Shotts v. State, 71A03-0808-CR-400
3rd Dist., 03-12-09, Ind.App.
Attorney: Anthony Luber
Holding: Trial court abused its discretion by admitting a gun seized from Defendant’s person when Indiana police executed an illegal Alabama arrest warrant. Where an affidavit merely alleges that the defendant engaged in unlawful conduct, the affidavit falls far short of the constitutional standard requiring enough underlying facts and circumstances to allow a neutral and detached magistrate to draw his own conclusion as to the existence of probable cause. Here, Alabama police notified Indiana police that there was an arrest warrant for Defendant, whom they believed was living in Mishawaka. After confirming through NCIC that there was an active Alabama warrant, the police executed the warrant. During Defendant’s arrest, the police found a gun on his person. The affidavit supporting the Alabama warrant stated only that an investigator testified under oath that he had probable cause that Defendant received stolen property. Because the affiant did not provide any facts from which a neutral magistrate could have drawn his own conclusion as to probable cause, the arrest warrant is invalid pursuant to the Fourth Amendment and Article I, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution. Although the Indiana police were acting in good faith by relying on the Alabama warrant, the affidavit supporting the warrant was so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in the warrant’s validity entirely unreasonable. Thus, the Alabama officers were not acting in good faith. To allow law enforcement to insulate the State from the operation of the exclusionary rule by simply creating one degree of separation between the officer acting in bad faith and the officer executing the warrant would serve no deterrent effect whatsoever. Therefore, the good faith exception does not apply.
Moreover, the gun is clearly inadmissible pursuant to our Indiana constitutional analysis, which places the burden on the State to demonstrate that each relevant intrusion was reasonable in light of the totality of the circumstances. To the extent that the U.S. Supreme Court is limiting the viability of the exclusionary rule pursuant to the Fourth Amendment, the Court of Appeals is not convinced that our supreme court will follow suit and diminish safeguards historically recognized pursuant to Article 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution. Held, judgment reversed.
