Campos v. StateCampos v. State
- Reporters:
- ,
- Before:
- Ransom
Frank Martin Campos was convicted of illegal possession of heroin under
Facts and proceedings. On December 7, 1989, Officer Luis Lara received information from a confidential informant that Campos would be conducting a drug transaction the
On December 8, a member of the surveillance team observed Campos approaching the location described by the informant in a small blue car. The officers stopped Campos, ordered him out of his car, and arrested him without a warrant. The officers searched both Campos and his car and discovered seven packages of heroin. Campos was charged with possession of heroin with intent to distribute. Prior to trial, Campos moved to suppress all of the evidence seized pursuant to the warrantless arrest and search. The trial court denied Campos’s motion. Campos plead guilty to possession of heroin but reserved his right to appeal.
The legislature has authorized warrantless arrests in situations like this. New Mexico statutory law authorizes an officer to:
make arrests without warrant for any offense under the Controlled Substances Act [NMSA 1978, Sections 30-31-1 to -41 (Repl.Pamp.1989) ] committed in his presence, or if he has probable cause to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing a violation of the Controlled Substances Act which may constitute a felony....
All warrantless arrests must comply with the “reasonableness” component of Article II, Section 10 of the New Mexico Constitution. Our inquiry, however, cannot end with a simple determination of probable cause. We must remember that “[t]he people shall be secure ... from unreasonable searches and seizures....”
—Statute gives warrantless arrest presumption of reasonableness. In United States v. Watson, 423 U.S. 411, 96 S.Ct. 820, 46 L.Ed.2d 598 (1976), the Supreme Court addressed the question whether warrantless arrests based on statutory authority are reasonable. The Court held that a federal statute authorizing postal workers to effect warrantless arrests based only on probable cause constituted legislative judgment that such warrantless arrests are reasonable. Id. at 415-16, 96 S.Ct. at 823. The determination of reasonableness did not change even though the arresting officers in Watson were aware that the defendant had committed the crime six days before he was arrested and could have secured an arrest warrant. Id. at 412-13, 96 S.Ct. at 820-22. Following this reasoning,
We have long held, however, that statutory provisions regarding warrants must be considered in pari materia with Article II, Section 10 of our constitution. See State v. Trujillo, 33 N.M. 370, 373, 266 P. 922, 923-24 (1928).
—Reasonableness under Article II, Section 10 of the New Mexico Constitution. The question of whether exigent circumstances are necessary before warrantless public arrests are constitutionally permissible is an issue of first impression in our Court. Although we have stated the general rule regarding warrantless arrests based on probable cause several times, see, e.g., Jones, 96 N.M. at 15, 627 P.2d at 410, we have never fully addressed the issue of whether exigent circumstances are required.
—Federal law. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that warrantless arrests of felons based on probable cause are constitutionally permissible even without exigent circumstances because “the judgment of the Nation and Congress has for so long been to authorize warrantless public arrests on probable cause rather than to encumber criminal prosecutions with endless litigation with respect to the existence of exigent circumstances’....” Watson, 423 U.S. at 423, 96 S.Ct. at 827. In essence, the federal rule is that a warrantless public arrest of a felon based on probable cause will be upheld regardless of whether the officer could have secured an arrest warrant. But cf. Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 583, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 1378, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980) (stating that probable cause and exigent circumstances both needed for warrantless arrest in individual’s home).
—New Mexico law. We recently have shown our willingness to accord defendants more protection under our search and seizure provision than the federal courts accord under the Fourth Amendment. See Attaway, 117 N.M. 141, 870 P.2d 103; State v. Gutierrez, 116 N.M. 431, 863 P.2d 1052 (1993); State v. Cordova, 109 N.M. 211, 784 P.2d 30 (1989). In light of these decisions, we must decline to adopt the blanket federal rule that all warrantless arrests of felons based on probable cause are constitutionally permissible in public places. We do this because we believe that each case must be reviewed in light of its own facts and circumstances. Attaway, 117 N.M. at 145, 870 P.2d at 107 (stating that it is the duty of appellate courts to “shape the parameters of police conduct by placing the constitutional requirement of reasonableness in factual context”). Therefore, we will not assume that warrant-less public arrests of felons are constitutionally reasonable.
Campos urges this Court to adopt a rule that a warrantless arrest is justified only when, in addition to probable cause, exigent circumstances are present that make obtaining a warrant unreasonable. “Exigent circumstances means an emergency situation requiring swift action to prevent imminent danger to life or serious damage to property, or to forestall the imminent escape of a suspect or destruction of evidence.” State v. Copeland, 105 N.M. 27, 31, 727 P.2d 1342, 1346 (Ct.App.), cert. denied, 104 N.M. 702, 726 P.2d 856 (1986). It is the State’s position that neither the New Mexico Constitution nor New Mexico case law require anything more than probable cause to justify a felony arrest outside of a home.
In State v. Jones this Court found that, based upon partial corroboration of an informant’s tip, officers had probable cause to believe that the defendant had been involved
While most New Mexico eases tend to state only that warrantless arrests must be supported by probable cause, some cases hold that both probable cause and exigent circumstances are required. In Martinez, 94 N.M. at 440, 612 P.2d at 232, this Court held that a warrantless arrest based upon information received by a radio dispatch must be supported by probable cause and exigent circumstances. Also, in In re One 1967 Peterbilt Tractor, 84 N.M. 652, 655-56, 506 P.2d 1199, 1202-03 (1973), this Court stated that warrantless searches may be undertaken when an officer has probable cause and exigent circumstances are present. We can find no case in which the results would have differed had there been a rule requiring more than probable cause to justify a warrantless arrest.
We strongly favor the warrant requirement. See Cordova, 109 N.M. at 216, 784 P.2d at 35 (stating that principles of warrant requirement are firmly rooted in constitution). Our constitution preserves “the fundamental notion that every person in this state is entitled to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusions.” Gutierrez, 116 N.M. at 444, 863 P.2d at 1065. Thus, our constitution and case law lead us to hold that for a warrantless arrest to be reasonable the arresting officer must show that the officer had probable cause to believe that the person arrested had committed or was about to commit a felony and some exigency existed that precluded the officer from securing a warrant. If an officer observes the person arrested committing a felony, exigency will be presumed.
Standard in practice. To set forth a clear rule for police officers, we limit our inquiry in reviewing warrantless arrests to whether it was reasonable for the officer not to procure an arrest warrant. See Watson, 423 U.S. at 444, 96 S.Ct. at 837 (Marshall, J., dissenting) (stating that test adopted by majority inappropriately focused only on whether arrest was reasonable, disregarding the warrant requirement entirely). We understand that an officer may wish to forego an arrest temporarily in order to gather evidence, even though legally he may have probable cause to obtain a warrant. We do not wish to interfere unduly with the officer’s investigation and as a matter of policy would prefer that officers have more rather than less evidence before making arrests. We will not hesitate, however, to find a warrantless arrest unreasonable if no exigencies existed to excuse the officer’s failure to obtain a warrant.
The arrest of Campos without a warrant was unreasonable. The record clearly supports a finding that Officer Lara had probable cause to arrest Campos. We will
We cannot find, however, sufficient exigent circumstances that would make Officer Lara’s warrantless arrest reasonable. The type of “emergency situation” defined in Copeland is not present in this case. The only exigency that the record might support is the fact that Campos was driving an automobile. We previously have held that it is not practical to secure a warrant when an automobile is involved. See, e.g., State v. Capps, 97 N.M. 453, 455-56, 641 P.2d 484, 486-87, cert. denied, 458 U.S. 1107, 102 S.Ct. 3486, 73 L.Ed.2d 1368 (1982). Yet, Officer Lara knew on December 7 that Campos would be driving an automobile and cannot now reasonably argue that, on December 8, he was faced with an “emergency situation.” If we were to find that Campos’s use of an automobile constituted an exigent circumstance in this case, we effectively would make the Copeland definition meaningless and erode the constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Officer Lara has not provided good reason for failing to procure a warrant for Campos’s arrest because Lara expected Campos to be driving under the exact scenario giving rise on the previous day to probable cause. Therefore, we find that the arrest and subsequent search were unreasonable.
Conclusion. There not having been sufficient exigent circumstances to make the warrantless arrest of Campos reasonable, Campos’s conviction for possession of heroin is reversed and this case is remanded to the district court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
MONTGOMERY and FROST, JJ., concur.