February 2009 Posts

Herring v. United States, 07-513

01/14/09, U.S.

Holding: In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court held that when police mistakes leading to an unlawful search are the result of isolated negligence attenuated from the search rather than systemic error or reckless disregard of constitutional requirements, the exclusionary rule does not apply. The exclusionary rule only applies where the benefits of deterrence outweigh the costs. To trigger the exclusionary rule, police conduct must be sufficiently deliberate that exclusion can meaningfully deter it, and sufficiently culpable that such deterrence is worth the price paid by the justice system. Thus, the exclusionary rule serves to deter only reckless, or grossly negligent conduct, or in some circumstances recurring or systemic negligence.

Here, a police officer was told by a warrant clerk that there was an arrest warrant for Defendant. Based on this information, the officer arrested Defendant and searched his car. Within fifteen minutes of the arrest, the warrant clerk learned that the warrant had been recalled five months earlier, but the recall was not entered into the system. There was no electronic connection between the warrant database of the Sheriff’s Department and that of the County Circuit Clerk’s office. The warrant had not been manually updated. Regardless, the police officers did nothing improper. In light of the Supreme Court’s repeated holdings that the deterrent effect of suppression must be substantial and outweigh any harm to the justice system, when police mistakes are the result of negligence such as that described here, rather than systemic error or reckless disregard of constitutional requirements, any marginal deterrence does not pay its way. The criminal should not “go free because the constable has blundered.” But, not all record keeping errors by the police are immune from the exclusionary rule. If the police have been shown to be reckless in maintaining a warrant system, or to have knowingly made false entries to lay the ground work for future false arrests, exclusion would certainly be justified. Held, judgment of the Eleventh Circuit affirming the district court’s denial of Defendant’s motion to suppress affirmed; Ginsburg, J., dissenting, with whom Stevens, J., Souter, J., and Breyer, J., join on basis that negligent record keeping errors by law enforcement threaten individual liberty, are susceptible to deterrence by the exclusionary rule, and cannot be remedied effectively through other means; the exclusionary rule is needed to make the Fourth Amendment something real; the exclusionary rule protects the core concerns of the Fourth Amendment, i.e., protecting citizens from unreasonable searches and upholding the integrity of the courts; in the instant case, the exclusionary rule would have provided an incentive to improve the process of updating warrants; Breyer, J., dissenting with whom Souter, J., joins to clarify that the exclusionary rule does not apply to judicial errors but only to police errors.

NOTE: Argue that the Indiana Constitution requires exclusion of evidence obtained as a product of police error, whether negligent, reckless or intentional. Relying on Article I, Sections 11 and 14 of the Indiana Constitution, the Indiana Supreme Court adopted the exclusionary rule long before the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule was applied to the States in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S.643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961). Membres v. State, 889 N.E.2d 265, 274 (Ind. 2008) (citing to Callender v. State, 193 Ind. 91, 96-97, 138 N.E. 817, 818-19 (1923)). Since Callender, the Supreme Court has recognized at least three purposes of the exclusionary rule. Membres, 889 N.E.2d at 273 (deter police); Id. at 273, 277 (protect the privacy of all citizens); Id. at 275, 277 (protect the integrity of the judicial system). Continuing to apply the exclusionary rule to constitutional violations based on police negligence will deter future police negligence, protect the privacy of all citizens whether innocent or guilty of a crime, and protect the integrity of the judicial system. “[Indiana] nevertheless exclude[s] [illegally seized evidence] because we consider it necessary to protect the privacy of all citizens from excessive intrusion by law enforcement. In other words, we accept the obstacle to the truth-seeking function in order to preserve a higher value.” Id. at 273.

Thursday, February 26th, 2009 | Posted in Indiana Supreme Court | No Comments »

Arizona v. Johnson, 07-1122

01/26/09, U.S.

Holding: Police officers conducting traffic stops may order passengers out of vehicle and conduct a “pat-down” frisk in the absence of reasonable suspicion that passengers are engaged in criminal activity, as long as officers have reason to believe that the passenger may be armed and dangerous. Here, Defendant was a back-seat passenger in a car stopped for an insurance-related traffic violation. The officers conducting the stop were gang investigators, and officer’s conversation with Defendant gave her reason to believe that he was a member of a violent street gang whose members were frequently armed. Officer asked Defendant to get out of the car in order to question him further. Because officer suspected that Defendant was armed, she immediately patted him down for safety when he exited the car, and found a gun.

Court held that encounter was not “consensual,” and officers who conduct routine traffic stops may frisk drivers and passengers they have lawfully detained if officers have reasonable suspicion that they may be armed and dangerous. Brendlin v. California, 127 S.Ct. 2400 (2007). The temporary seizure of driver and passengers ordinarily continues, and remains reasonable, for the duration of the stop. Normally, the stop ends when police have no further need to control the scene, and inform the driver and passengers they are free to leave. Here, nothing in officer’s conversation with Defendant would have suggested that he was free to leave, so he remained seized when officer conducted pat-down.

Following reasoning in Muehler v. Mena, 544 U.S. 93 (2005), Court also held that Fourth Amendment allows officers to ask questions about drugs or make other inquiries unrelated to the traffic violation justifying the initial stop. This does not “convert the encounter into something other than a lawful seizure,” so long as the inquiries unrelated to the traffic stop “do not measurably extend the duration of the stop.” Held, Arizona Court of Appeals’ decision reversed and remanded.

Note: The Court in Johnson reaffirmed the general rule that, with the exception of occupants in automobiles that have been lawfully stopped, a valid investigatory “stop and frisk” requires: 1) reasonable suspicion that the person stopped is committed or has committed a crime; and, to proceed from a stop to a frisk, 2) reasonable suspicion the person stopped is armed and dangerous. Johnson, slip op. at 1. In other words, a police officer involved in a “consensual encounter” cannot take safety measures such as patting someone down even if they have reason to believe the person is armed and dangerous. See State v. Atkins, 834 N.E.2d 1028 (Ind.Ct.App. 2005) (officer safety is always a legitimate concern, but standing alone it cannot form the basis for a valid investigatory stop; a lawful stop, based on objective facts and reasonable suspicion, is the predicate for a pat down); Briggs v. State, 873 N.E.2d 129 (Ind.Ct.App. 2007) (since police officers’ encounter with D was “consensual,” Fourth Amendment was not implicated and they had no authority to restrict D’s movement in any way); Malone v. State, 882 N.E.2d 784 (Ind.Ct.App. 2008) (at time police officers seized gun from D, they did not have information leading them to believe D had been convicted of any crime, which could render him a serious violent felon or his possession of a weapon illegal).

Thursday, February 26th, 2009 | Posted in Indiana Supreme Court | No Comments »

Pearson v. Callahan, 07-751

01/21/09, U.S.

Holding: The rigid two-step process for analyzing whether a government official is entitled to qualified immunity, established in Saucier v. Katz, 531 U.S. 991 (2001) is no longer mandatory in every case. Under Saucier, a judge first had to decide whether a government official’s action violated the Constitution and only if there was a violation, then whether the constitutional right was “clearly established” at time of the violation. If the court answered either question in the negative, then qualified immunity shielded the defendant from liability.

In this case, police officers entered respondent’s home without a warrant and conducted a search that respondents allege was a violation of Fourth Amendment consent-once-removed doctrine (see Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U.S. 103 (2006)) . Court unanimously held that the Saucier procedure should not be regarded as an inflexible requirement and that the officers are entitled to qualified immunity on ground that it was not clearly established at time of the search that their conduct was unconstitutional. In rejecting Saucier’s rigid two-step test, Court emphasized that it was not preventing lower courts from following the Saucier procedure; rather, courts should have the discretion to decide whether that procedure is worthwhile in particular cases. Thus, federal courts now have discretion to address whether the unconstitutionality of the officials’ conduct was clearly established at the time without first determining whether the facts alleged by plaintiff make out a violation of a constitutional right. Held, 10th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that officers were not entitled to qualified immunity reversed.

Thursday, February 26th, 2009 | Posted in Indiana Supreme Court | No Comments »

Van de Kamp v. Goldstein, 07-854

01/26/09, U.S.

Holding: Absolute immunity protects supervisory prosecutors from civil rights lawsuits claiming that they failed to properly train and supervise subordinates in providing criminal defendants with potential impeachment material about confidential informers or to establish an information system for managing such information. Here, after Goldstein served 24 years in prison for murder conviction, he was released based upon a court finding that the jailhouse informant had been given favorable treatment for his information, but that fact was never shared–as it should have been–with Goldstein’s defense lawyer. Goldstein then brought a civil rights lawsuit, claiming in part that supervising prosecutors failed to train and supervise subordinates regarding disclosure of constitutionally required information to criminal defendants and failed to create a system for retaining and sharing information about informants. The two top prosecutors lost their bid for immunity in the Ninth Circuit.

Court held that training, supervision and information-sharing are not “administrative,” in the sense of lacking legal immunity, but instead are “intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process.” Thus, supervisors’ failure to perform such tasks satisfactorily cannot give rise to liability for damages. See Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409 (1976); Buckley v. Fitzsimmons, 509 U.S. 259 (1993). Held, judgment reversed and remanded.

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Jiminez v. Quarterman, 07-6984

01-13-09, U.S.

Holding: If a state prisoner is allowed by a state court to file a belated appeal, that will delay the start of the one-year filing period for pursuing a habeas corpus challenge until after the state appeal is resolved. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A) provides that the one-year limitations period for seeking review under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 begins on “the date on which the judgment became final by the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such review.” A State conviction is not “final” for federal habeas corpus purposes where, as here, State has allowed an out-of-time, direct appeal of a conviction. Thus, district court erred in dismissing Defendant’s petition for habeas corpus as time barred. Held, judgment reversed and remanded.

Thursday, February 26th, 2009 | Posted in Indiana Supreme Court | No Comments »