State v. MatthieuState v. Matthieu
Lee Gallaspy, Lafayette, for respondent.
COLE, Justice.
This is a second degree murder prosecution in which the defendant, Randolph Matthieu, moved to suppress evidence obtained during a search of his residence. The trial court granted defendant‘s motion, and the Court of Appeal denied writs finding no error in the ruling. The primary issue is whether or not the murder weapon seized at defendant‘s residence, pursuant to a search warrant, should be suppressed on grounds his residence is located outside the territorial jurisdiction of the court which issued the warrant.
The victim, Norris Foreman, was last seen leaving the C‘est La Guerre Lounge in Lafayette in the company of another man, on August 8, 1982. Two days later, Foreman‘s body was found floating face down in a drainage canal. He had been stabbed, shot several times with a .22 caliber weapon, and his throat had been cut.
Nine months later, on May 14, 1983, Randolph Matthieu entered the C‘est La Guerre Lounge and was recognized as the person who had left the lounge with Foreman on the night he was killed. The Lafayette City Police were notified and the defendant was questioned. However, because the defendant declined to answer any questions about the murder without consulting an attorney, questioning was terminated and the officers allowed him to leave. On May 16, 1983, Detective Robert Johnson obtained a warrant for defendant‘s arrest for the murder of Norris Foreman. On the same day, the detective also applied for and obtained a warrant to search defendant‘s home in Arnaudville, Louisiana. Both warrants were signed by a district court judge in Lafayette Parish, of the 15th Judicial District. This district is comprised of Acadia, Lafayette, and Vermillion Parishes. The warrants were executed the same day. In the search of defendant‘s residence a .22 caliber rifle was found, which testing later demonstrated to be the murder weapon. After defendant‘s arrest at his residence, he was booked first into the jail in St. Martinville, in St. Martin Parish, and was then transferred to the jail in the city of Lafayette. Defendant was subsequently indicted for second degree murder.
Defendant sought exclusion of the seized evidence on two grounds. He argued the search warrant was facially defective because it purported to authorize a search at an address which did not lie within the territorial jurisdiction of the issuing court.
The hearing on the motion to suppress was delayed approximately three years. During this time defendant was at large as a fugitive, after obtaining an ex parte order permitting him to leave the state. Following his apprehension and return to Louisiana, a hearing was held September 9, 1986. The trial court ultimately granted relief on the ground the police knowingly executed the warrant outside the jurisdiction of the issuing court. There was no specific ruling on defendant‘s second ground pertaining to the existence of probable cause, and we do not consider that issue.
The State conceded at the hearing defendant‘s home was located in St. Martin Parish, and the trial court found as a matter of fact the property was located 100 to 150 yards outside of Lafayette Parish on a rural route. Thus, the search was conducted outside the jurisdiction of the issuing court and was violative of
The next day, however, on September 10, 1986, events occurred which caused the court to reassess its ruling. On this day the State advised the trial court of conflicting facts contained in the contemporaneous police reports, which indicated the testimony of the previous day was inaccurate. The court conducted an in camera examination of the police reports which, according to the court, showed defendant was arrested at 10:47 A.M. on May 16. The reports also showed he was booked into the St. Martin Parish jail at 12:05 that same day, and the search was conducted shortly after 3:00 P.M. Because the arresting officer, Detective Dale Broussard,1 had testified defendant told him they were in St. Martin Parish as defendant was being handcuffed, the court apparently determined the arrest marked the last point in time at which police could reasonably possess a good faith belief they were still within the jurisdiction of the court which authorized the search. The court imputed the knowledge of Detective Broussard to Detective Johnson who was the primary officer on the case and who directed the search.2 With such imputed knowledge, the objective good faith standard which was the touchstone of Leon was no longer applicable. As a result, the court changed its ruling of the previous day and granted the motion to suppress.
The State in brief relies on three main arguments. It first contends the search warrant complied completely with
We find no constitutional violation occurred as a result of the search taking place outside the territorial jurisdiction of the court issuing the warrant, and we find the police were not guilty of ill practices or misconduct. We therefore reverse the judgment of the lower court. It is unnecessary to address the State‘s final argument pertaining to the doctrine of inevitable discovery.
A search warrant may issue only upon an affidavit containing sufficient facts to establish probable cause exists to search the premises named for the object sought. This must be established to the satisfaction of a neutral and detached magistrate.
The
In Leon, the Supreme Court held evidence seized under a constitutionally defective warrant should not be suppressed where the officers acted in good faith, and in objectively reasonable reliance on the validity of the warrant. In Leon, the warrant was defective because it was not supported by the requisite probable cause. The Court in Leon noted early cases such as Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961), had stated the exclusionary rule is a necessary corollary of the Fourth Amendment, but subsequent cases rejected this view. Leon went on to say whether the sanction of exclusion is appropriately imposed in a particular case is a question which “must be resolved by weighing the costs and benefits of preventing the use of ... inherently trustworthy tangible evidence....” Leon, 104 S.Ct. at 3412.
The Supreme Court in Leon required objective reasonableness to avoid suppression where the Fourth Amendment had been violated. No such violation occurred in the case under consideration. Consequently, we believe a less stringent standard is appropriate where we are not concerned with deterring unconstitutional conduct. Our law, both statutorily and jurisprudentially, stresses the importance of constitutional violations in cases involving the exclusionary rule.
La.C.Cr.P. Art. 703 permits suppression only of evidence obtained “by an unconstitutional search or seizure“. It was not intended to permit suppression of evidence seized by a warrant “illegal” merely because technically contrary to law, unless the seizure is violative of fundamental due process concepts.
We are not persuaded the evidence here was obtained by an unconstitutional search. Rather, the search here was violative of a procedural rule,
In United States v. Payner, 447 U.S. 727, 100 S.Ct. 2439, 2446 n. 7, 65 L.Ed.2d 468 (1980), the Court stated Federal courts have used their supervisory power in some situations to exclude evidence taken from the defendant by “willful disobedience of law.” Similarly, Justice Marshall‘s dissenting opinion in Payner, joined in by Justices Brennan and Blackmun, observes:
In large part when supervisory powers have been invoked the Court has been faced with intentional illegal conduct. It has not been the case that ‘[t]he criminal is to go free because the constable has blundered,’ People v. Defore, 242 N.Y. 13, 21, 150 N.E. 585, 587 (1926). In these cases there has been no ‘blunder’ by the Government agent at all; rather, the agent has intentionally violated the law for the explicit purpose of obtaining the evidence in question. Payner, 100 S.Ct. at 2451-52.
Here, by contrast, we are being asked to let “the criminal go free,” not due to a knowing or intentional violation of law by the police, but merely because they “blundered” in the very sense spoken of above. The law enforcement officers in this case made an honest error of judgment when they executed the warrant outside the boundary lines of Lafayette Parish. Given the primary purpose behind the exclusionary rule, suppression is not a proper sanction under these circumstances.
We find support for our holding in the recent case of U.S. v. Comstock, 805 F.2d 1194 (5th Cir.1986), where defendant contended the controlled substances seized must be suppressed because the state court search warrant was issued by a Texas justice of the peace, which is not a judge of “a state court of record” as required by
In evaluating the costs and benefits of suppressing the evidence obtained by the search, the Comstock court stated:
... suppression is not warranted. A trial is, after all, primarily a search for the truth, and society has a strong interest in the conviction of these who have broken its criminal laws. Deterrence of official illegality, and preserving judicial integrity, are also important considerations. But here each weighs much less heavily as the violation is neither of constitutional dimensions nor intentional.... While our holding may “put a premium” on ignorance, we think that realistically any such premium is very small in this character of case, considering especially that we do not countenance conscious indifference or reckless disregard; the costs of suppression, in our view, weigh more heavily in the scales.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
DENNIS, J., concurs with reasons.
DENNIS, Justice, concurring.
I respectfully concur.
Neither the Louisiana Constitution,