exclusionary rule under the state constitution.

. Because the officer’s awareness of facts constituting probable cause and the inadvertence of his omission of such facts are proved here by objective circumstances, we need not decide whether to admit illegally seized evidence where the proof of such facts rests substantially or exclusively upon the officer's post hoc testimony as to his state of mind. Obviously, the danger of deliberate police evasion of constitutional requirements is much greater in such a case.

. The facts of this case do not fall within any established exception to the warrant requirement. Warrantless entry into a residence is *1162permitted if police officers are in hot pursuit of a suspect whom the officers have probable cause to arrest, Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967), to prevent the destruction of evidence, People v. Bustam, 641 P.2d 968, 973 (Colo.1982), or in cases of emergency administrative searches. Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U.S. 499, 98 S.Ct. 1942, 56 L.Ed.2d 486 (1978). None of these exigencies is present here, nor is any claim made that the particular circumstances of this case mandate creation of a new exception to the warrant requirement.

. The warrant requirements of the Colorado Constitution are more stringent than those of the United States Constitution. Under article II, section 7 of the Colorado Constitution, probable cause must be "supported by oath or affirmation reduced to writing." The magistrate’s function is thus more crucial under the Colorado Constitution than it is under the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution. See People v. Brethauer, 174 Colo. 29, 39-40, 482 P.2d 369, 372-73 (1971); Hernandez v. People, 153 Colo. 316, 321-22, 385 P.2d 996, 999 (1963).

. One recent article suggests that the Leon rule may lead to shopping for magistrates known to be “soft” on probable cause:
With the [exclusionary] rule in place, the police know that if a reviewing court finds the warrant invalid, it will suppress the evidence seized pursuant to the warrant. Under the good faith exception, however, even evidence seized under an invalid warrant will generally be admissible. The police need concern themselves only with getting a warrant and not with getting a warrant that will hold up on review. Consequently, under the good faith exception, we can expect a variation of Gresham’s Law to operate; “bad" warrants— those issued by the most indolent, incompetent and indulgent magistrates — will effectively drive out “good” warrants. As a practical matter, the standard of probable cause will be established by the least demanding official authorized to issue warrants, even if this standard falls below the already diluted standard of probable cause established by the Court in Gates.
Wasserstrom and Mertens at 109 (footnotes omitted).