Bradley Ray MCCLINTOCK, Appellant v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee
NO. 01-11-00572-CR
Court of Appeals of Texas, Houston (1st Dist.)
Opinion issued November 5, 2015
480 S.W.3d 734
Devon Anderson, District Attorney, Bridget Holloway, Assistant District Attorney, Houston, TX, for the State.
Panel consists of Justices Keyes, Massengale, and Brown
Michael Massengale, Justice
This case was remanded to us by the Court of Criminal Appeals. McClintock v. State, 444 S.W.3d 15 (Tex.Crim.App.2014). That Court affirmed our initial analysis and remanded to address in the first instance an issue first raised in the State‘s petition for discretionary review. On remand, we must determine whether, under the facts of this case, an officer‘s good-faith reliance on binding appellate precedent operates as an exception to both the federal exclusionary rule and Texas exclusionary statute. See id. at 20-21.
We conclude that the judge-made Davis exception to the judge-made federal exclusionary rule does not create an exception to the Texas exclusionary rule adopted by the Texas Legislature. Because the search warrant in this case was not based on probable cause, the Texas rule requires that the illegally obtained evidence be suppressed, and a new trial is required.
Background
Appellant Bradley McClintock appealed his conviction for possession of marijuana, arguing that evidence seized from his apartment pursuant to a search warrant should have been suppressed. In the supporting affidavit used to procure the warrant, Department of Public Safety Officer R. Arthur stated the following:
Affiant received information that marijuana was being grown inside the 2nd floor residence located at 412 West Clay, Houston, Harris County, Texas. Affiant went to this location and found it to be located in Harris County, Texas. . . . Affiant and other peace officers with the Texas Department of Public Safety set up surveillance on this location. During surveillance of this location over the last week of the making of this affidavit, affiant observed the following: the downstairs of this location appears to be a business, there is an open to the public stairway that leads to the upstairs. . . . This stairway is open to the public in that it could easily be where a delivery person could or would make deliveries to the upstairs residence area. Affiant has observed a male individual come and go from this location, at hours well before and after the business hours of the business on the first floor. Based on training and experience, Affiant found this to be consistent with possible narcotics activity.
On September 29, 2010, Affiant approached this location. At this time, from the outside of this lоcation, Affiant could smell, what Affiant knows from training and experience to be, marijuana. On this same date at approximately 11:30 pm, Affiant requested the assistance of a narcotics canine at this location. Affiant spoke with and obtained the assistance of Houston Police Department Canine Officer Kristin Uhlin and her canine partner “Sita“. Officer Uhlin stated that she and “Sita” are currently certified by the National Narcotics Detector Dog Association, # 48761, for the detection of the odors of marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine. Affiant observed Officer Uhlin and “Sita” to deploy up to the second floor doorway using the open to the public stairway described above. Officer Uhlin stated to Affiant that at the doorway leading into the second floor of this location, “Sita” gave a positive alert at this location indi-
cating the presence of one or more of the above named controlled substance.
On the basis of the Supreme Court‘s decision in Florida v. Jardines, — U.S. —, 133 S.Ct. 1409, 185 L.Ed.2d 495 (2013), issued while the appeal was originally pending in this court, we held that the warrantless dog sniff conducted at McClintock‘s back door was unlawful. McClintock v. State, 405 S.W.3d 277, 283-84 (Tex. App.—Hous. [1st Dist.] 2013). Setting aside that information, we concluded that the remainder of the affidavit was insufficient to establish probable cause necessary for a warrant. Id. at 284-88. We accordingly reversed the denial of McClintock‘s motion to suppress and remanded for a new trial. Id. at 288-89.
The State petitioned the Court of Criminal Appeals for review of our decision. In its first ground for review, the State asserted that Officer Arthur conducted the dog sniff in good-faith reliance on previously binding appellate precedent that held that a canine drug sniff did not constitute a “search” for Fourth Amendment purposes. McClintock, 444 S.W.3d at 18. Relying on the Supreme Court‘s decision in Davis v. United States, 564 U.S. 229, 131 S.Ct. 2419, 180 L.Ed.2d 285 (2011), the State argued for the first time that pursuant to a good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule, the dog-sniff evidence should not be excluded. In its second ground for review the State argued, alternatively, that this court erred in its determination that the remainder of the affidavit could not furnish the probable cause necessary to support a search warrant. McClintock, 444 S.W.3d at 18.
The Court of Criminal Appeals granted the State‘s petition and considered both grounds for review. In a published opinion, the Court agreed with our determination that the remainder of the warrant affidavit did not clearly establish probable
Analysis
The question presented at this stage of the appeal is whether an exception applied by federal courts to the exclusionary rule, established in Davis v. United States, also should apply in this case to permit reliance on illegally obtained drug evidence. This question requires us to interpret and apply the Texas exclusionary statute,
I. Davis v. United States
In Davis, the police arrested petitioner Willie Davis for giving a false name during a routine traffic stop. Davis, 131 S.Ct. at 2425. After the officers had handcuffed Davis and secured the scene, they searched his vehicle and found a gun. Id. As a result, Davis was indicted on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Id. at 2425-26. The officers had conducted the search of the vehicle in reliance on the Eleventh Circuit‘s interpretation of New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981). Davis, 131 S.Ct. at 2425-26. Davis acknowledged that then-existing precedent in the Eleventh Circuit allowed for the search of his vehicle, but he still preserved the issue and appealed. Id. at 2426.
As Davis‘s appeal was pending, the Supreme Court decided Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332, 129 S.Ct. 1710, 173 L.Ed.2d 485 (2009). The new, two-part rule of Gant held that a warrantless automobile search incident to arrest is constitutional only when (1) the arrestee is within reaching distance of the vehicle during the search, or (2) the police have reason to believe that the vehicle contains evidence relevant to the crime of arrest. Id. at 332, 129 S.Ct. at 1712. Applying the new rule from Gant, the Eleventh Circuit concluded that the vehicle search incident to Davis‘s arrest was unconstitutional. See Davis, 131 S.Ct. at 2426. Nevertheless, the Eleventh Circuit declined to apply the exclusionary rule to the illegally obtained evidence based upon the officers’ good-faith reliance on judicial precedent. See id.
The Supreme Court granted certiorari and considered “whether to apply the exclusionary rule when the police conduct a search in objectively reasonable reliance on binding judicial precedent.” Id. at 2428. The Court acknowledged that Gant applied retroactively to the case and that the search was unlawful, despite the fact that the officers’ conduct was not culpable. Id. at 2428, 2431. Rather than viewing the issue as one of retroactivity, the Court based its analysis on the “good faith” test it established in United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984). Davis, 131 S.Ct. at 2427-28.
The Court recognized that exclusion of evidence “exacts a heavy toll on both the judicial system and society at large,” but stated that the rule should nonetheless be applied as a “last resort.” Id. at 2427. The “sole purpose” of the rule is to “deter future Fourth Amendment violations.” Id. at 2426. Accordingly, exclu-
Applying the deterrence principles to the facts of the case, the Court concluded that exclusion of evidence obtained in reliance on binding judicial precedent would not be appropriate:
About all that exclusion would deter in this case is conscientious police work. Responsible law-enforcement officers will take care to learn what is required of them under Fourth Amendment precedent and will conform their conduct to these rules. But by the same token, when binding appellate precedent specifically authorizes a particular police practice, well-trained officers will and should use that tool to fulfill their crime-detection and public-safety responsibilities. An officer who conducts a search in reliance on binding appellate precedent does no more than act as a reasonable officer would and should act under the circumstances. The deterrent effect of exclusion in such a case can only be to discourage the officer from doing his duty.
That is not the kind of deterrence the exclusionary rule seeks to foster. We have stated before, and we reaffirm today, that the harsh sanction of exclusion should not be applied to deter objectively reasonable law enforcement activity.
Id. at 2429 (quotations omitted). Thus the Court established a new exception to the federal exclusionary rule: “Evidence obtained during a search conducted in reasonable reliance on binding precedent is not subject to the exclusionary rule.” Id.
The State argues at the outset that the Davis exception should apply in this case becausе Officer Arthur acted in objectively reasonable good-faith reliance on pre-Jardines precedent when he conducted the unlawful dog-sniff search. In response, McClintock contends that we cannot apply the Davis exception to this case without first affording him a chance to develop a factual record regarding the issue of good faith. See State v. Esparza, 413 S.W.3d 81, 89 (Tex.Crim.App.2013) (refusing to uphold trial court‘s ruling under an alternative theory of law applicable to the case when the appellant did not have the opportunity to develop a factual record on that issue). He also responds that no precedent in the relevant jurisdiction specifically authorized the search, which he contends is a necessary condition to applying the Davis exception.* See Davis, 131 S.Ct. at 2429; see also id. at 2435 (“This case does not present the . . . question [of] whether the exclusionary rule applies when the law governing the constitutionality of a particular search is unsettled.“) (Sotomayor, J., concurring in the judgment).
II. Application of the Texas exclusionary statute
Both the U.S. and Texas constitutions protect against unreasonable searches and seizures. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”
Federal courts enforce a judge-made exclusionary rule to “compel respect for the constitutional guaranty.” Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 217, 80 S.Ct. 1437, 1444, 4 L.Ed.2d 1669 (1960). The federal rule harbors several exceptions for police conduct that was conducted in reasonable reliance on a facially valid source of legal justification. See Davis, 131 S.Ct. at 2428-29 (reliance on subsequently invalidated binding appellate precedent); Illinois v. Krull, 480 U.S. 340, 350, 107 S.Ct. 1160, 1167, 94 L.Ed.2d 364 (1987) (reliance on a subsequently invalidated statute); United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. at 922-24, 104 S.Ct. at 3420-21 (reliance on subsequently invalidated warrant).
In Texas, however, the exclusionary rule is not merely a judicial creation. It was enacted by the Legislature. See
Texas courts thus repeatedly have refused “to blindly follow the Supreme Court‘s decisions interpreting the Fourth Amendment” and instead have conducted their own examination of the Texas Constitution and associated statutes. Id.; see also Hulit v. State, 982 S.W.2d 431, 436-37 (Tex.Crim.App.1998). Such analyses do not fall afoul of the Supremacy Clause, as they do not lead to holdings about an individual‘s rights under federal law. Hulit, 982 S.W.2d at 437. Overall, “[t]he Supremacy Clause means that, in practical terms, persons will always be able to avail themselves of the greater right.” Id. Here, the statutory rights provided by Article 38.23 are greater than those provided by the federal exclusionary rule.
In relevant part, Article 38.23 provides:
(a) No evidence obtained by an officer or other person in violation of any provisions of the Constitution or laws of the State of Texas, or of the Constitution or laws of the United States of America, shall be admitted in evidence against the accused on the trial of any criminal case. . . .
(b) It is an exception to the provisions of subsection (a) of this Article that the evidence was obtained by a law enforcement officer acting in objective good faith reliance upon a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate based on probable cause.
Notably, the statute contains an explicit exception in subsection (b) for evidence obtained in objective good-faith reliance on a warrant “based on probable cause.” The Court of Criminal Appeals has refused to entertain exceptions to the Texas exclusionary rule that are not consistent with Article 38.23‘s text. Compare Wehrenberg v. State, 416 S.W.3d 458, 468 (Tex.Crim.App.2013) (recognizing independent-source doctrine as an exception, consistent with the statute), with State v. Daugherty, 931 S.W.2d 268, 270 (Tex.Crim.App.1996) (refusing to recognize inevitable-discovery doctrine, because it is inconsistent with the statute). This is in accordance with the general rule that “where an express exception exists in a statute, the statute must apply in all cases not excepted.” Garcia v. State, 829 S.W.2d 796, 800 (Tex.Crim.App.1992).
The Court of Criminal Appeals has held that Article 38.23(a)‘s use of the term “obtained” calls for the exclusion of evidence only when there is a “causal connection” between the illegal conduct and the acquisition of the evidence. Wehrenberg, 416 S.W.3d at 468. Consequently, doctrines that exempt evidence from exclusion are consistent with the statute only when they do not involve such a causal connection. See id. at 469-70; Johnson v. State, 871 S.W.2d 744, 750 (Tex.Crim.App.1994). When a causal connection between the illegal conduct and the acquisition of evidence is present, the evidence has been “obtained” in violation of the law, and the evidence must be excluded under Article
The Davis exception assumes a causal connection and thus cannot be applied under Article 38.23(a). The Davis doctrine involves illegal police conduct that directly causes the acquisition of the evidence. See Davis, 131 S.Ct. at 2430-32 (clarifying that the Court‘s retroactivity jurisprudence established that police in that case acquired evidence through unlawful means). Good-faith reliance on binding precedent is not a doctrine that eliminates the causal connection between the illegal activity and the acquisition of the evidence. Rather, it treats that connection as a given. The exception is thus inconsistent with Article 38.23‘s text. See Daugherty, 931 S.W.2d at 270 (once “the illegality and its causal connection to the evidence have been established, the evidence must be excluded” under Article 38.23).
Rather than arguing that the Davis exception for good-faith reliance on appellate precedent is consistent with the text of Article 38.23(a), the State argues that the marijuana evidence seized from McClintock‘s home should be exempted from exclusion under Article 38.23(b). Subsection (b) provides an exception to subsection (a) for evidence obtained by an officer “acting in objective good faith reliance upon a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate based on probable cause.”
The State concedes that, according to binding precedent, a “search warrant may not be procured lawfully by the use of illegally obtained information.” State v. Cuong Phu Le, 463 S.W.3d 872, 877 (Tex. Crim.App.2015) (quoting Brown v. State, 605 S.W.2d 572, 577 (Tex.Crim.App.1980), overruled on other grounds by Hedicke v. State, 779 S.W.2d 837 (Tex. Crim.App.1989)). Ordinarily, when a search warrant is issued on the basis of an affidavit containing illegally obtained information, as it was in this case, the evidence seized pursuant to the warrant is admissible only if the independently and lawfully acquired information in the affidavit clearly established probable cause. McClintock, 444 S.W.3d at 19; Brackens v. State, 312 S.W.3d 831, 838 (Tex.App.—Hоuston [1st Dist.] 2009, pet. ref‘d). The warrant in this case did not contain sufficient lawfully acquired information to clearly establish probable cause without the dog-sniff evidence. McClintock, 444 S.W.3d at 19-20.
The State argues that because Officer Arthur acted in good-faith reliance on pre-Jardines precedent when he conducted the dog-sniff search, the dog-sniff evidence should be acceptable to support the magistrate‘s probable-cause determination. This would allow the warrant the officers relied on to seize the marijuana evidence in this case to be a “warrant issued by a neutral magistrate based on probable cause,” and therefore render the marijuana evidence admissible under the statutory exception.
We are not persuaded by the State‘s argument that policy considerations justify
The whole issue here is whether for purposes of interpreting Article 38.23(a); we agree that “inevitable discovery” really does break the causal connection between the illegality and the evidence. That depends, of course, upon what Article 38.23(a) means when it says “evidence obtained in violation of law.” And this is purely a question of statutory construction. Not even the Supreme Court would presume to instruct us on how our own statutes should be construed. Were we implementing a court-made rule we would of course be free to follow the lead of the United States Supreme Court. However, because this is a statute enacted by the Texas Legislature, we are required to interpret the language of the statute in order to implement the legislative intent in enacting it.
Daugherty, 931 S.W.2d at 271. We, too, anchor our analysis to the text of Article 38.23, not our own evaluation of the wisdom of its policy.
Here, the State asks us to broaden the exception of Article 38.23(b) in a manner not supported by its text. It is true, as the State argues, that the text of Article 38.23(b) does not expressly forbid the consideration of illegally obtained evidence when considering whether the magistrate‘s warrant was based on probable cause. But nothing in subsection (b) expressly supports the State‘s expansive reading either, and “[w]here a statute contains an express exception, its terms must apply in all cases not excepted.” Daugherty, 931 S.W.2d at 270. Thus, subsection (a) must apply to suppress all evidence not expressly excepted by subsection (b).
The Court of Criminal Appeals has held that the phrase “based on probable cause” in Article 38.23(b) requires an independent finding of probable cause; an officer‘s good-faith reliance on a warrant subsequently invalidated for lack of probable cause does not fulfill the statutory exception. See Curry v. State, 808 S.W.2d 481, 482 (Tex.Crim.App.1991). The exception in subsection (b) has only been satisfied in cases involving technical defects in warrants, not warrants with defects concerning probable cause. See, e.g., Dunn v. State, 951 S.W.2d 478, 479 (Tex. Crim.App. 1997) (concluding that exception applied in case where warrant lacked magistrate‘s signature); Brent v. State, 916 S.W.2d 34, 38 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1995, pet. ref‘d) (holding that exception applied despite warrant based on unsigned affidavit). Furthermore, as recognized above, illegally obtained evidence cannot provide the probable cause necessary to support a warrant. Le, 463 S.W.3d at 877.
The State suggests that Davis provides a reason to deviate from these past decisions. But the Court of Criminal Appeals already has recognized that its interpretation of Article 38.23(b) stands in contrast to the federal good-faith exception, established in United States v. Leon, for officers relying on a subsequently invalidated warrant. See Curry, 808 S.W.2d at 482 (“[Article 38.23(b)] requires a finding of probable cause, while the exception enunciated in Leon appears more flexible in allowing a good faith exception if the officer‘s belief in probable cause is reasonable.“).
We reject the State‘s proposed application of the Davis exception to allow consideration of illegally obtained evidence in the magistrate‘s probable cause analysis for a warrant. As the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, the dog-sniff search was unlawful. Binding precedent holds that illegally obtained evidence cannot provide probable cause to support a warrant. Based on past interpretation of Article 38.23, we conclude that the good-faith exception established in Davis does not apply to allow the State to use the illegal dog-sniff evidence to support the warrant. As a result, the warrant used to seize the marijuana evidence from McClintock‘s residence was “not based on probable cause,” and the marijuana evidence does not satisfy Article 38.23(b). Accordingly, the Texas exclusionary statute applies and the marijuana evidence must be suppressed. See
Conclusion
We overrule the State‘s sole issue. We remand the case to the trial court for a new trial without the evidence that should have been suppressed.
Justice Keyes, dissenting.
DISSENTING OPINION
Evelyn V. Keyes, Justice.
I respectfully dissent. In this case, the police obtained a warrant to search appellant‘s upstairs residence for marijuana based on Houston Police Department Officer R. Arthur‘s affidavit that he smelled marijuana at that “location” and that the trained narcotics-sniffing dog Sita likewise detected the odor of marijuana from the top of a public stairway outside the door of appellant‘s second-floor residence.
The Court of Criminal Appeals held that the warrantless dog sniff search on the curtilage of appellant‘s residence was illegal under Florida v. Jardines, decided while appellant‘s case was on appeal. McClintock v. State, 444 S.W.3d 15, 19 (Tex.Crim.App.2014). The court then found that the affidavit on which the search warrant was obtained, based in part on the warrantless dog-sniff search, was “sufficiently ambiguous” that it could not be said that, without the narcotics dog‘s alert, the evidence the magistrate had before him to rely on in issuing the wаrrant, “even taken together with the other independently acquired information stated in the warrant affidavit, . . . clearly established probable cause.” Id. at 19-20.
However, on petition for discretionary review, the State brought the court‘s attention to Davis v. United States, 564 U.S. 229, 131 S.Ct. 2419, 180 L.Ed.2d 285 (2011). The Supreme Court held in Davis that a new Supreme Court ruling that a search is illegal under the Fourth Amendment does not apply retroactively to render inadmissible evidence obtained from a search that occurred prior to the ruling
The majority‘s answer to this question—that the evidence is inadmissible—is, in my view, incorrect on the law. I would hold, in accordance with Davis, that the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies in this case. Thus, the evidence obtained by police pursuant to the search warrant issued on the basis of probable cause supplied in part by the dog-sniff search then deemed legal under binding authority was not subject to exclusion. I would therefore affirm the judgment of the trial court.
A. The Exclusionary Rule and the Good-Faith Exception
The majority concludes that Texas‘s exclusionary rule and its good-faith exception are statutory, not judicially created like the federal rule, and that the Texas exclusionary rule is broader than the federal rule. It holds that, therefore, Davis, a federal Supreme Court case, does not apply in Texas state court, and that it need not consider Davis in determining whether the evidence seized in this case was admissible. I disagree. I believe the majority‘s holding is based on a misinterpretation of both the Texas exсlusionary rule and its good-faith exception and the federal exclusionary rule and good-faith exception, as well as the relationship between them.
The federal exclusionary rule, parsed by the United States Supreme Court in Davis, is a “prudential doctrine” created by the Supreme Court “to compel respect for the constitutional guaranty” against “unreasonable searches and seizures” under the Fourth Amendment by requiring the courts to exclude illegally obtained evidence. Davis, 131 S.Ct. at 2426 (quoting Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 217, 80 S.Ct. 1437, 1444, 4 L.Ed.2d 1669 (1960)); see also id. at 2427 (stating that exclusionary rule is “‘a judicially created remedy’ of this Court‘s own making“) (quoting United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 348, 94 S.Ct. 613, 620, 38 L.Ed.2d 561 (1974)). It is neither a “personal constitutional right” nor a redress for injury occasioned by an unconstitutional search. Id. at 2426. Rather, the rule‘s “sole purpose” is “to deter future Fourth Amendment violations” by rendering evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment inadmissible. Id.
Having promulgated the exclusionary rule, however, the Supreme Court recognized that its application “exacts a heavy toll” on the judicial system and the public by requiring the courts “to ignore reliable, trustworthy evidence bearing on guilt or innocence” and by causing the truth to be suppressed and criminals to be set loose without punishment. Id. at 2427. Therefore, the Court further held that “[w]here suppression fails to yield ‘appreciable deterrence,’ exclusion is ‘clearly . . . unwarranted.‘” Id. at 2426-27 (quoting
The Supreme Court thus requires a balancing test to determine whether evidence should be excluded under the rule. See id. at 2427-28. Under this test, exclusion is appropriate only when “the deterrence benefits of suppression . . . outweigh its heavy costs.” Id. at 2427. “When the police exhibit ‘deliberate,’ ‘reckless’ or ‘grossly negligent’ disregard for Fourth Amendment rights, the deterrent value of exclusion is strong and tends to outweigh the resulting costs. But when the police act with an objectively ‘reasonable good-faith belief that their conduct is lawful, . . . the ‘deterrence rationale loses much of its force.‘” Id. at 2427-28 (citations omitted).
On the basis of this rationale, the Supreme Court has long “extended the good-faith exception to searches conducted in reasonable reliance on subsequently invalidated statutes“; and it has “never applied the exclusionary rule to suppress evidence obtained as a result of nonculpable, innocent police conduct“; thus, it has held that the exclusionary rule does not apply when police conduct a search in “objectively reasonable reliance” on a warrant later held to be invalid. Id. at 2428-29 (citing Illinois v. Krull, 480 U.S. 340, 349-50, 107 S.Ct. 1160, 1167, 94 L.Ed.2d 364 (1987), and quoting Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135, 144, 129 S.Ct. 695, 702, 172 L.Ed.2d 496 (2009), and United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 922, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 3420, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984)).
Relying on the foregoing reasoning and precedents, the Supreme Court held in Davis that “[e]vidence obtained during a search conducted in reasonable reliance on binding precedent is not subject to the exclusionary rule.” Id. at 2429. In Davis, the Supreme Court expressly distinguished the exclusionary rule from the retroactivity rule for newly created Fourth Amendment precedent first announced in Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 107 S.Ct. 708, 93 L.Ed.2d 649 (1987). See id. at 2429-30. The retroactive application of a new substantive Fourth Amendment rule, it stated, “raises the question whether a suppression remedy applies; it does not answer that question.” Id. at 2431. The Court explained, “[E]xclusion of evidence does not automatically follow from the fact that a Fourth Amendment violation occurred. The remedy is subject to exceptions and applies only where its ‘purpose is effectively advanced.‘” Id. Thus, because “the sole purpose of the exclusionary rule is to deter misconduct by law enforcement,” where the police have not been guilty of any culpable conduct and have “reasonably relied on binding . . . precedent” in executing a search, “[t]hat sort of blameless police conduct . . . comes within the good-faith exception and is not properly subject to the exclusionary rule.” Id. at 2432, 2434; see also Leon, 468 U.S. at 918, 104 S.Ct. at 3418 (“[S]uppression of evidence obtained pursuant to a warrant should be ordered only on a case-by-case basis and only in those unusual cases in which exclusion will further the purposes of the exclusionary rule.“).
Assuming the applicability in Texas state courts of Supreme Court precedent construing the Fourth Amendment, the exclusionary rule, and the good-faith exception to that rule, this case falls squarely within the scope of the good-faith exception to the federal exclusionary rule established by the Supreme Court in Davis and its predecessors. Here, there is no evidence whatsoever that the police exhibited “‘deliberate,’ ‘reckless’ or ‘grossly negligent’ disregard for Fourth Amendment rights” when they relied, in part, on a warrantless dog-sniff search to obtain a warrant to search appellant‘s residence. See Davis, 131 S.Ct. at 2427. Rather, they
As thesе federal and state precedents show, the case law relating to dog sniffs occurring outside a public entrance to a defendant‘s home was deemed valid law at the time the search warrant issued in this case. It was only subsequently abrogated by Jardines. At that time, this case was already on appeal.
Here, the affidavit executed by Officer Arthur detailing both his own and the dog Sita‘s detection of the odor of marijuana from outside appellant‘s residence was made in good faith, in reliance on binding precedent, and without culpability of any kind on the part of the police. See 131 S.Ct. at 2426-29. “In the absence of an allegation that the magistrate abandoned his detached and neutral role, suppression is appropriate only if the officers were dishonest or reckless in preparing their affidavit or could not have harbored an objectively reasonable belief in the existence of probable cause.” Leon, 468 U.S. at 926, 104 S.Ct. at 3422. None of the conditions that would limit the applicability of the good-faith exception apply here. Therefore, relying on federal and state precedent, and applying the rule in Davis to the facts of this case, I would hold that, at the time it was made, Officer Arthur‘s affidavit provided probable cause for the magistrate to issue the search warrant pursuant to which the police obtained the evidence of the marijuana operation in appellant‘s home upon which he was convicted. And, I would further hold that the evidence obtained by the police in reliance on the warrant issued by the magistrate based in part on the then-legal warrantless dog-sniff search was admissible under the federal good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule.
B. The Majority Opinion
The majority, however, holds that Texas‘s statutory exclusionary rule and its good-faith exception do not derive from the federal rule and, indeed, that Texas
In my view, the majority opinion is based on two errors of law. First, Texas did not pass its exclusionary statute to override the federal exclusionary rule and its good-faith exception devised by the United States Supreme Court for use in applying Fourth Amendment rulings. It did just the opposite: it expressly adopted the federal rule and the federal case law that established and construes it. Moreover, as shown above and below, the Texas courts have consistently followed both federal and state precedent in construing this statute, with a lone exception for a direct conflict between the language of article 38.23 and federal precedent—a conflict not present in this case. Second, the majority‘s conclusion that the warrant upon which the search of appellant‘s apartment was based was illegal at the time it was issued assumes the answer to the question posed to this Court by the Court of Criminal Appeals as its major premise. Therefore, it answers the question whether the warrant was illegal at the time it was issued by concluding that because the probable cause for the warrant was based in part on a warrantless dog-sniff search, which was only subsequently held to be unconstitutional in Jardines, the warrant was not based on probable cause at the time it was issued and, therefore, was illegal. This argument is both circular and question-begging and, in my opinion, its conclusion is incorrect.
1. Texas‘s Exclusionary Rule: Code of Criminal Procedure Article 38.23
Texas‘s exclusionary statute provides, in relevant part:
(a) No evidence obtained by an officer or other person in violation of any provisions of the Constitution or laws of the State of Texas, or of the Constitution or laws of the United States of America, shall be admitted in evidence against the accused on the trial of any criminal case. . . .
(b) It is an exception to the provisions of Subsection (a) of this Article that the evidence was obtained by a law enforcement officer acting in objective good faith reliance upon a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate based on рrobable cause.
2. Miles v. State and the Origin and Scope of Texas‘s Exclusionary Rule
Relying on the Court of Criminal Appeals’ 2007 opinion in Miles v. State, the majority claims that the Texas exclusionary rule “is not merely a judicial creation” but “was enacted by the legislature,” so that Texas courts may disregard the United States Supreme Court‘s construction of
Miles discusses the history of the exclusionary rule at length, pointing out that the Texas Legislature enacted the predecessor to article 38.23 in 1925 expressly to overrule the 1922 Court of Criminal Appeals Prohibition-era case, Welchek v. State, 93 Tex.Crim. 271, 247 S.W. 524 (1922). 241 S.W.3d at 33. In Welchek, the Court of Criminal Appeals had refused to recognize an exclusionary rule under the Texas Constitution for threе jugs of whiskey seized without a warrant and had “specifically rejected the reasoning of the United States Supreme Court cases that had imposed an exclusionary rule on federal courts under the Fourth Amendment.” Id. The statute was thus enacted by the Texas Legislature to impose on Texas courts the exclusionary rule created by the United States Supreme Court for use in the federal courts. And it statutorily abrogated the Court of Criminal Appeals case that had refused to recognize the rule.
The Court of Criminal Appeals stated in Miles—directly contrary to what the majority says it states—that by enacting the exclusionary rule, now article 38.23, “[t]he Legislature thus ‘sanctioned the construction by the Federal courts of the search-and-seizure clause of the [federal] Constitution.‘” Id. at 34 (quoting Chapin v. State, 107 Tex.Crim. 477, 296 S.W. 1095, 1100 (1927)). The only difference with respect to the exclusionary rule as set out in the predecessor to article 38.23(a) was that the Texas Legislature expanded the rule to apply not only to evidence illegally seized by government officials, as the federal rule does, but also to evidence illegally seized by private individuals, by adding the phrase “or other person” to article 38.23(a). Id. at 34-35. Thus, the rule excludes evidence obtained “in violation of any provision of the Constitution or laws of the State of Texas, or of the United States of America” not only by “an officer” but also by an “other person,” including “vigilante-type private citizens [acting] in concert with the police conducting illegal searches for whiskey.” Id. at 33-35 (quoting State v. Johnson, 939 S.W.2d 586, 591 (Tex.Crim.App.1996) (McCormick, P.J., dissenting)). However, this is the only way mentioned in Miles in which the Texas exclusionary rule was made statutorily broader than the federal rule. Because the issue in this case is the application of the exclusionary rule to evidence seized by police officers, the fact that article 38.23(a) extends the protection of the exclusionary rule to evidence seized by “other person[s]” is irrelevant to this case. Thus, there is no support in Miles for the majority‘s broadening of the exclusionary rule on the ground that article 38.23(a) is broader than the federal exclusionary rule.
The Court of Criminal Appeals’ opinion in Miles cannot plausibly be construed as providing that, in enacting the exclusionary rule by statute in Texas, the Texas Legislature intended to reject the federal exclusionary rule and its construction by the federal courts and to impose broader protections against searches and the seizure of evidence by poliсe than the United States Supreme Court has imposed upon
Miles did not, however, deal with or discuss the statutory good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule set out in article 38.23(b).
3. The “Warrant Based on Probable Cause” Requirement and Article 38.23(b)‘s “Good-Faith Exception” to the Exclusionary Rule
The majority also claims that the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule, as the Supreme Court explicated it in Davis, cannot apply to this case because it is not consistent with the text of article 38.23(b), which sets out the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule. See Op. at 741-42. That text provides for an exception to the exclusionary rule for evidence “obtained by a law enforcement officer acting in objective good faith reliance upon a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate based on probable cause.”
The majority opines that the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule in Davis does not apply in this case because the good-faith exception as explicated in that federal Supreme Court case conflicts with the express language of article 38.23(b) by allowing illegally obtained evidence to be admitted. Op. at 741-42. Thus, it opines, Davis creates an exception to the exclusionary rule in conflict with Texas law. Id. It also concludes that Texas case law, in construing the good-faith exception in article 38.23(b), does not recognize the authority of federal cases construing the federal good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule as precеdential or persuasive. Op. at 743-44. I disagree with both arguments and address them in turn.
a. The argument that Davis conflicts with article 38.23(b)
Despite the majority‘s claims, there is no conflict between the plain language of article 38.23(b) and Davis. Article 38.23(b) provides a statutory good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule that permits the admission of evidence that was obtained by a law enforcement officer acting in objective good-faith reliance upon a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate based on probable cause. See
Davis says that the Supreme Court‘s subsequent ruling that a warrantless search is constitutionally invalid does not retroactively render inadmissible evidence that was obtained by police officers in good-faith reliance on binding precedent that, at the time of a warrantless search, deemed the search legal, and no Texas law says anything different. See 131 S.Ct. at 2429. The majority, however, ignores Davis as inapplicable and says, on the basis of no authority other than its misreading of relevant law, that Jardines made the dog-sniff search in this case retroactively illegal and therefore the good-faith exception does not apply.
Essentially, the majority reasons that article 38.23(b) saves from exclusion only evidence seized in good-faith reliance on a warrant “based on probable cause,” and it concludes that the evidence in this case was not obtained pursuant to a warrant “based on probable cause” because Jardines retroactively vitiated the рrobable cause finding necessary to sustain the warrant when it declared the warrantless dog sniff on which this warrant was, in part, obtained unconstitutional. See Op. at 742-43. But this argument, as stated above, is circular. A circular argument is an invalid argument that cannot support a legal ruling—here, the majority‘s ruling that Jardines applies retroactively to exclude the marijuana evidence seized from appellant‘s house.
When the question posed to us by the Court of Criminal Appeals is actually addressed, the answer to it is the opposite of the majority‘s. At the time the warrant issued in this case—which was well prior to the Supreme Court‘s decision in Jardines declaring warrantless dog-sniff searches occurring on the curtilage of a residence unconstitutional—an unbroken string of Texas precedential cases relying on both federal and Texas law interpreted the Fourth Amendment to permit just such warrantless dog sniffs. See Caballes, 543 U.S. at 409, 410, 125 S.Ct. at 838 (use of “well-trained narcotics-detection dog” during traffic stop does not violate Fourth Amendment); Tarazon-Silva, 166 F.3d at 341 (dog sniff of garage and vent on exterior of house not search under Fourth Amendment); Williams, 69 F.3d at 28 (positive dog alert creates probable cause to search vehicle); Romo, 315 S.W.3d at 573 (dog sniff of garage door and backyard fence not search under Fourth Amendment); Rodriguez, 106 S.W.3d at 228-29 (dog sniff at front door of house not search); Porter, 93 S.W.3d at 346-47 (same). Therefore, under Davis, the evidence seized pursuant to the warrant here should not have been excluded, as it was seized pursuant to “a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate based on probable cause,” as required by the plain language of article 38.23(b), and that was obtained by officers acting in good-faith reliance on a warrantless dog-sniff search, which had long been held to be legal under binding Texas and federal precedent.
Jardines construes the reach of the Fourth Amendment and Davis continues a long line of federal and state cases construing the exclusionary rule and holding that evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment through police mis-
b. Texas case law construing the scope of the good faith exception
No Texas case law prior to the majority opinion in this case has held that Texas does not follow United States Supreme Court rulings construing the exclusionary rule and its good faith exception. Rather, Miles expressly states that, in enacting the predecessor to article 38.23, the Texas Legislature “sanctioned the construction by the Federal courts of the search-and-seizure clause of the [federal] Constitution.” 241 S.W.3d at 34 (quoting Chapin, 296 S.W. at 1100). And the Texas exclusionary statute was explicitly based on the federal exclusionary rule—as the Court of Criminal Appeals has acknowledged. See id.
The majority places great emphasis on two Court of Criminal Appeals opinions construing Texas‘s statutory good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule that it contends support its ruling—Wehrenberg v. State, 416 S.W.3d 458 (Tex.Crim.App. 2013), and State v. Daugherty, 931 S.W.2d 268, 269 (Tex.Crim.App.1996). Neither of these cases, however, supports the majority‘s opinion. Rather, as the cases show, federal law construing the exclusionary rule and the good-faith exception apply in every Texas state court case under article 38.23 unless the express language of that article renders federal precedent inapplicable. Daugherty and Wehrenberg illustrate this point.
In Daugherty, the Court of Criminal Appeals held that the federal “inevitable discovery” doctrine—which permits the admission of evidence in federal court that was unlawfully obtained but that would inevitably have been discovered—is inapplicable in Texas because the plain language of article 38.23(b) provides a good faith exception to the exclusionary rule only for evidence that was lawfully obtained. See 931 S.W.2d at 270. Specifically, article 38.23(b) рrotects the admissibility only of “evidence obtained by a law enforcement officer acting in objective good faith reliance upon a warrant issued . . . based on probable cause.”
Wehrenberg, however, represents the other side of the coin from Daugherty, and it is applicable here. In that case, the Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the admissibility in Texаs courts of evidence lawfully obtained pursuant to the federal “independent source” doctrine. Wehrenberg, 416 S.W.3d at 472-73. And it specifically contrasted that doctrine with the “inevitable discovery” doctrine, which the court had held in Daugherty does not save from exclusion evidence unlawfully obtained on
This case is properly governed by Wehrenberg and Davis. There is no inconsistency between the plain language of article 38.23 and Davis‘s (and its federal and state predecessors‘) holding that the exclusionary rule does not apply to evidence obtained when police conduct a search in “objectively reasonable reliance” on a warrant lawfully obtained under “binding judicial precedent” at the time of the search, even if, under a subsequent Supreme Court interpretation of the Fourth Amendment, the warrant would be considered to have been unlawfully obtained. See Davis, 131 S.Ct. at 2428. There is also no evidence of any culpable police conduct that would render the good-faith exception inapplicable. See id. at 2428-29. And there is no language in article 38.23(b) that is inconsistent with the Texas courts holding admissible evidence obtained in “objective good faith reliance upon a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate based on probable cause” at the time of seizure. See
In sum, Jardines extends the protection of the exclusionary rule to evidence seized as a result of a warrantless dog sniff on the curtilage of a residence. And Davis preserves the admissibility of evidence seized by the police prior to that ruling pursuant to a warrant obtained in good-faith reliance on binding precedent at the time the warrant was obtained. Nothing in Texas law or in the text of article 38.23 provides any basis for applying Jardines and ignoring Davis in this case.
Having failed to address Davis, however, and without showing any genuine conflict between the federal good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule as explicated in Davis and the express terms of Texas‘s statutory good-faith exception set out in article 38.23(b) or any genuine conflict between applicable federal law construing the good-faith exception and controlling Texas precedent, the majority in this case does exactly the opposite of what the Supreme Court said in Davis that a court construing the exclusionary rule and its good-faith exception in deciding Fourth Amendment cases should do: it declares the warrant obtained by Officer Arthur to search appellant‘s residence to be illegal because of the subsequent change in the construction of the Fourth Amendment by the Supreme Court in Jardines and then declares the officers’ actions in executing the warrant retroactively illegal and the evidence seized under the warrant inadmissible, even though the search was undertaken in objective good faith and was based on probable cause under precedent binding at the time the warrant was issued.
The majority‘s construction of the text of article 38.23 is not only unfounded in law but objectively unreasonable under the Supreme Court and Texas cases that established the exclusionary rule and its good faith exception, in that it entails exactly the absurd consequences avoided by applying the exclusionary rule and the good-faith exception in accordance with
For the foregoing reasons, I cannot join the majority opinion or its holding, and I therefore must dissent.
Conclusion
I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.
Notes
Stated as a syllogism, if binding appellate precedent specifically authorizes the precise conduct under consideration, then it will likely be binding appellate precedent upon which police can reasonably rely under Davis. However, this does not make the reverse syllogism true, namely, that if a case is binding appellate precedent under Davis, then it must specifically authorize the precise conduct under consideration. Davis’ holding is broader: “[e]vidence obtained during a search conducted in reasonable reliance on binding precedent is not subject to the exclusionary rule.”
United States v. Katzin, 769 F.3d 163, 176 (3d Cir.2014) (en banc), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 135 S.Ct. 1448, 191 L.Ed.2d 403 (2015). Other courts have also rejected the contention that “binding appellate precedent” requires precedent within the Circuit and specific to the facts at hand; instead focusing on whether reliance on a body of law is objectively reasonable. See United States v. Brown, 744 F.3d 474, 478 (7th Cir.2014); United States v. Stephens, 764 F.3d 327, 337 (4th Cir.2014), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 136 S.Ct. 43, 193 L.Ed.2d 27 (2015); United States v. Aguiar, 737 F.3d 251, 261 (2d Cir.2013). Nevertheless, precise rules about when reliance on appellate precedent is objectively reasonable are difficult to ascertain. See Brown, 744 F.3d at 478 (“There is legitimate debate about whether precedent from Circuit A could be deemed ‘binding’ (for the purpose of Davis) when the search occurs in Circuit B, where the issue remains unresolved.“).