Bistline, Andrea Lynn

English

Penn State Dickinson Law: IDEAS

Volume 96 Issue 3 Dickinson Law Review - Volume 96, 1991-1992 3-1-1992 The State Constitution as a Source of Individual Liberties: Declining to Apply the "Good-Faith" Exception to the Exclusionary Rule in Commonwealth v. Edmunds Andrea Lynn Bistline Follow this and additional works at: https://ideas.dickinsonlaw.psu.edu/dlra Recommended Citation Andrea L. Bistline, The State Constitution as a Source of Individual Liberties: Declining to Apply the "Good-Faith" Exception to the Exclusionary Rule in Commonwealth v. Edmunds, 96 DICK. L. REV. 573 (1992). Available at: https://ideas.dickinsonlaw.psu.edu/dlra/vol96/iss3/8 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews at Dickinson Law IDEAS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dickinson Law Review by an authorized editor of Dickinson Law IDEAS. For more information, please contact lja10@psu.edu. INOTE IThe State Constitution as a Source ofIndividual Liberties: Declining to Applythe "Good-Faith" Exception to theExclusionary Rule in Commonwealth v.EdmundsIn Commonwealth v. Edmunds,1 the Pennsylvania SupremeCourt held that under the provisions of the Pennsylvania Constitu-tion, 2 there is no "good-faith" exception to the exclusionary rule.'Accordingly, drugs seized pursuant to a search warrant issued with-out probable cause had to be suppressed, regardless of the actingofficer's belief in its validity.' This decision runs directly contrary tothe United States Supreme Court's recognition of such an exceptionin the landmark decision United States v. Leon.6Construing state constitutional counterparts of provisions of theBill of Rights as providing more protection to the citizens of individ-ual states than the federal provisions themselves is becoming increas-ingly common.' As a part of maintaining a healthy federalism, stateI. 586 A.2d 887 (Pa. 1991).2. Pa. Const. art. I, § 8.3. United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984). The United States Supreme Court rec-ognized a "good-faith" exception to the exclusionary rule's basic requirement that evidenceobtained in violation of the Constitution be excluded from admission at trial. Under this excep-tion, evidence seized pursuant to a warrant obtained in good faith and issued by a neutral anddetached magistrate, but later found to be defective, may still be used by the prosecution in itscase-in-chief. Id. at 913.4. Edmunds, 586 A.2d at 906.5. 468 U.S. 897 (1984).6. William J. Brennan, Jr., State Constitutions and the Protection of Individual Rights,96 DICKINSON LAW REVIEW SPRING 1992courts are at liberty to place greater restraints on police activity thanthe Federal Constitution requires, as long as their decisions arebased entirely on state law and do not conflict with federal law.7 Theinterpretation by the court in Edmunds of the exclusionary rule isjust such a decision. Further analysis of the exclusionary rule andthe "good-faith" exception in both the state and the federal contextis warranted to fully understand the impact of the court's holding inthis case.In Commonwealth v. Edmunds8 a state trooper, in response to atelephone call, met with two hunters who informed him that theyhad seen marijuana growing in a white, corrugatted building in anearby wooded area.9 The officer made sure that the two men werefamiliar enough with marijuana to be able to identify it, and then,on the following day, flew over the area in question and spotted thebuilding. 10A search warrant was issued in response to the trooper's swornaffidavit, and he, along with several other state policemen, proceededto the Edmund's residence.1" Although marijuana had only been ob-served in the white, corrugated building, the warrant was issued forboth the residence and for the building. 2 When the officers arrivedat the residence, they were informed by Edmunds that he rented thebuilding in question to another man." Edmunds vent upstairs to re-trieve the lease, accompanied by an officer. At the top of the stairs,in plain view, the officer saw four bags containing a green substancelater determined to be marijuana. 1' Edmunds was then arrested.15 Asubsequent search of the white, corrugated building revealed grow-ing marijuana plants as well.16Prior to the trial, Edmunds filed a motion to suppress the mari-juana, maintaining that the police officer's affidavit was insufficientto establish probable cause for the issuance of the warrant. 17 Thetrial court held that the affidavit was deficient because it failed to set90 HARV. L. REV. 489 (1977).7. Timothy R. Lohraff, United States v. Leon and Illinois '.. Gates: A Call for StateCourts to Develop State Constitutional Law, 1987 U. ILL. L. REV. 311 (1987).8. Commonwealth v. Edmunds, 586 A.2d 368 (Pa. 1991).9. Id. at 888.10. Id. at 889.11. Id.12. Id. Although the warrant was held to be insufficient for failing to set forth the timeframe in which the marijuana was observed, it was also invalid in this respect.13. Commonwealth v. Edmunds, 586 A.2d 887, 889 (Pa. 1991).14. Id.15. Id.16. Id. at 889, 890.17. Id. See also supra note 12.COMMONWEALTH V. EDMUNDSforth a time frame in which the marijuana was observed. 18 A sup-pression hearing was then held, and it was determined that althoughthe affidavit was facially invalid, the officer involved had prepared itin good faith and suppression was not necessary. 19 The court, inreaching its decision, relied on the decision of the United States Su-preme Court in United States v. Leon.20 The Superior Court af-firmed this decision, further holding that the Pennsylvania Constitu-tion afforded no greater protection to Pennsylvania's citizens thanthe Fourth Amendment of the Federal Constitution." The Pennsyl-vania Supreme Court, however, reversed this decision, holding thatwhen a search warrant affidavit is insufficient to establish probablecause, no "good-faith" exception will be recognized.2Article I, section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution 23 is verysimilar to the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitu-tion.24 Both provide that no warrants shall be issued without proba-ble cause. 5 The framers of the United States Constitution choseprobable cause as "the device . . . to balance privacy rights againstthe state's duty to enforce the law."'26 The decision in Common-wealth v. Edmunds is in strict compliance with the PennsylvaniaConstitution and demands a showing of probable cause to a detachedand neutral magistrate before any warrant will issue; the penalty forfailing to do so is exclusion of any evidence obtained. 7United States v. Leon, however, seems to downplay the protec-tions of the Fourth Amendment. Leon "substitutes a procedural for asubstantive definition of probable cause; probable cause within thebounds of plain error is whatever a magistrate says it is."'28 Exclu-18. Commonwealth v. Edmunds, 586 A.2d 887, 889-90 (Pa. 1991).19. Id. at 889.20. Id. at 890.21. Id. at 889.22. Id.23. Pa. Const. art. 1, § 8 provides:The people shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and possessions fromunreasonable searches and seizures, and no warrant to search any place or toseize any person or thing shall issue without describing them as nearly as maybe, nor without probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation subscribed toby the affiant.24. U.S. Const. amend. IV provides:The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects,against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no war-rants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, andparticularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to beseized.25. PA. CONsT. art. I, § 8, U.S. CONsT. amend. IV.26. See Lohraff, supra note 7, at 315.27. Commonwealth v. Edmunds, 586 A.2d 887 (Pa. 1991).28. Donald Dripps, Living with Leon, 95 YALE L.J. 906 (1986).96 DICKINSON LAW REVIEW SPRING 1992sion of evidence obtained with a warrant, regardless of whether ornot it was issued with probable cause, will "be ordered only on acase by case basis and only in those unusual cases in which exclusionwill further the purposes of the exclusionary rule." '29The difference in interpretation of such similar provisions be-comes more comprehensible when the exclusionary rule and its un-derlying purposes are viewed in a historical context. Over one hun-dred years ago, in Boyd v. United States, the United States SupremeCourt first recognized the need to exclude evidence obtained in viola-tion of the Fourth Amendment in order to preserve the integrity ofindividual rights.3" The Court in Boyd recognized the importance ofsafeguarding both Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights and declaredunconstitutional the use of any evidence seized without probablecause.31 This position was reiterated thirty years later in Weeks v.United States when the Court held that the Fourth Amendmentbarred the use of all evidence obtained through illegal search andseizure.a The exclusionary rule was further expanded by the Su-preme Court in decisions such as Silverthorne Lumber v. UnitedStates and Gouled v. United States.3However, in 1949, with its decision in Wolf v. Colorado, theCourt changed its position by declining to impose the exclusionaryrule upon the individual states.3 ' Wolf allowed the states to deter-mine for themselves whether to apply the exclusionary rule or to relyon other equally effective methods for protecting Fourth and FifthAmendment rights." Twelve years later, the Court acknowledged"the obvious futility of relegating the Fourth Amendment to the pro-tection of other remedies ' 36 and extended the rule to the states inMapp v. Ohio.37 Evidence seized without probable cause, either withor without a warrant, had to be suppressed on a nationwide basis29. United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 918 (1984).30. Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 630 (1886). Boyd marked the historical begin-ning of the exclusionary rule. Fourth and Fifth Amendment freedoms were regarded as tooprecious to be compromised in any way.31. Id. at 634.32. Weeks held that if illegally obtained evidence could be u:;ed against an accused citi-zen, the provisions of the Fourth Amendment "may as well be stricken from the Constitution."Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 391, 392 (1914).33. Silverthorne mandated the suppression of copies of illegally seized evidence, evenafter the actual evidence was returned. Silverthorne Lumber v. United States, 251 U.S. 385(1920). Gouled applied the exclusionary rule even where the defendant did not seek the returnof the seized evidence. Gouled v. United States, 255 U.S. 298 (1921).34. Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25 (1949).35. Id. at 33.36. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 652 (1961).37. Id.COMMONWEALTH V. EDMUNDSunder the Mapp decision.38The Mapp decision remained largely unchanged until the crea-tion of the "good-faith" exception to the exclusionary rule twenty-three years later in United States v. Leon. 39 Leon represents the stateof federal exclusionary law as it exists today: the Fourth Amend-ment of the Federal Constitution does not require suppression of evi-dence obtained with an invalid warrant if the police have acted withreasonable reliance on its supposed validity.40The history of the exclusionary rule in Pennsylvania prior to theEdmunds decision is very different from its federal counterpart."[C]onstitutional protection against unreasonable searches andseizures existed in Pennsylvania more than a decade before the adop-tion of the Federal Constitution and fifteen years prior to the pro-mulgation of the Fourth Amendment." 4' The protection provided toPennsylvania's citizens by article I, section 8 of the PennsylvaniaConstitution is broad and extends to all areas where an individualhas a reasonable expectation of privacy.42 While exceptions to theexclusionary rule have been made in the past,' 3 more recent Pennsyl-vania cases apply the rule strictly. 44 The Pennsylvania SupremeCourt's decision not to apply the "good-faith" exception in Edmundsis well rooted in the state's exclusionary rule precedent.' 5Other states that have had the opportunity to determinewhether or not to apply the "good-faith" exception are almost evenlydivided in their decisions. Arkansas,40 Indiana,' 7 Arizona,'8 Mis-38. Id.39. United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984).40. Id. at 914.41. Commonwealth v. Sell, 470 A.2d 457, 466 (Pa. 1983).42. Commonwealth v. DeJohn, 403 A.2d 1283, 1289 (Pa. 1979) (holding that the ad-mission into evidence of the defendant's canceled check, obtained pursuant to an invalid sub-poena, constituted reversible error), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1032 (1980).43. See, e.g. Commonwealth v. Brown, 368 A.2d 626 (Pa. 1976) (holding that if theprosecution can establish that illegally obtained evidence would have been discovered anywayin the course of a lawfully conducted investigation, the exclusionary rule need not be applied);Commonwealth v. Milliken, 300 A.2d 78 (Pa. 1973) (allowing oral testimony by the affiant toestablish a basis for probable cause in the issuance of the warrant); Commonwealth v. Rundle,194 A.2d 143 (Pa. 1963) (refusing to apply the exclusionary rule extended, to the states byMapp in a retroactive manner).44. See Commonwealth v. Edmunds, 586 A.2d 887 (Pa. 1991); Commonwealth v. Me-lilli, 555 A.2d 1254 (Pa. 1989); Sell; 470 A.2d 457; DeJohn, 403 A.2d 1283.45. Edmunds, 586 A.2d at 896.46. Jackson v. State, 722 S.W.2d 831 (Ark. 1987). Drug charges were upheld in thiscase on the basis that the "good-faith" exception to the exclusionary rule justified a searchbased on a facially valid warrant issued in response to a deficient affidavit. Id. at 834.47. Mers v. State, 482 N.E.2d 778 (Ind. Ct. App. 1985). Indiana applied the "good-faith" exception in this case to uphold a conviction of theft when officers acted in reasonablereliance on a deficient warrant. Id. at 786.48. State v. Bolt, 689 P.2d 519 (Ariz. 1984). The Arizona court held that the "indepen-96 DICKINSON LAW REVIEW SPRING 1992souri, "'9 and Kansas5 follow the holding in Leon and will not excludeevidence obtained pursuant to a warrant issued in good faith. How-ever, New York,5 1 Michigan,5" North Carolina,5 3 Connecticut,5' andNew Jersey55 adhere to the more rigid, traditional interpretation ofthe exclusionary rule. None of these decisions reflect a blind follow-ing of the Supreme Court's decision. Instead, like Edmunds, theydemonstrate an in-depth analysis of both state and federal constitu-tional law. More and more state courts are taking seriously "theirobligations as coequal guardians of civil rights and liberties." 56Another reason for the contrasting views of the United StatesSupreme Court and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court with regard tothe exclusionary rule is the difference in perception of the underlyingpurposes of the rule. Under the federal interpretation, the sole pur-pose of the exclusionary rule is to deter future unlawful police con-duct.57 It is viewed simply as a judicial remedy s8 to be applied orwithheld at the court's discretion.Pennsylvania, on the other hand, takes a more liberal view ofthe underlying meaning of the exclusionary rule. Its purpose is notmerely to deter unreasonable police conduct, but also to "redress theinjury to the privacy of the search victim." ' 59 The right to be freedent source doctrine" under the exclusionary rule of the Arizona Constitution would be ap-plied to prevent the exclusion of evidence obtained during the illegal "securing" of defendant'shome. The "independent source doctrine" maintains that if the search warrant was based on asource not dependent on the illegal actions of "securing" the premises, exclusion was not nec-essary. Id. at 527.49. State v. Brown, 708 S.W.2d 140 (Mo. 1986). Missouri's judicially created exclusion-ary rule was modified to allow for the "good-faith" exception of Leon. Id. at 147.50. State v. Huber, 704 P.2d 1004 (Kan. Ct. App. 1985). This decision declared that thescope of section 15 of the Bill of Rights of the Kansas Constitution was identical to the FourthAmendment of the Federal Constitution and therefore implicitly adopted the "good-faith" ex-ception of Leon. Id. at 1011.51. People v. Bigelow, 488 N.E.2d 451 (N.Y. 1985). The New York Constitution washeld to afford greater protection to New York citizens than the Federal Constitution. No ex-ception to the exclusionary rule was recognized. Id. at 458.52. People v. Sundling, 395 N.W.2d 308 (Mich. Ct. App. 1986) (specifically decliningto follow Leon).53. State v. Carter, 370 S.E.2d 553 (N.C. 1988). The court in this case declined toapply the "good-faith" exception to admit a blood sample into evidence that had been takenwithout a warrant. Id. at 562.54. State v. Marsala, 579 A.2d 58 (Conn. 1990). (Defendant's drug conviction was re-versed when the Connecticut Supreme Court held the "good-faith" exception to be incompati-ble with the state's constitutional provision prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures.).55. State v. Novembrino, 519 A.2d 820 (N.J. 1987).56. William J. Brennan, Jr., The Bill of Rights and the States: The Revival of StateConstitutions as Guardians of Individual Rights, 61 N.Y.U. L. REv. 535 (1986).57. Donald Dripps, Living with Leon, 95 YALE L.J. 906 (1986) (citing United States v.Calandra, 414 U.S. 338 (1974)).58. United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984).59. Paul Reidinger, States' Rights: Courts Push Beyond U.S. Constitution, 77 A.B.A. J.COMMONWEALTH V. EDMUNDSfrom unreasonable searches and seizures, contained in Article 1, sec-tion 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, is tied to the implicit rightto privacy in Pennsylvania." The Supreme Court's decision in Com-monwealth v. Edmunds flows naturally from this interpretation ofthe purposes of the exclusionary rule.The decision in Edmunds reflects a deep-rooted tradition of re-spect for individual privacy rights in Pennsylvania. While the failureto apply the "good-faith" exception may in some cases allow guiltydefendants to go free,61 it also, and more importantly, preserves theintegrity of the constitutional right to be free from unreasonablesearches and seizures. At a time when more and more individualliberties are being curtailed on a federal level, state courts are re-turning to their own constitutions to deal with issues that have beenleft to the United States Supreme Court for forty years.6 2 Statecourts must continue to interpret their own laws on a separate basisfrom federal law in order to guarantee the full realization of per-sonal liberties throughout this country."Andrea Lynn Bistline84 (May 1991).60. Commonwealth v. DeJohn, 403 A.2d 1283, 1291 (Pa. 1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S.1032 (1980).61. Craig D. Uchida et al., Acting In Good Faith: The Effects of United States v. Leonon the Police and Courts, 30 ARIz. L. REV. 467 (1988). This article summarizes the results ofa study identifying the effects of the Leon decision on police practices and prosecutorial andjudicial conduct. Overall, the effects of the decision on the search warrant process have beenminimal. Id. at 491.62. Hans A. Linde, E Pluribus - Constitutional Theory and State Courts, 18 GA. L.REV. 165 (1984).63. Brennan, supra note 6, at 491.

The State Constitution as a Source of Individual Liberties: Declining to Apply the  Good-Faith  Exception to the Exclusionary Rule in Commonwealth v. Edmunds

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The State Constitution as a Source of Individual Liberties: Declining to Apply the Good-Faith Exception to the Exclusionary Rule in Commonwealth v. Edmunds

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