Thе defendant, Heather Cline, was convicted of possession of a controlled substance in violation of Iowa Code section 124.401(5) (1997). She appeals, contending the district court erred in overruling her motion to suppress evidence obtained in a search of her person. We conclude that the challenged search violated the defendant’s constitutional rights under the search-and-seizure clause of the Iowa Constitution. We also hold that the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule does not apply under Iowa law. Accordingly, we reverse and remand.
*279 I. Background Facts and Proceedings.
Cline’s conviction arises from the stop of her vehicle by Des Moines police officers who were investigating reports of suspected drug activity in the vicinity. After Cline’s vehicle was stopped, a police officer searched her person and recovered a small bindle of methamphetamine from her jeans pocket. Cline was arrested and charged with possession of a cоntrolled substance. See Iowa Code § 124.401(5).
Prior to trial, Cline filed a motion to suppress the evidence found in the search of her pocket, alleging the search violated the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution. The court held a hearing on Cline’s motion and the two officers involved in the incident testified.
The officers testified to the following facts. On October 25, 1998, two different neighbors in the vicinity of 1511 13th Street, in Des Moines, called the Des Moines police department to complain about ongoing drug activity at that address. The house located on the property was uninhabitable, having previously been damaged in a fire. In addition, two weeks prior to Cline’s arrest, the police had discovered a meth lab inside the burned out building.
Two police officers responded to the neighbors’ complaints about 8:00 p.m. (The record does not reveal how much time had elapsed since the police had received the neighbors’ calls.) As the officers apprоached the property on foot, they heard a vehicle start. Officer Holly Glenn assumed someone was trying to leave the scene, so she ran around the house to the alleyway adjoining the premises in the back. (The other officer was delayed in reaching the back of the house by a large, barking dog.) Glenn saw Cline’s van backing out from the rear of the property without its lights on. Glenn ran after the van and successfully stopped it in the alleyway. She then ordered Cline out of the vehicle, handcuffed Cline, “patted [her] down and searched her.” During the search, Glenn found a bindle of methamphetamine in the pocket of the jeans Cline was wearing.
Glenn testified at the suppression hearing that she stopped Cline’s van “[t]o investigate what was going on at the house” and because Cline did not have the van’s headlights turned on. With respect to the search, Glenn testified that “[i]t was basically a search incident to citation.” She later supplemented this reasoning, however, stating that “we knew we had traffic charges on the vehicle, and she just left a drug house. I wasn’t sure what she had on her, what was going on, so I did a search and a pat-down.” Glenn testified on cross-examination that she was suspicious and wanted to know what Cline had on her.
In the trial court, Cline argued that the officer’s justification for the search — the traffic violation — was constitutionally insufficient because the United States Supreme Court has held that a search incident to citation is not permitted under the Fourth Amendment.
See Knowles v. Iowa,
In response, the State acknowledged that one reason the officer searched Cline was based upon the fact that the police intended to issue a citation to Cline. The
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State pointed out, however, that the United States Supreme Court’s decision in
Knowles,
holding such searches illegal, was issued after the search of Cline. The State also asserted that the search was justified as necessary for the officer’s safety, citing
Terry v. Ohio,
The district court ’overruled Cline’s motion to suppress, concluding that the surrounding circumstances made the officer’s stop and search valid. In a later ruling on the defendant’s motion to reconsider, the district court specifically ruled that the search was legal under Terry.
Cline was subsequently found guilty in a bench trial on stipulated minutes of testimony. Aftеr sentencing, she filed this appeal, challenging only the district court’s ruling on her suppression motion.
II. Scope of Review.
We review constitutional claims de novo.
See State v. Seager,
III. Issues on Appeal.
A. Issues raised by the defendant. On appeal, the defendant continues to argue the challenged evidence must be suppressed because the officer justified the search as one incident to citation and, under Knowles, this reason is not constitutionally valid. Cline also contends that the district court’s ruling on her motion to reconsider was in error because the search cannot be upheld as a valid Terry pat down. The State makes no response to these contentions in its brief, apparently waiving any argument that the search could be justified under Terry or as one incident to citation. 1 See Iowa R.App. P. 14(a)(3) (“Failure in the brief to state, to argue or to cite authority in support of an issue may be deemed waiver of that issue.”).
B. Issues raised by the State. Turning now to the issues addressed by the Stаte in its brief, we identify two: (1) the officer had probable cause to believe that evidence of a crime would be found on Cline coupled with exigent circumstances; and (2) to the extent the officer relied on the traffic stop to justify the search, the.officer’s search was made in objective good faith, thereby avoiding application of the exclusionary rule.
The defendant appears to dismiss the State’s probable cause argument on the ground that the officer did not justify the search on the basis of probable cause. The defendant’s focus on the officer’s stated reasons for conducting the search is misplaced. The constitutional reasonableness of a search or seizure is
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determined by an objective standard.
See State v. Jones,
We will now discuss the issues raised by the State: (1) the existence of probable cause; and (2) the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule. Although the district court did not rule on the applicability of the good faith exception because its ruling that the search was constitutional made it unnecessary to consider whether the evidence should be excluded, this court may still decide the issue on appeal where it was raised in the district court.
See Chauffeurs, Teamsters & Helpers, Local Union No. 238 v. Iowa Civil Rights Comm’n,
IV. Probable Cause.
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution protect persons from unreasonable searches and seizures.
2
See
U.S. Const, amend. IV; Iowa Const, art. I, § 8. The Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable searches is applicable to the states via the Fourteenth Amendment.
See Mapp v. Ohio,
A warrantless search, such as the one in this case, is per se unreasonable unless it falls within a recognized exception.
See Cadotte,
In the context of a warrantless search, probable cause exists “when a reasonably prudent person would believe that evidence of a crime will be discovered in the place to be searched.”
State v. Moriarty,
A recent United States Supreme Court case is enlightening with respect to the distinction between mere suspicion and probable cause. In
Illinois v. Wardlow,
The Court first noted that “[a]n individual’s presence in an area of expected criminal activity, standing alone, is not enough to support a reasonable, particularized suspicion that the person is committing a crime.”
Id.
at-,
The case upon which the State relies to support its contention that probable cause existed,
State v. Bumpus,
When we compare the facts of the present case to Wardlow and Bumpus, we conclude that the present case is virtually indistinguishable from Wardlow. The premises where the defendant was spotted was known to police to be a site for illegal drug activity. In addition, when the officers arrived, the defendant tried to leave the scene without being detected. However, the additional facts present in Bum-pus —that the defendant was seen in some sort of transaction with others and tried to conceal something from the police — were not present in Wardlow and are not present here. We hold, therefore, that, as in Wardlow, Cline’s presence in an area of drug dealing and her flight from police gave rise to a reasonable suspicion that the defendant may be involved in illegal activity, but these facts do not rise to the level of probable cause to believe that the defendant has actually committed a crime. Consequently, the search of Cline’s person cannot be justified on the basis of probable cause. Therefore, the search violated the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and article 1, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution.
V. The Federal Exclusionary Rule and its Good Faith Exception.
The State claims that, even if the search was unconstitutional, the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule, recognized in Leon and Krull, applies here to avoid suppression of the evidence found on Cline. We need not decide, however, whether the good faith exception applicable to Fourth Amendment claims would preclude reliance on the exclusionary rule under the facts of this case because we decline to adopt a good faith exception to Iowa’s exclusionary rule under the Iowa Constitution. We set the stage for our analysis with a brief review of the development of the exclusionary rule under federal law.
The United States Supreme Court adopted the exclusionary rule in
Weeks v. United States,
If letters and рrivate documents can thus be seized and held and used in evidence against a citizen accused of an offense, the protection of the 4th Amendment, declaring his right to be secure against such searches and seizures, is of no value, and, so far as those thus placed are concerned, might as well be stricken from the Constitution. The efforts of the courts and their officials to bring the guilty to punishment, praiseworthy as they are, are not to be aided by the sacrifice of those great principles established by years of endeavor and suffering which have resulted in their embodiment in the fundamental law of the land.... To sanction such proceedings would be to affirm by judicial decision a manifest neglect, if not an open defiance, of the prohibitions of the Constitution, intended for the protection of the people against such unauthorized action.
gives to the individual no more than that which the Constitution guarantees him, to the police officer no less than that to which honest law enforcement is entitled, and, to the courts, that judicial integrity so necessary in the true administration of justice.
Id.
at 660,
Over time the Court has distanced itself from these early cases. Though not disavowing the exclusionary rule, the Court has stated that the rule operates as “a judicially created remedy designed to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights generally through its deterrent effect, rather than a personal constitutional right of the party aggrieved.”
United States v. Calandra,
The Court applied the good faith exception under different factual circumstances in
Krull.
In that case, the police obtained evidence in a warrantless search authorized by a state statute that was subsequently declared unconstitutional.
Krull,
Unless a statute is clearly unconstitutional, an officer cannot be expected to question the judgment of the legislature that passed the law. If the statute is subsequently declared unconstitutional, excluding evidence obtained pursuant to it prior to such a judicial declaration will not deter future Fourth Amendment violations by an officer who has simply fulfilled his responsibility to enforce the statute as written.
Id.
at 349-50,
At this point in our analysis it is important to consider the effect of these federal cases on our determination of the state constitutional issue. As we have already observed, given the similar wording of the Fourth Amendment and Iowa’s search and seizure clause, these provisions are generally considered to be “identical in scope, import, and purpose.”
State v. Beckett,
In accordance with these general principles, we strive to be consistent with federal constitutional law in our interpretation of the Iowa Constitution, but we “jealously guard our right and duty to differ in appropriate cases.”
Olsen,
VI. State Search and Seizure Clause— Good Faith Exception to the Exclusionary Rule.
Having established that this court is free to reject the good faith exception оf
Leon
and
Krull
under our state constitution, we must assume the task of independently evaluating the compatibility of a good faith exception with the Iowa Constitution’s guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures. We begin our discussion with a review of the scope and meaning of Iowa’s search and seizure clause. We then evaluate the rationale of the federal decisions adopting the good faith exception to determine the soundness of the Court’s analysis, for “[i]f precedent is to have any value it must be based on a convincing rationale.”
James,
A.
Iowa’s search and seizure clause.
The search and seizure provision in the Iowa Constitution protects an individual’s privacy with respect to his person and his home from unwarranted invasion by the government.
See Girard v. Anderson,
An example of this court’s attempts to preserve the spirit of Iowa’s constitutional guarantee is reflected in the fact that Iowa was one of the first states to embrace the exclusionary rule as an integral part of its state constitution’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and, in fact, did so several years before the United States Supreme Court’s decision in
Weeks.
The genesis of Iowa’s exclusionary rule was a civil case,
Reifsnyder v. Lee,
The first application of the exclusionary rule in a criminal context occurred in the
Height
case, decided in 1902.
Height
involved a physical exam of the defendant against his will.
The case that most clearly stands for the proposition that evidence obtained in violation оf Iowa’s search and seizure clause must be excluded is this court’s decision in
Sheridan.
In that case a police officer searched the defendant’s residence pursuant to a warrant issued by a justice of the peace.
Sheridan,
[No case] can be found, we think, where the state has been permitted to obtain a search warrant in confessed violation of law, and thereby take papers or property from the home оf the man suspected of the crime, and use the matter thus procured in securing his conviction. To so hold is to emasculate the constitutional guaranty, and deprive it of all beneficial force or effect in preventing unreasonable searches and seizures.
Id.
at 168,
The exclusionary rule remained part of Iowa constitutional jurisprudence for twenty years until the case of
State v. Tonn,
[i]t seems little less than solemn mockery for us to protest our devotion to the “sacred constitutional right,” or our virtuous purpose to rigidly enforce it, and in the same breath declare our approval of the admission of “evidence without any inquiry as to how that evidence was obtained.”
Id.
at 119,
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Iowa did not again have a state exclusionary rule until compelled to do so by the United States Supreme Court’s decision in
Mapp. See State v. Taylor,
Despite this court’s reluctance to extend the scope of the exclusionary rule to sentencing and probation revocation proceedings, our appellate courts have guarded the rule in its primary context — the criminal prosecution of the defendant. In
Latham v. Sullivan,
This court has also rejected a good faith exception to the exclusionary rule where the warrant authorizing the search did not comply with statutory requirements.
See Beckett,
We employed similar reasoning in
Beckett.
In that case the magistrate issuing
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the warrant had also failed to comply with section 808.3 by failing to make a specific finding that the confidential informant was credible.
Adopting a good faith exception to the statutory requirement would effectively defeat the purpose of the statute because failure to comply with the statute would be of no consequence. In light of the clear purpose of section 808.3, permitting a good faith exception to failure to comply with the statute would be tantamount to judicial repeal of the statute.
Id. at 755.
As this review illustrates, the exclusionary rule in' Iowa has a mixed history, beginning with the bold adoption of the rule in 1902, our subsequеnt abandonment of the rule in the face of overwhelming authority from other states rejecting the rule, our benign acceptance of the rule after Mapp, and finally our recent cases limiting the rule yet preserving its fundamental role in criminal prosecutions. Clearly, a definitive answer to the issue before us is not to be found in Iowa’s case law. Therefore, we now consider, in the context of Iowa law, the soundness of the reasons underlying the good faith exception as explained by the Court in Leon and Krull.
B.
Validity of rationale for good faith exception.
As noted earlier, the United States Supreme Court based its adoption of the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule on the premise that the only purpose of the exclusionary rule was the deterrence of illegal police conduct.
Leon,
1. Purpose of rule. As this brief review of the rationale of the Court’s decisions shows, the validity of the Court’s analysis depends initially on the accuracy оf the Court’s underlying premise that the exclusionary rule’s only purpose is to deter police misconduct and that the rule has no laudatory effect on the actions of the judicial or legislative branches. We disagree with both propositions.
Although more recent Supreme Court decisions, as represented by
Leon,
have narrowed the focus of the exclusionary rule to the deterrence of constitutional violations by law enforcement, the rule was originally justified for the additional reasons that it provided a remedy for the constitutional violation and protected judicial integrity.
See Mapp,
Our conclusion that the exclusionary rule provides a remedy for the constitutional violation finds support in decisions from other states.
E.g., State v. Guzman,
As this court has stated, the exclusionary rule also protects the integrity of the courts.
See Hamilton,
[S]hall this court wink at the unlawful manner in which the government secured the proofs now desired to be used, and condone the wrong done defendants by the ruthless invasion of their constitutional rights, and become a party to *290 the wrongful act by permitting the use of the fruits of such act? Such is not my conception of the sanctity of rights expressly guarаnteed by the Constitution to a citizen.
United States v. Mounday,
Even if we were to accept the Court’s proposition that the exclusionary rule is aimed solely at deterrence, we cannot accept the Court’s limitation on the deterrence function to law enforcement. Common sense tells us that the exclusionary rule prompts more care and attention at all stages of the warrant-issuing process, including by the judicial officers issuing the warrant.
See State v. Marsala,
2.
Consequences of exception.
Not only is the Court’s rationale in support of the good faith exception suspect, it also ignores the grave consequences of the significant limitation imposed on the exclusionary rule by the good faith exception. This limitation dilutes the constitutiоnal right to be protected against unreasonable searches and seizures. The situation before us is clearly analogous to our recent cases rejecting a good faith exception when the illegality of the search resulted from a failure to comply with a statute governing the issuance of warrants.
See Beckett,
Adopting a good faith exception would effectively defeat the purpose of the search and seizure clause. In the future, so long as the police act in good faith, probable cause would not be required for a warrant. As one court has observed, the probable cause standard would be replaced by a standard of “close enough is good enough.”
Marsala,
A second undesirable consequence of the adoption of a good faith exception is that persons subjected to an unconstitutional search or seizure would generally be left with no remedy at all. In our early
Tonn
case, we observed that the exclusionary rule was unnecessary to enforce the constitutional right because other remedies were available. Whatever truth there may have been to this statement when it was made, it is not valid today. There is simply no meaningful remedy available to one who has suffered an illegal search other than prohibiting the State from benefiting from its constitutional violation. A civil remedy would probably be unsuccessful because the good faith that prevents exclusion would also preclude an action for damages.
See Harlow v. Fitzgerald,
Another adverse consequence of the good faith exception is that less guidance will be provided to law enforcement authorities and judicial officers with respect to the parameters of reasonable searches and seizures.
See Guzman,
[I]t is in close fourth amendment cases that new law, is made and guidance to magistrates and the police is most needed. Close cases are both the hardest to decide and the easiest to dispose of under the good faith exception; in such cases the officer’s objective good faith is clearest. Thus, these are the eases that defendants are least likely to litigate and the courts most likely to dispose of without reaching the merits of the fourth amendment claim.
Silas Wasserstrom & William J. Mertens,
The Exclusionary Rule on the Scaffold: But was it a Fair Trial?
22 Am.Crim. L.Rev. 85, 112 (1984). Lest we think this result would not come to pass, we need only look at our own Fourth Amendment cases pre-dating the exclusionary rule. These cases clearly show that, in the absence of possible suppression, the court will avoid deciding the legality of the search itself.
E.g., State v. Smith,
3.
Accuracy of Court’s cost-benefit analysis.
As a final matter, we must express our disagreemеnt with the cost-benefit analysis employed by the Court. As noted earlier, the Court considered the costs of exclusion to be substantial. This conclusion is simply not supported, however, by studies that have attempted to quantify the number of prosecutions adversely affected by the suppression of illegally obtained evidence. According to one authority in this area, “[t]he most careful and balanced assessment conducted to date of all available empirical data shows ‘that the general level of the rule’s effects on criminal prosecutions is marginal at most.’ ” 1 Wayne R. LaFave,
Search and Seizure
§ 1.3(c), at 58 (3d ed.1996) (quoting Thomas Y. Davies,
A Hard Look at What We Know (and Still Need to Learn) About the “Costs” of the Exclusionary Rule: The NIJ Study and Other Studies of “Lost” Arrests,
1983 Am. B. Found. Res. J. 611, 622). Even the Court in
Leon
cited a study discussed in the Davies article that concluded the exclusion of evidence “results in the nonprosecution or nonconviction of between 0.6% and 2.35% of individuals arrested for felonies.”
Leon,
Even more important is the fact that the costs, regardless of their magnitude, are impropеrly attributed to the exclusionary rule. We agree with the following statements made by former Justice Stewart:
Much of the criticism leveled at the exclusionary rule is misdirected; it is more properly directed at the fourth amendment itself. It is true that, as many observers have charged, the effect of the rule is to deprive the courts of extremely relevant, often direct evidence of the guilt of the defendant. But these same critics sometimes fail to acknowledge that, in many instances, the same extremely relevant evidence would not have been obtained had the police officer complied with the commands of the fourth amendment in the first place.
... The exclusionary rule places no limitations on the actions of the police. The fourth amendment does. The inevitable result of the Constitution’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures and its requirement that no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause is that police officers who obey its strictures will catch fewer criminals.... T[hat] is the price the framers anticipated and were willing to pay to ensure the sanctity of the person, home and property against unrestrained governmental power.
Potter Stewart,
The Road to Mapp v. Ohio and Beyond: The Origins, Development and Future of the Exclusionary Rule in Search-and-Seizure Cases,
83 Colum. L.Rev. 1365, 1392-93 (1983);
accord Guzman,
C.
Compatibility of good faith exception with article 1, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution.
One of the fundamental guarantees of the Iowa Constitution is the protection of its citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures. We believe that the only effective way to ensure that this right is more than mere words on paper is to exclude illegally obtained evidence. The reasonableness of a police officer’s belief that the illegal search is lawful does not lessen the constitutional violation. For the reasons we have already discussed, the United States Supreme Court’s rationale justifying the adoption of a good faith exception is neither sound nor persuasive. Therefore, we hold that the good faith exception is incompatible with the
*293
Iowa Constitution.
3
This court will simply not “condone and approve a clear and known violation of a fundamental constitutional right in order to sustain a conviction that we think correct.”
State v. McClelland,
VII. Conclusion and Disposition.
The warrantless search- of the defendant violated the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and article 1, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution because there was no probable cause to justify the search. Although suppression of the evidence obtained in this illegal search may not be required under federal law in view of the good faith exception recognized by the United States Supreme Court, no comparable exception to the exclusionary rule exists in Iowa. Therefore, the exclusionary rule applies and the district court erred in denying the defendant’s motion to suppress the evidence discovered in the search of her person. Accordingly, we reverse the defendant’s conviction and remand for a new trial.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Notes
. The defendant’s positions with respect to the search-incident-to-citation argument and the inapplicability of
Terry
appear to have merit. As we have already noted, the United States Supreme Court- held in the
Knowles
case that a search of the defendant's person could not be justified on the basis that it was made incident to the issuance of a traffic citation to the defendant.
. The Fourth Amendment states:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
U.S. Const, amend. IV. The Iowa Constitution similarly provides:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable seizures and searches shall not be violated; and no warrant shall issue but on probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons and things to be seized.
Iowa Const, art. 1, § 8.
. Iowa is not alone in rejecting the good faith exception under its state constitution. The states of Alaska,
see Blank v. State,
