Lead Opinion
Ralph Martinez, currently incarcerated in Folsom State Prison, petitions for a writ of habeas corpus, seeking release on the grounds that the Adult Authority revoked his parole without adequate cause. Petitioner alleges that the authority’s determination to terminate his parole status was based primarily on (1) evidence obtained through an unconstitutional search and seizure and (2) a confession obtained in violation of People v. Dorado (1965)
Initially we review the facts of the case. On May 12, 1955, petitioner was convicted of violation of section 11500 of the Health and Safety Code (sale of narcotics other than marijuana), sentenced and committed to the state prison. After serving over seven years of his sentence, petitioner was released on parole on June 12, 1962. Then in February 1963 he was arrested and charged with possession of heroin; in October 1963 he was found guilty of the charges and sentenced to state prison.
Following the conviction in October 1963, petitioner’s parole was can-celled on November 15, 1963, and formally revoked on February 13, 1964. The revocation was ostensibly based on three grounds: (1) the October 1963 conviction; (2) driving a motor vehicle without the knowledge or consent of his parole agent or the Division of Parole, and (3) using alcoholic beverages to excess.
The following year, on March 11, 1965, the Court of Appeal, Second District, reversed petitioner’s 1963 conviction, concluding that evidence introduced at trial was obtained pursuant to an unconstitutional search
When petitioner’s application for parole next came before the Adult
The circumstances of the present case are comparable to those addressed by this court in In re Brown (1967)
Although the February 1964 parole revocation order in the instant case is identical to the one before the court in Brown in that it grounds revocation primarily on a conviction which has subsequently been found invalid, we agree with the People’s contention that the proceedings in the Adult Authority after the appellate reversal of the defendant’s 1963 conviction must properly be viewed as “further inquiry” into the subject matter of the conviction as approved in Brown and thus must be considered by this court. In its subsequent proceeding the authority sustained “continuance of incarceration based on parole behavior and not on 1963 commitment.” Upon a complete reading of the authority’s records we believe that, although the authority predicated its decision on “parole behavior” rather than on the conviction, the authority considered the illegally obtained
We are required to face these issues directly in this case, only because we find, from the facts as related in the prior judicial decision (People v. Martinez, supra,
Since we do not adjudicate a search of a parolee initiated by a parole agent in connection with duties of parole administration, we need not decide under what circumstances, if any, such a search may be “reasonable” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment even without a full showing of probable cause.
In addition, the defendant’s parole status, of course, did not permit the police to interrogate the defendant in connection with the suspected criminal activity without first apprising him of his constitutional rights. The strictures of Dorado apply whenever the police initiate custodial interrogation in connection with their investigation of a new criminal matter; indeed, in Dorado itself, the defendant was an incarcerated prisoner, who had allegedly committed a crime within the prison and who was interrogated by prison officials. (62 Cal.2d at pp. 342-344.) The Fifth Amendment rights of parolees equally demand these protections. (See In re Brown, supra,
We therefore must now turn to the difficult problems presented by the Adult Authority’s consideration of this evidence. In resolving these questions we look initially to the test, articulated by our court in People v. Moore (1968)
1. One purpose of both the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule and the Dorado-Miranda exclusionary rule is the deterrence of illegal governmental conduct.
As we recognized in Moore, “[t]he basic purpose of the [Fourth Amendment] exclusionary rule is to deter unconstitutional methods of law enforcement. (Elkins v. United States,
The decision of this court in Dorado, and subsequently the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Miranda v. Arizona (1966)
As we stated explicitly in In re Lopez (1965)
2. The critical responsibilities of the administration of the parole system require that the Adult Authority generally be permitted to consider all relevant evidence.
Although we recognize that theoretically the exclusion of the products of illegal searches and interrogations from Adult Authority proceedings would supplement the deterrent force of the criminal trial exclusionary rules, we must also consider the unique nature and responsibilities of the Adult Authority and the extremely high costs which the expanded application of the exclusionary rule would entail in this context. Our desire to preserve legalistic symmetry cannot obscure the necessity of examining the practical merits of the underlying competing societal interests actually at stake. We must be ever-cautious of becoming “so overly concerned with ‘the internal perfecting of [the law’s] own categories’ as to forget the goals of the [judicial] enterprise.” (See Cox, Chief Justice Earl Warren (1969) 83 Harv.L.Rev. 1, 2.)
We believe, at this time, that the incremental deterrent effect that will realistically be achieved by shielding the Adult Authority from illegally procured evidence is slight; the bungling police officer is not likely to be halted by the thought that his unlawful conduct will prevent the termination
On the other hand, the social consequences of imposing the exclusionary rule upon the authority can be disastrous. Conceivably, if the improperly obtained evidence were the sole basis for parole revocation, the authority might find itself unable to act in the case of the paroled murderer whom the police improperly discovered had cached a minor armory for future use or the paroled narcotics peddler who had collected a quantity of heroin for future sale. Although we recognize, of course, that such evidence would not be admissible in a court of law, we believe that an agency whose delicate duty is to decide when a convicted offender can be safely allowed to return to and remain in society is in a different posture than the court which decides his original guilt. To blind the authority to relevant facts in this special context is to incur a risk of danger to the public which, at least as of this date, outweighs the competing considerations of a problematical gain in deterrence. We thus conclude that at this time the general Fourth Amendment and Dorado exclusionary rules are not applicable to Adult Authority proceedings.
In holding that the Adult Authority could properly consider the illegally obtained evidence in this case, we specifically note that we are not faced with a situation in which it has been alleged that the circumstances surrounding the interrogation are of a nature to render the confession “involuntary” or “coerced” (see, e.g., Brooks v. Florida (1967)
In declining to apply the exclusionary rules to Adult Authority proceedings, we do not, of course, intimate that these exclusionary rules are not applicable to other administrative proceedings. (See Knoll Associates, Inc. v. Federal Trade Com. (7th Cir. 1968)
We thus conclude that in the instant case the Adult Authority could properly consider all the evidence before it and its decision to reaffirm
The writ is denied.
Traynor, C. J., McComb, J., Mosk, J., Burke, J., and Sullivan, J., concurred.
Notes
The Court of Appeal found that police officers, after arresting defendant in a car outside his home, had conducted a full search of his home without a search warrant. It concluded on the authority of People v. Cruz (1964)
In our original opinion in Brown we included a sentence which read: “The Authority should not, however, use defendant’s confession for any purpose foreclosed to the courts.” (
When the Adult Authority acts to suspend or to revoke a parolee’s parole status, it must issue a formal order designating the grounds for revocation. (Pen. Code, § 3063.) The authority apparently does not normally prepare such an order, designating the grounds for its decision, when it denies a parolee’s initial request for release on parole. An order incorporating the grounds for the authority’s decision should be prepared, however, whenever, as in the instant case, the authority reconsiders a previous parole revocation after one of its initial grounds for revocation is invalidated. This formal order is necessary to facilitate judicial review of the authority’s subsequent determination on the issue of revocation.
Although the authority did not prepare a formal, written statement in the instant case, and the precise nature of the “parole conduct” referred to in the informal record of the authority’s 1965 hearing is not clear, the state has conceded that the authority relied at least in part on acts of the defendant evidenced by the illegally obtained matter. We proceed to analyze the authority’s determination on the basis of the state’s concession.
The Court of Appeal’s opinion does not mention defendant’s parole status. From its discussion of the facts, however, it made clear that the officers were not aware of defendant’s status, but were merely performing their normal investigatory activities. The People do not suggest otherwise.
People v. Goss (1961)
Searches by parole officers pursuant to their duties, just as other administrative searches (see Camara v. Municipal Court (1967)
In Johnson v. New Jersey, supra,
Compare Rochin v. California, supra,
We must note that in reaching our decision we do not rely on the fact that strict rules of evidence may not be applicable because of the informal, administrative nature of the Adult Authority proceedings. (Cf. Robinson v. Cox (1966)
Dissenting Opinion
I dissent.
The majority hold that evidence concededly obtained in violation of the constitutinonal protection to which a parolee continues to be entitled may properly be considered by the Adult Authority “in exercising its broad authority over the parole system and parolees, . . .” In reaching their conclusion, the majority purport to apply the following test: “In determining the applicability of the Fourth Amendment and the DoradoMiranda exclusionary rules to Adult Authority proceedings we examine both the policies underlying the rules and the purposes and nature of the proceeding.”
Although I agree with the basic test set out by the majority, I am of the opinion that the majority have reached an incorrect result by failing to examine adequately the opposing interests involved. In the first place, they assert without any analysis their belief that the incremental deterrence of police misconduct to be reaped from an application of the exclusionary rule to Adult Authority proceedings would be “slight.” Second, they fail even to mention a second purpose served by the exclusionary rule—to uphold the integrity of our system of government. On the other hand, in discussing the “social consequences” of applying the exclusionary rule to Adult Authority proceedings, the majority mention no “consequences” that are unique to such proceedings and that distinguish them from court proceedings; instead, they merely state their belief that the authority is “in a different posture” than the courts.
Contrary to the majority, I believe that to hold unconstitutionally obtained evidence admissible in Adult Authority proceedings will furnish an incentive to government officials to violate the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments, especially when the subject of their investigation is a parolee.
As this court stated in People v. Moore,
Conversely, once law enforcement officials are permitted to profit in any conceivable way as a direct result of unconstitutional methods of law enforcement it is to be anticipated that they will have an incentive to engage in such methods in the hope of uncovering some evidence from which they may profit. The officials ordinarily suffer no penalty for their unlawful conduct. (See, e.g., Mapp v. Ohio (1961)
Because the laudable purpose of the exclusionary rule—to deter unconstitutional methods of law enforcement—can only be served by denying the government any and all profit from such methods, any exception to the rule eliminates the deterrent effect of the rule and encourages law enforcement officials to engage in the unlawful conduct. When those officials have nothing to lose and something to gain by such conduct, the deterrent effect of the rule is largely if not entirely destroyed. Under today’s majority decision, a law enforcement official is encouraged to engage in unconstitutional law enforcement methods in the hope that the evidence thereby secured may be profitably used should it subsequently appear that the victim of such conduct was a parolee.
Not only does the majority opinion jeopardize the constitutional rights of citizenry in general, it completely emasculates those limited constitutional rights to which it concedes parolees are entitled. Investigations of parole violations and new criminal offenses are very often cooperative efforts; police and parole officers frequently work together to reimprison the parolee suspected of criminal activity. When the cost of prosecution in terms of time and money is considered too high, and when the parolee still has a considerable time to serve on his original sentence, the People will often forego a new criminal trial and instead will look to the parole revocation to serve the ends of a new conviction.
Moreover, the majority state merely that “[o]ne purpose of both the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule and the Dorado-Miranda exclusionary rule is the deterrence of illegal governmental conduct.” (Italics deleted in part.) They fail completely to mention another purpose of the exclusionary rule that also would be served by withdrawing illegally obtained evidence from the proper consideration of the Adult Authority—“the imperative of judicial integrity.” (Elkins v. United States (1960)
Reliance on fruits of illegal government action is as destructive of the appearance of justice and as likely to lead to the miseducation of the
On the other hand, the majority fail to mention any “social consequences” of applying the exclusionary rule to Adult Authority proceedings that are not equally a result of applying the rule to court proceedings. In either case, the result will sometimes be that the government will be unable to act against criminals—even dangerous criminals. This would be true in Adult Authority proceedings when the illegally obtained evidence is the sole basis for parole revocation just as it is now true in court proceedings when the illegally obtained evidence is the sole basis for conviction. The United States Supreme Court and this court were both well aware that the application of the exclusionary rule to court proceedings would sometimes result in the freeing of criminals who would otherwise be incarcerated. (See, e.g., Mapp v. Ohio, supra,
Recognition of the basic rationales underlying the exclusionary rule has led many courts to hold the rule applicable in noncriminal proceedings. In addition to our decision involving narcotic commitment proceedings in People v. Moore, supra,
Although the Supreme Court has not yet addressed the question of the rule’s application to administrative proceedings, the genre encompassing Adult Authority interviews, several courts, state and federal, have recently concluded that the purposes of the rule dictate that it be given effect in such proceedings. (Knoll Associates, Inc. v. Federal Trade Com. (7th Cir. 1968)
Judge Breitel’s reasoning in Leogrande v. State Liquor Authority, supra, 25 App.Div.2d 225, 231-232 [
I recognize that many of the constitutional criminal protections available to defendants at trial, or even at noncriminal narcotic commitment proceedings, have in the past been held not constitutionally required in parole revocation proceedings. (See, e.g., In re McLain,
In sum, the “social consequences” of applying the exclusionary rule to Adult Authority proceedings are no different from the “social consequences” of applying the exclusionary rule to court proceedings. More important, the result of the majority’s holding that the exclusionary rule does not apply to Adult Authority proceedings is that the constitutional rights of the general citizenry will be jeopardized and that a parolee’s limited constitutional rights—to which even the majority readily concede he is entitled—will be held only at the whim of the police.
The People maintain that the Adult Authority had before it other evidence,- untainted by the illegal police conduct, implicating petitioner in the 1963 criminal activity, and thus that there are grounds to sustain the parole revocation even if the illegally obtained evidence should have been excluded. It is unclear from the meagre Adult Authority records, however, what the authority relied on in finding the petitioner guilty of errant “parole behavior.” Given this ambiguity, the proper disposition of the case would be a remand to the authority to consider whether revocation was justifiable absent the illegally obtained evidence.
The California Adult Authority’s Statement of Policy Concerning Cooperation With Law Enforcement Regarding Revocation of Parole for New Offenses Without Prosecution (Nov. 1, 1957) declares: “Whenever a parolee comes to the attention of law enforcement for a new offense, the parole agents, under established policy, are instructed to cooperate fully with investigating and prosecuting agencies. . . . [¶] Experience reveals that prosecution usually follows where evidence is sufficient to establish guilt. However, there are .a number of exceptions involving cases in which prosecution agencies have indicated that the time, trouble and expense of prosecution
Leogrande cannot be distinguished from the instant case on the grounds that there is no forfeiture because the parolee has no right to his parole status. The dissent in Leogrande emphasized the “privilege” nature of a liquor license but was unable to persuade the majority that the label of “privilege” had any substantive effect. The trend of the developing case law is to deny any distinction flowing from the “right-privilege” terminology. (See Van Alstyne, The Demise of the Right-Privilege Distinction in Constitutional Law (1968) 81 Harv.L.Rev. 1439; Note, Constitutional Law: Parole Status and the Privilege Concept, 1969 Duke L.J. 139.)
