*1 A TTORNEY FOR A PPELLANT A TTORNEYS FOR A PPELLEE Joel M. Schumm Gregory F. Zoeller Indianapolis, Indiana Attorney General of Indiana
George P. Sherman Deputy Attorney General Indianapolis, Indiana I N T H E COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA C.P., June 23, 2015 Court of Appeals Case No.
Appellant-Respondent , 49A02-1411-JV-789 v. Appeal from the Marion Superior Court The Honorable Geoffrey Gaither, State of Indiana, Magistrate Appellee-Petitioner . The Honorable Marilyn A. Moores,
Judge Case No. 49D09-1407-JD-1720 Vaidik, Chief Judge.
Case Summary 1. Many state and federal courts have applied an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s exclusionary rule called the new-crime exception. This *2 exception provides that notwithstanding a strong causal connection in fact between an illegal search or seizure by law enforcement and a defendant’s response, if the defendant’s response is itself a new and distinct crime, then evidence of the new crime is admissible notwithstanding the prior illegality. Because the purpose of the exclusionary rule—to deter police misconduct—is not advanced by suppressing evidence of a new crime committed by a defendant after аn illegal search or seizure, we apply the new-crime exception to the Fourth Amendment’s exclusionary rule. And we also conclude that this exception applies equally to the Indiana Constitution. Accordingly, evidence that C.P. battered a police officer after being illegally seized is admissible. We therefore affirm C.P.’s adjudication as a juvenile delinquent for committing what would be Level 6 battery against a public-safety official if committed by an adult.
Facts and Procеdural History On July 14, 2014, C.P. attended Holy Spirit Festival at Holy Spirit Catholic Church on East 10th Street in Indianapolis. Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Officer Jeffrey Wood was working as a security guard for the church. [1] Officer Wood’s responsibilities included enforcing the church’s *3 policies on dress and language. One policy provided that “no underclothing be exhibited in a public fashion where the other people would be forced to observe their undergarments.” Tr. p. 5. Another pоlicy prohibited “loud noises and obscenities.” Id. at 7. Officer Wood was authorized to deal with violators “as deemed necessary.” Id. at 5.
[2] Officer Wood saw C.P. and some of his friends walking around the festival.
C.P. was wearing his pants down below his “buttocks exposing [his] underwear to the patrons of the festival.” Id. When Officer Wood asked C.P. to pull up his pants, C.P. nodded his head and pulled them up. About an hour later, Officer Wood again saw C.P., whose “pants [were] down
exposing his undergarments to the patrons of the . . . festival.” Id. at 6. Officer Wood asked C.P. for a second time to pull up his pants. C.P. briefly turned around but then walked away from Officer Wood. As C.P. walked away, he said something to Officer Wood, but Officer Wood could not hear him. So, Officer Wood told C.P. that if he wanted to talk to him, C.P. needed “to turn around and speak to [him].” Id. Using profanity, C.P. told Officer Wood that he “didn’t have the right to follow” and “talk to him.” Id. Officer Wood told C.P., who was “getting more and more agitated and louder,” “to leave the festival.” Id. But because C.P. continued to curse and started walking deeper into the crowd, Officer Wood “put [his] left hand on [C.P.’s] right shoulder to sort of steer him” off church property. at 7; see also id. at 17 (“STATE: When you placed your hand on the respondent’s shoulder, what was your goal at that time? WITNESS: To guide him through the crowd and off the *4 property.”). In response, C.P. threw his arm in the air and said “don’t put your mother fu**ing hands on me . . . .” Id. at 23. Because C.P. was getting more agitated and “women and children [were] around,” Officer Wood tried “to move [C.P.] through the crowd quicker to get him off of the property.” Id. In order to do so, Officer Wood put his hand on C.P.’s shoulder a second time, at which point C.P. “threw his hand in the air, spun around[,] took up a fighting stance[,] and shoved [Officer Wood] in [the] chest.” Id. Officer Wood “went backwards” and had to regain his footing. Id. at 24. Officer Wood arrested C.P. for battery. The State filed a petition alleging that C.P. was a delinquent child for
committing what would be Level 6 battery against a public-safety official if committed by an adult. [2] At the fact-finding hearing, defense counsel argued that when Officer Wood put his hand on C.P.’s shoulder, he was illegally seized because “there [was] no legal reason for [C.P.] to be stopped.” Id. at 9, 18. Accordingly, defense counsel moved to suppress everything that occurred after Officer Wood put his hand on C.P.’s shoulder. Although initially granting C.P.’s motion to suppress, the juvenile court later reversed course and ruled that Officer Wood’s act of putting his hand on C.P.’s shoulder was not a “stop” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. at 22. Thereafter, the juvеnile court entered a true finding for battery. At the dispositional hearing, *5 the juvenile court adjudicated C.P. a delinquent child but closed the case and discharged C.P. and his mother.
[5] C.P. now appeals.
Discussion and Decision [6] C.P. contends that he was illegally seized when Officer Wood put his hand on
C.P.’s shoulder to steer him off church property and, therefore, “the resulting evidence regarding the battery of Officer Wood is inadmissible” pursuant to the exclusionary rule. Appellant’s Br. p. 6. He raises this issue under both the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Artiсle 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution.
I. Seizure [7] C.P. argues that because there was no concern that a crime had occurred or was
about to occur, he was illegally seized when Officer Wood put his hand on C.P.’s shoulder to steer him off church property.
A. United States Constitution First, we address whether C.P. was illegally seized under the United States
Constitution. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
protects citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures, and this protection
has been extended to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.
Taylor v.
State
,
upon an objective justification governs all seizures of the person, including
seizures that involve only a brief detention short of traditional arrest.
United
States v. Mendenhall
,
[10] Here, the evidence shows that Officer Wood “put [his] left hand on [C.P.’s]
right shoulder to sort of steer him” off church property. Tr. p. 7; see also id. at 17 (“STATE: When you placed your hand on the respondent’s shoulder, what was your goal at that time? WITNESS: To guide him through the crowd and off the property.”). Officer Wood put his hand on C.P.’s shoulder a second time when he tried “to move [C.P.] through the crowd quicker to get him off of the property.” Id. at 23. We find that C.P. was seized under the Fourth Amendment because Officer Wood twice put his hand on C.P.’s shoulder and restrained his movement by trying to guide him off church property. And because Officer Wood did not reasonably suspect C.P. of any сriminal activity, the seizure was illegal.
B. Indiana Constitution We reach the same conclusion under the Indiana Constitution. The language of Article 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution mirrors the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Trowbridge v. State
,
violation had occurred. See Tr. p. 16. Rather, C.P. was wearing baggy pants and cursing in violation of church policy. Although the degree of intrusion from a brief investigatory stop is slight, the extent of law-enforcement needs in this case was non-existent. Officer Wood, an IMPD officer, was working as a security guard for the church and enforcing the church’s policies on dress and language. Balancing these factors, we conclude that C.P. was illegally seized under Article 1, Section 11 when Officer Wood twice put his hand on C.P.’s shoulder and restrained his movement by trying to guide him off church prоperty.
*9 II. Exclusionary Rule [13] Because he was illegally seized, C.P. argues that the evidence of his battery of
Officer Wood is inadmissible pursuant to the exclusionary rule. See Appellant’s Br. p. 6.
A. United States Constitution [14] First, we address the exclusionary rule under the United States Constitution.
The exclusionary rule “is a judicially created remedy designed to safeguard” the
right of the people to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.
United
States v. Calandra
,
deliberate that exclusion can meaningfully deter it and sufficiently culpable that such deterrence is worth the price paid by the justice system. Id. at 144. That is, the exclusionary rule serves to deter deliberate, reckless, or grossly negligent conduct or, in some circumstances, recurring or systemic negligence. Because the exclusionary rule only applies when the benefits of deterrence
outweigh the social costs of excluding the evidence—such as setting the guilty
free and the dangerous at large,
id.
at 141;
Hudson
,
state courts have applied under the Fourth Amendment: the new-crime exception. Indiana courts have yet to directly address whether we, too, should apply the new-crime exception under the Fourth Amendment. [3] Professor LaFave discusses this exception in his treatise on the Fourth Amendment:
On occasion, when the police conduct an illegal arrest or an illegal search, this will prompt the person arrested or subjected to the search to react by committing some criminal offense. He might attack the arresting or searching officer, flee from that officer, attempt to bribe him, threaten the officer with harm should he testify against him, *11 attempt to destroy evidence, or make some criminal misrepresentation in an effort to bring the incidеnt to a close. In such cases, courts are confronted with the question of whether evidence of this new crime (or other evidence discovered after it) must be suppressed as a fruit of the prior illegal arrest or search.
6 Wayne R. LaFave,
Search & Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment
§
11.4(j) (5th ed. 2012) (footnotes omitted). LaFave explains that in cases where
the response has been a physical attack or threat of a physical attack on the
officer who made the illegal arrest or search, “courts have . . . held thаt the
evidence of this new crime (or, other evidence discovered
after
the ‘intervening
circumstances’ of a new crime) is admissible.” (footnotes omitted). In fact,
it “appears to be a nearly universal rule in American jurisdictions that when a
suspect responds to an unconstitutional search or seizure by a physical attack
on the officer, evidence of this new crime is admissible [under the Fourth
Amendment] notwithstanding the prior illegality.”
State v. Lusby
,
“issue of whether a new crime сommitted in response to an unlawful police entry into one’s residence is attenuated sufficiently to break the chain of causation from the unlawful entry.” Id. at 151. The court acknowledged that many jurisdictions, “both federal and state, have considered and adopted a new[-]crime exception to the [Fourth Amendment’s] exclusionary rule.” at 152 (citing federal cases from the 1st, 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th Circuits as well as state cases from Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, North Dаkota, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, and Washington, D.C.). [4] In deciding whether to adopt the new- crime exception to the Fourth Amendment’s exclusionary rule, the Connecticut Supreme Court found persuasive the rationale that “the limited objective of the exclusionary rule is to deter unlawful police conduct—not to provide citizens with a shield so as to afford an unfettered right to threaten or harm police officers in response to the illegality.” Id. The Connecticut Supreme Court *13 specifically agreed with the Seventh Circuit in United States v. Pryor , in which Judge Easterbrook said:
Police do not detain people hoping that they will commit new crimes in their presence; that is not a promising investigative technique, when illegal detention exposes the police to awards of damages. Thus the gains from extending the rule to exclude evidence of fresh crimes are small, and the costs high. If the rule were applied rigorously, suspects could shoot the arresting officers without risk of prosecution. An exclusionary rule that does little to reduce the number of unlawful seizures, and much to inсrease the volume of crime, cannot be justified.
[20] Like the many federal and state courts before us, we agree that the purpose of
the Fourth Amendment’s exclusionary rule—to deter police misconduct—is not advanced by suppressing evidence of a new crime cоmmitted by the defendant after an illegal search or seizure. We therefore hold that notwithstanding a strong causal connection in fact between an illegal search or seizure by law enforcement and a defendant’s response, if the defendant’s response is itself a new and distinct crime, then evidence of the new crime is admissible notwithstanding the prior illegality. [6] Applying this exception to the facts of this case, we conclude that although C.P.
was illegally seized when Officer Woоd twice put his hand on C.P.’s shoulder to guide him off church property, C.P. committed a new and distinct crime against Officer Wood when he battered him. Accordingly, the juvenile court properly admitted evidence of C.P.’s commission of battery against Officer Wood.
*15 B. Indiana Constitution [22] The focus of the exclusionary rule under the Indiana Constitution is the
reasonableness of police conduct.
Mitchell v. State,
denied
;
see also
Ind. Code § 35-37-4-5 (codification of good-faith exception).
[7]
We, however, have not adopted the attenuation doctrine under the Indiana
Constitution as it applies to a defendant’s commission of a new and distinct
*16
crime after an illegal search or seizure by law enforcement. In fact, another
panel of this Court held in
Trotter v. State
that “the attenuation doctrine as it
currently exists as a separate analysis to circumvent the exclusionary rule for
Fourth Amendment purposes has no application under the Indiana
Constitution.”
We disagree with the
Trotter
Court that evidence of new and distinct crimes
committed by a defendant in response to an illegal search or seizure by law
enforcement is inadmissible under the Indianа Constitution. Although in some
cases the Indiana Constitution “confers greater protections to individual rights
than the Fourth Amendment affords,”
see Shotts
,
Kirsch, J., and Bradford, J., concur.
Notes
[1] Officer Wood, who was wearing an IMPD uniform, explained that although he was off-duty, “as a sworn law enforcement officer for the City of Indiana[polis], I am subject to enforce any laws whether I am technically on the clock with the city or not.” Tr. p. 4.
[2] The State also alleged that C.P. committed what would be Class A misdemeanor resisting law enforcement if committed by an adult, but the juvenile court entered a not-true finding on this count. Therefore, we do not discuss this charge or its underlying facts.
[3] Although we have never explicitly applied the new-crime exception to the Fourth Amendment’s exclusionary rule, this topic has surfaced in several Indiana cases. See, e.g. , State v. Owens ,992 N.E.2d 939 , 943 (Ind. Ct. App. 2013), trans. denied ; Cole v. State ,878 N.E.2d 882 , 888 (Ind. Ct. App. 2007), abrogated on other grounds by Gaddie v. State ,10 N.E.3d 1249 (Ind. 2014); Ronco v. State ,840 N.E.2d 368 , 376 (Ind. Ct. App. 2006), issue summarily aff’d by Ronco v. State ,862 N.E.2d 257 , 259 n.1 (Ind. 2007); Dennis v. State , 736 N.E.2d 300, 303 (Ind. Ct. App. 2000), reh’g denied .
[4] More stаtes should be added to this list, including Alaska,
Elson v. State
,
[5] The Connecticut Supreme Court noted that “there already exist legal remedies available to victims of
unlawful police actions.”
Brocuglio
,
[6] We acknowledge an exception for the crime of resisting law enforcement by fleeing. The Indiana Supreme
Court held in
Gaddie v. State
that a defendant is not guilty of resisting law enforcement by fleeing if the police
order to stop is unlawful, that is, not supported by probable cause or reasonable suspicion.
[7] Indiana, however, has not adopted two of the other federal exclusionary-rule exceptions under the Indiana
Constitution. For example, we have not adopted the inevitable-discovery exception,
see Gyamfi v. State
, 15
N.E.3d 1131, 1138 (Ind. Ct. App. 2014),
reh’g denied
;
Ammons v. State
,
