Utah v. Strieff: Don t Leave the House Before You Pay Your Speeding Tickets. I. Introduction

Transcription

1 Utah v. Strieff: Don t Leave the House Before You Pay Your Speeding Tickets I. Introduction Imagine you are late to work, so you drive a few miles over the speed limit because you know your boss is not a morning person. But today is not your day there are lights flashing in your rearview mirror. Unfortunately, Officer Friendly is not feeling too friendly today. You are stuck with a $100 dollar ticket. Shoot! Ten miles above the speed limit isn t that bad right? In the eyes of the law it is. But does it make you a criminal? Now it might if you forget to pay for your traffic citation. To enforce the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures, courts sometimes exclude evidence obtained by unconstitutional police conduct. 1 The rule requires trial courts to exclude unlawfully seized evidence in a criminal trial. 2 Thus, the exclusionary rule exists to deter police misconduct, 3 because it removes the incentive for officers to search without proper justification. 4 However, the Supreme Court has steadily decreased the application of the exclusionary rule by limiting it to circumstances where police misconduct is severe. In fact, it is rare that a majority of the Court finds that the deterrence benefits of the rule outweigh the social costs of exclusion. 5 Utah v. Strieff illustrates that an officer s decision to stop an individual without proper cause is not severe enough to trigger the application of the exclusionary rule. But isn t the Fourth Amendment designed to protect people against that kind of government intrusion? After the Court s decision in Strieff, the Fourth Amendment seems somewhat meaningless. All hope is not lost. Some Justices on the Court still view the exclusionary rule as an inseparable part of the Fourth Amendment. In Strieff, the dissents make it clear that officers have 1

2 nothing to lose but a lot to gain from constitutional violations. When unlawful police misconduct is not deterred, it continues to negatively affect communities. If the exclusionary rule is meant to deter Fourth Amendment violations, it has undoubtedly begun to lose its purpose. A majority of the Court is quick to dismiss the exclusionary rule as the necessary deterrent to police misconduct, and instead relies too heavily on other remedies. 6 Given the wide applicability of the Fourth Amendment to countless intrusions by the government in daily life, how it is construed should be a fundamental concern to all Americans. 7 This casenote examines the foundations of the exclusionary rule, the rule s relationship to the Fourth Amendment, and the consequences of the Supreme Court s refusal to apply the rule to most constitutional violations. Part II provides an explanation of how the Court approaches the exclusionary rule. Part III discusses the facts and procedural history of Strieff in detail, as well as the majority and dissenting opinions. Part IV analyzes why the majority reached a different decision than the dissent, as well as the societal consequences of the decision. II. Prior Law a. Stripping Away the Exclusionary Rule If an officer stops a person without reasonable suspicion, that seizure violates the Fourth Amendment. 8 Moreover, if the officer conducts a search and finds incriminating evidence, the State may not use it as evidence in a criminal prosecution. 9 In the 20 th century, the exclusionary rule became the principal judicial remedy to deter Fourth Amendment violations. 10 The rule encompasses both the primary evidence obtained as a direct result of an illegal search or seizure and evidence later discovered and found to be a derivative of an illegality. 11 However, suppression of evidence is a last resort because it is only applicable when the 2

3 deterrence benefits outweigh the costs of exclusion. 12 Accordingly, the Court has recognized several exceptions to the rule. Under the attenuation doctrine, evidence is admissible when the causal connection between the government s unlawful act and the discovery of evidence is remote or has been interrupted by an intervening circumstance. 13 By applying the doctrine, courts try to mark the point at which the discovery of evidence becomes so attenuated from the police misconduct that the deterrent benefits of exclusion drop below its costs. 14 In Brown v. Illinois, the Court created a framework to determine whether a causal link is sufficiently attenuated. 15 Three factors are considered: the temporal proximity between the unconstitutional conduct and the discovery of evidence; the presence of intervening circumstances; and the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct. 16 In Brown, where less than two hours separated an unconstitutional arrest and a confession, the court explained that a short time interval favors suppression. 17 In contrast, a presence of intervening circumstances or a lack of flagrant misconduct by police favors admission. 18 Thus, the stronger the causal link between the misconduct and the evidence, the more exclusion will deter future police violations. 19 In Hudson v. Michigan, the Court held that attenuation occurs when the interest protected by the constitutional guarantee that has been violated would not be served by suppression of the evidence. 20 There, the Court declined to suppress the evidence when police officers forgot to knock and announce their presence to conduct a search with a valid warrant. Similarly, in Segura v. United States, law enforcement applied for a search warrant but illegally entered the apartment to secure it before the judge issued the warrant. 21 The Court declined to suppress the evidence because the initial unlawful entry did not contribute to the subsequent discovery of evidence seized under the warrant. 22 Moreover, in Wong Sun v. United States, an officer illegally arrested 3

4 an individual who, days later confessed to the crime at the police station. 23 Despite the fact that the individual only confessed because of the illegal police conduct, the confession was sufficiently attenuated from the constitutional violation because the police did not exploit the illegal stop to obtain the confession. 24 Thus, courts must determine whether the evidence has come at by exploitation of the initial police illegality or by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint. 25 b. The Two Sides of the Exclusionary Coin Choosing to limit the application of the exclusionary rule is not a unanimous decision on the Supreme Court. Viewing government illegality as a direct threat to constitutional principles, advocates of the exclusionary rule favor an aggressive application. 26 From this perspective, when courts admit only lawfully obtained evidence, it encourages law enforcement to formulate and implement policies based on Fourth Amendment ideals. 27 By deterring specific police officers in specific cases, the exclusionary rule protects everyone s constitutional rights. 28 However, when courts admit illegally obtained evidence it rewards police neglect and perpetuates Fourth Amendment violations. 29 To preserve judicial integrity, the courts must be free of taint themselves. 30 In contrast, proponents of the rule view it as a remedy, not a personal right. 31 Since the 1970 s, a majority of the Court has viewed the exclusionary rule as a judge-made rule, rather than a constitutional right, designed to deter police misconduct. 32 Today s application of the rule assumes that a slight illegality by the police does not merit the drastic remedy of the exclusionary rule. 33 For them, the real threat to the judiciary s integrity is the release of guilty defendants when an officer acted in good faith. 34 While advocates of the rule focus on the long-term 4

5 consequences of allowing the government to rely on unconstitutional means, proponents look to the immediate result of letting the guilty defendants go free. 35 III. Utah v. Strieff: Is the Police Above the Law? a. An Unlucky Trip to the Convenience Store In December 2006, the South Salt Lake City Police drug-tip line received an anonymous call about narcotics activity at a particular residence. 36 Subsequently, Officer Fackrell conducted intermittent surveillance of the residence over the course of a week for three hours. 37 Officer Fackrell quickly suspected that the occupants of the home were dealing drugs because he observed short term traffic visitors left the home within minutes of their arrival. 38 Edward Strieff was one of the visitors that Officer Fackrell observed leave the residence. 39 However, Officer Fackrell did not know whether he was a short-term visitor because he never saw him enter the home. 40 Despite this, Officer Fackrell ordered Strieff to stop so he could find out what was going on inside of the residence. 41 Within minutes of the stop, Officer Fackrell requested Strieff s identification and relayed the information to a police dispatcher. 42 From that moment forward, Strieff was no longer a free man. Strieff was arrested outside of the convenience store he never had the chance to enter. 43 Due to an outstanding arrest warrant for a minor traffic violation, Strieff s willingness to comply with the officer s questions took a turn for the worse. 44 A search incident to arrest revealed that Strieff possessed contraband. 45 He was charged with unlawful possession of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia. 46 At his suppression hearing, Strieff argued that the evidence was inadmissible because it was derived from an unlawful investigatory stop. 47 Although the State conceded that Officer Fackrell lacked reasonable suspicion for the stop, they 5

6 argued that the evidence was not barred because the valid arrest warrant attenuated the connection between the unlawful stop and the discovery of the drugs. 48 The trial court agreed with the State. The court admitted the evidence for two reasons: the valid arrest warrant was considered an extraordinary intervening circumstance and Officer Fackrell lacked any flagrant misconduct. 49 Consequently, Strieff pleaded guilty to reduced charges, but reserved the right to the trial court s denial of the suppression motion. Things continued to get worse for Strieff. Unfortunately for Strieff, the Utah Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court s decision. 50 When the Utah Supreme Court heard the case, it finally seemed as though Strieff s unlucky streak would end. The court held that the evidence was inadmissible because only a voluntary act of a defendant s free will, such as a confession or consent to a search, sufficiently breaks the connection between an illegal search and the discovery of evidence. 51 However, all hope was lost for Strieff once the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve Utah s disagreement about the attenuation doctrine. b. The Majority: Always Say No to Suppression! The trial court was right all along the evidence discovered on Strieff was admissible because the valid arrest warrant attenuated the taint. 52 To reach this decision, the majority applied the factors articulated in Brown. The Court found no evidence of flagrant misconduct by Officer Fackrell; instead, the stop was an isolated instance of negligence that occurred in connection with a bona fide investigation. 53 Furthermore, the Court described the outstanding arrest warrant as a critical intervening circumstance... wholly independent of the illegal stop. 54 Although the illegal stop was close in time to Strieff s arrest, the other two factors weighed heavily in favor of admitting the evidence. 55 As a result, the Court held that the 6

7 discovery of the warrant broke the causal connection between the unconstitutional stop and the discovery of the contraband. 56 c. The Dissents: Two Wrongs Don t Make a Right According to Justice Sotomayor, the Utah Supreme Court correctly decided Strieff s fate. Applying the framework from Brown, the factors confirmed that the evidence was inadmissible because the officer exploited his illegal stop to discover the drugs. 57 Salt Lake City s immense backlog of outstanding warrants indicated that Officer Fackrell anticipated the discovery of Strieff s warrant. 58 Thus, the warrant check was not an intervening circumstance that separated the stop from the search for drugs. 59 Instead, Officer Fackrell s violation was calculated to procure evidence. 60 Moreover, the stop was far from an isolated instance of negligence. 61 In her view, the Fourth Amendment should prohibit, not permit, Fourth Amendment violations by police officers. 62 Similarly, Justice Kagan found that the Brown factors favored suppression because the discovery of an arrest warrant was a foreseeable consequence of the stop. 63 In her view, Officer Fackrell s discovery of the outstanding warrant did not attenuate the connection between his wrongful behavior and his detection of drugs enough to diminish the exclusionary rule s deterrent benefits. 64 As a result, the majority s misapplication of the Brown factors place Fourth Amendment protections at risk because the ruling creates incentives for police to carry out unconstitutional stops. 65 IV. Is the Fourth Amendment an Empty Promise? At what point is police misconduct in need of deterrence? Strieff illustrates that police misconduct must pass a high threshold before it tips the scale in favor of suppression. In particular, negligent acts by police officers fall below the point of flagrant misconduct worth 7

8 deterring. 66 Consequently, the court suggests that as long as an officer makes mistakes in good faith, any resulting constitutional violations probably won t bear any consequences. At first, the suggestion seems fair because everyone makes mistakes, even law enforcement. The majority further points out that the outstanding warrant predated the officer s investigation and was unrelated to the stop. 67 Viewing the arrest as a ministerial act 68 and the subsequent search as a lawful result of that act, it is almost instinctive to view the warrant as an intervening circumstance. Thus, it seems drastic to call the search and arrest flagrant police misconduct. However, that does not change the fact that the officer s ministerial act was the result of a constitutional violation. As Justice Sotomayor puts it, [i]n his search for lawbreaking, the officer in this case himself broke the law. 69 a. The Exclusionary Rule Slips Through the Cracks Both of the dissents suggest that the majority misapplied the factors articulated in Brown. The majority relies on Segura to establish a sufficient intervening circumstance, but as Justice Sotomayor correctly points out, the facts of that case are not analogous to Strieff. First, the officers in Segura had probable cause; here, Officer Fackrell did not even have reasonable suspicion to stop Strieff. Second, but more importantly, Segura applied the independent source doctrine, not the attenuation doctrine. Consequently, Segura is not relevant to the analysis of Strieff. 70 There, the Court found that the officer s unlawful conduct had nothing to do with the procurement of a search warrant and the discovery of contraband. Here, it is hard to see how Strieff s outstanding warrant was independent from the illegal stop. Officer Fackrell learned of the warrant only because of the unconstitutional stop; thus, his unlawful conduct led to the warrant, which led to the contraband. 71 8

9 Interestingly, both Justice Sotomayor and Justice Kagan recognize that Strieff s outstanding warrant may not have been unforeseeable. It is hard not to agree with the dissenters when Officer Fackrell testified that checks for outstanding warrants is normal practice for the Salt Lake City Police. 72 Couple that with the staggering number of outstanding warrants in the State database over 18, and Officer Fackrell s actions begin to seem purposeful. While the majority describes Officer Fackrell s conduct as mere negligence based on good-faith mistakes, 74 both of the dissents view it as a calculated violation to procure evidence. As Justice Kagan recognizes, it is surprising that the majority does not find Officer Fackrell s actions purposeful because in Brown, where the officer similarly admitted that the purpose of his illegal action was for investigation, the Court found that the officer exploited the stop. 75 Although it it is lawful for Officer Fackrell to approach Strieff and ask questions, 76 something more than that occurred. The purpose of the stop was to investigate the house; however, the officer did not stop Strieff and ask him to volunteer information. Instead, he demanded his cooperation and immediately ran his identification. Thus, the officer exceeded his authority, and the stop became an unconstitutional seizure. 77 It is easy to see why Justice Sotomayor believes he exploited the stop, given Officer Fackrell s admission that it is routine procedure to stop and check individual s for warrants. Moreover, the dissenters illustrate precisely why it is dangerous for the court to continue to excuse officers constitutional violations it further erodes the exclusionary rule. b. Life Without Exclusion When you put the majority s decision into perspective, it becomes apparent that our Fourth Amendment rights are poorly protected. Although the Court agrees that deterrence is a necessary condition for exclusion, 78 it is rare that a majority of the Court finds that the deterrence 9

10 benefits outweigh the social costs of exclusion. 79 In most cases, deterrence takes a back seat because a majority of the Court is reluctant to expand the exclusionary rule s scope. In particular, the majority points out that the third factor favors exclusion only when the police misconduct is most in need of deterrence, but an error in judgment does not pass that threshold. 80 But if every officer s mistake is brushed off as an isolated instance of negligence, is it possible for the police to learn from their mistakes? When courts do not apply the exclusionary rule, they still let the guilty go free. The police officer receives no punishment for his wrongdoing, but the individual does. In a way, declining to use the exclusionary rule legitimizes the police officer s conduct and the violations reoccur. 81 In a recent study, the Justice Department found 93% of warrant-check stops to be unsupported by articulated reasonable suspicion. 82 Why is the number of unconstitutional stops so high? The utility of discovering an outstanding arrest warrant provides officers with a strong incentive to err on the wrong side of the constitution because it gives officers authorization for a search incident to arrest when they likewise lack probable cause or consent. 83 This is troubling considering that State and Federal databases contain 7.8 million outstanding warrants, and most of them are for minor offenses. 84 Furthermore, when courts do not apply the exclusionary rule it condones stops with a general interest in crime control. Although the Supreme Court maintains that suspicionless stops are not allowed if their principal end is ordinary crime solving, 85 it occurs daily in many communities. 86 But these stops only capture some who are guilty. For example, Miami Gardens Police Department gave orders to bring in the numbers by conducting stops. 87 Consequently, 56,922 people, including children and senior citizens, were stopped and questioned in a five-year period; but not one of them was arrested. 88 The Miami Gardens Police Department is not alone. 10

11 Unconstitutional stops are the product of institutionalized training procedures across the country. 89 Thus, the societal costs of allowing unconstitutional stops are high. Turning a blind eye to unconstitutional stops undermines public confidence in law enforcement, erodes the legitimacy of the criminal justice system, and makes police work more difficult and dangerous. 90 Does the heavy cost letting the guilty go free without punishment really outweigh deterrence benefits? The Court s precedents recognize that the possible deterrent benefit must be weighed against the substantial social costs that come with the application of the exclusionary rule. 91 It is easy to understand why the Court in Hudson did not suppress the evidence. A knock and announce violation is a minor infraction when the police already have a valid search warrant and there is not much misconduct to deter. It is undoubtedly a substantial social cost to let violent criminals go free, but in most circumstances outstanding warrants are due to minor offenses like a failure to appear in traffic court. 92 Therefore, the evidence seized in a search incident to arrest will typically not be relevant to the arrest pursuant to the warrant. Here, the contraband discovered on Strieff was completely unrelated to his minor traffic violation that sparked the arrest. Consequently, suppression of evidence in this case, as well as similar cases, does not leave the police in a worse position it merely returns police to the position they were in before the encounter. 93 Moreover, the Court s decreased application of the exclusionary rule has been accompanied by an increased faith in the threat that civil liability poses to law enforcement. 94 Unlike the dissenters, the majority is not convinced that its decision and the prevalence of outstanding warrants will cause the police to engage in more unconstitutional behavior. 95 Instead, civil liability, the threat of paying damages for victims of constitutional violations, is meant to deter police. 96 But for victims like Strieff, civil lawsuits are hard to prove and will most likely 11

12 result in nominal damages. 97 When civil suits typically result in nominal damages, it is unlikely to deter police misconduct. 98 Thus, a limited application of the exclusionary rule may leave individuals without a means to enforce their Fourth Amendment rights. V. Conclusion The Fourth Amendment is designed to protect people from governmental intrusions. Unless rules are crafted to protect individuals rights, it becomes meaningless. That is not to say that the exclusionary rule should be applied every time an officer makes a mistake. However, it is clear that these mistakes are not isolated instances of negligence. Constitutional violations continue to occur with regularity. Strieff illustrates that the Court may need to reconsider the way that such constitutional violations are analyzed. Perhaps the Brown factors are not the best way to determine whether police are in need of deterrence. Today s application of the cost-benefit analysis is too heavily skewed against exclusion. Instead, it should be more balanced to ameliorate the recurring Fourth Amendment violations. 12

13 1 Utah v. Strieff, 136 S. Ct. 2056, 2069 (2016). 2 Id. at Id. at 2063 (citing Davis v. United States, 564 U.S. 229, (2011)). 4 Id. at 2065 (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 12 (1979)). 5 Scott E. Sundby & Lucy B. Ricca, The Majestic and the Mundane: The Two Creation Stories of the Exclusionary Rule, 43 TEX. TECH L. REV. 391, 393 (2010). 6 See generally Katherine A. Macfarlane, Predicting Utah v. Streiff s Civil Rights Impact, 126 YALE L.J. F. 139, 147 (2016), (explaining that a civil suits against police officers is typically not enough to deter police misconduct because in most cases it results in nominal damages). 7 Thomas C. Clancy, The Purpose of the Fourth Amendment and Crafting the Rules to Implement that Purpose, 48 U. RICH. L. REV. 479, 479 (2014). 8 Strieff, 136 S. Ct. at 2071 (Kagan J., dissenting). 9 Id. 10 Id. at 2061 (majority opinion). 11 Id. (quoting Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796, 804 (1984)). 12 Id. at 2061 (quoting Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586, 591 (2006)). 13 See id. 14 Id. at 2071 (Kagan J., dissenting) (quoting United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 911 (1984)). 15 See Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, (1975). 16 Id. 17 Id. at

14 18 See, e.g., Strieff, 136 S. Ct. at (2016) (citing Segura v. United States 468 U.S. 786, 814 (1984) where the connection between unlawful entry and discovery of evidence seized under warrant was sufficiently attenuated). 19 Id. at 2072 (Kagan J., dissenting). 20 Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae Supporting Petitioner at 15, Utah v. Strieff, 136 S. Ct (2016) (No ) [hereinafter Brief for United States]. 21 Segura, 468 U.S. at (1984). 22 Id. at Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 491 (1963). 24 Id. at 488, Brief for United States, supra note 20, at Sundby & Ricca, supra note 5, at Strieff, 136 S. Ct. at 2065 (Sotomayor J., dissenting) (quoting Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 492 (1976)). 28 Sundby & Ricca, supra note 5, at See Strieff, 136 S. Ct. at 2065 (2016) (Sotomayor J., dissenting). 30 See Sundby & Ricca, supra note 5, at 399, Id. at See id. at 392 (explaining Justice Robert s description of the exclusionary rule in Herring v. United States, 129 S. Ct. 695 (2009)). 33 Id. at Id. at Id. at

15 36 State v. Strieff, 357 P.3d 532, 536 (Utah 2015). 37 Id. 38 Id. 39 Id. 40 Id. 41 Id. 42 Id. 43 Id. 44 See id. 45 Id. 46 Id. 47 Id. 48 Utah v. Strieff, 136 S. Ct. 2056, 2060 (2016). 49 Id. 50 See id. 51 Id. 52 Id. at 2063 (holding the evidence admissible because the unlawful stop was sufficiently attenuated by the pre-existing arrest warrant). 53 See id. (finding that Officer Fackrell s errors in judgment hardly rise to a purposeful or flagrant violation of Strieff s Fourth Amendment rights). 54 Id. 55 See id. 56 Id. 15

16 57 Id. at 2066 (Sotomayor J., dissenting). 58 Id. (explaining that at the time of the arrest Utah listed over 180,000 misdemeanor warrants in its database and Salt Lake County faced the potential for civil liability due to a backlog of warrants). 59 Id. 60 Id. at 2066 (indicating it was calculated because the officer admitted the sole reason for the stop was to investigate). 61 See Id. at (indicating that outstanding warrants are common). 62 See id. at See id. at 2073 (Kagan J., dissenting) (stating that the police department s standard detention procedures are partly designed to find outstanding warrant because they turn up with fair regularity). 64 Id. at Id. at (emphasizing police officers will see a potential advantage in stopping individuals without reasonable suspicion given the high prevalence of outstanding warrants). 66 See id. at 2063 (majority opinion). 67 Id. at Id. at 2063 (explaining that a warrant is a judicial mandate to an officer to conduct a search or make an arrest). 69 Id. at 2065 (Sotomayor J., dissenting). 70 See id. at 2073 (Kagan J., dissenting). 71 See id. at 2067 (Sotomayor J., dissenting). 72 Id. at 2073 (2016) (Kagan J., dissenting). 16

17 73 Id. at 2068 (Sotomayor J., dissenting). 74 Id. at 2063 (majority opinion). 75 See id (Kagan J., dissenting). 76 Id. at 2063 (majority opinion) (a seizure does not occur simply because an officer approaches an individual to ask questions). 77 See id. 78 Brief of the ACLU et al. as Amici Curiae in Support of Respondent at 4, Utah v. Strieff, 136 S. Ct (2016) (No ) [hereinafter Brief of the ACLU]. 79 Sundby & Ricca, supra note 5, at Strieff, 136 S. Ct. at Brief of the ACLU, supra note 78, at Strieff, 136 S. Ct. at 2069 (Sotomayor J., dissenting). 83 Brief of the ACLU, supra note 78, at Strieff, 136 S. Ct. at 2068 (Sotomayor J., dissenting). 85 See Clancy, supra note 7, at See generally, David A. Harris, Driving While Black: Racial Profiling on Our Nation s Highways, AM. CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION (June 1999), 87 Alice Brennan & Dan Lieberman, Florida City s Stop and Frisk Nabs Thousands of Kids, Finds 5-Year-Olds Suspicious, FUSION, (last visited July 5, 2017). 88 Id. 89 Strieff, 136 S. Ct. at 2069 (Sotomayor J., dissenting). 17

18 90 Brennan & Lieberman, supra note 87, at See generally Brief of the ACLU, supra note 78, at 4 (discussing Herring v. United States and Davis v. United States). 92 Id. at See generally id. at Macfarlane, supra note 6, at Utah v. Strieff, 136 S. Ct. 2056, 2064 (2016). 96 Macfarlane, supra note 6, at Macfarlane, supra note 6, at 144 (explaining that it is difficult to overcome officers ability to assert qualified immunity and damages are limited to the time period of the unconstitutional stop). 98 Macfarlane, supra note 6, at 145. I hereby certify that I have completed this submission in accordance with the Competition rules and in accordance with the collaboration and academic integrity requirements of the University of Miami School of Law Honor Code. Signed