STATE of Utah, Appellee, v. Zachary RIGBY, Appellant.
No. 20140553-CA
Court of Appeals of Utah
March 3, 2016
2016 UT App 42
¶28 Moreover, Robinson‘s challenges to the summary judgment ruling are unpreserved. Although a pro se litigant should be accorded every consideration that may reasonably be indulged, we will ultimately hold him to the same standard of knowledge and practice as any qualified member of the bar. Allen v. Friel, 2008 UT 56, ¶ 11, 194 P.3d 903; see also Golden Meadows Props., LC v. Strand, 2010 UT App 257, ¶ 3 & n. 2, 241 P.3d 375 (according the pro se litigant several indulgences such as overlooking the fact that the briefs “lack[ed] focus and coherence and [were] littered with unsupported factual allegations“). “The preservation requirement is based on the premise that, in the interest of orderly procedure, the trial court ought to be given an opportunity to address a claimed error and, if appropriate, correct it.” Wohnoutka v. Kelley, 2014 UT App 154, ¶ 3, 330 P.3d 762 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “Consequently, issues that are not raised at trial are usually deemed waived.” Id. (brackets, citation, and internal quotation marks omitted). Due in part to his failure to timely respond to the motion for summary judgment, Robinson did not present to the district court the arguments he now raises on appeal. Because Robinson did not present his claims of error to the district court in such a way that the court could rule on them, they are not preserved. Because the challenges are unpreserved, we deem them waived. Id.
CONCLUSION
¶29 We affirm both the district court‘s denial of Robinson‘s rule 56(f) motion and the district court‘s grant of Defendants’ motion for summary judgment.
Brandon J. Smith, for Appellant.
James Swink and Aaron M. Jossie, for Appellee.
Judge STEPHEN L. ROTH authored this Opinion, in which Judge GREGORY K. ORME and Senior Judge JAMES Z. DAVIS concurred.1
ROTH, Judge:
¶1 Zachary Rigby appeals his conviction for driving with a measurable controlled substance in the body and possession or use of a controlled substance, both class B misdemeanors. Rigby challenges the trial court‘s denial of his motion to suppress evidence that the police found during a warrantless search of his vehicle. Rigby contends that the Utah Constitution provides its citizens greater protection against unreasonable searches than the United States Constitution because Utah courts have required police officers to have both probable cause and exigent circumstances when performing a warrantless search under the automobile exception. He concedes the officers had probable cause to search his automobile following the traffic stop but asserts that they violated his constitutional rights by conducting the search without a warrant in the absence of exigent circumstances. Because we are reluctant to diverge from our supreme court‘s historical pattern of paralleling federal search and seizure law, we conclude that law enforcement officers were only required to have probable cause to justify the search of Rigby‘s vehicle under the automobile exception to the warrant requirement. Accordingly, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
¶2 Ordinarily, “[w]e recite the facts in the light most favorable to the trial court‘s findings from the suppression hearing.” State v. Giron, 943 P.2d 1114, 1115 (Utah Ct.App.1997) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); see also State v. Patefield, 927 P.2d 655, 656 (Utah Ct.App.1996). But for purposes of Rigby‘s motion to suppress and, by extension, this appeal, both parties have stipulated to the facts as presented in the original police report. “A stipulation of fact filed with and accepted by a court ... is conclusive of all matters necessarily included in the stipulation.” Yeargin, Inc. v. Auditing Div. of Utah State Tax Comm‘n, 2001 UT 11, ¶ 20, 20 P.3d 287 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); see also Prinsburg State Bank v. Abundo, 2012 UT 94, ¶ 14, 296 P.3d 709 (“[W]hen a court adopts a stipulation of the parties, the issues to which the parties have stipulated become settled....” (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)). Therefore, we recite the facts in accordance with the parties’ stipulation.
¶3 On March 28, 2013, a police officer pulled Rigby‘s automobile over for a stop sign violation. Upon approaching the vehi
¶4 Rigby filed a motion to suppress “[a]ll evidence seized and any statement obtained” “as a result of the unlawful searches” conducted “in violation of the Utah Constitution.” At the evidentiary hearing on Rigby‘s motion, he conceded that the “odor of marijuana was sufficient” to establish probable cause but argued that exigent circumstances were also “required in order to justify a warrantless search” under the automobile exception. The trial court denied Rigby‘s motion to suppress, finding that “the search was reasonable under the circumstances and such evidence was lawfully obtained under the automobile exception to the warrant requirement.”
¶5 Rigby subsequently pled guilty to one count of driving with a measurable controlled substance in the body, see
ISSUE AND STANDARD OF REVIEW
¶6 On appeal, Rigby argues that although the United States Constitution and the Utah Constitution contain nearly identically phrased protections against unreasonable searches, the Utah Constitution provides greater protection to its citizens by requiring law enforcement officers to have both probable cause and exigent circumstances before conducting a warrantless search under the automobile exception to the warrant requirement, even though the United States Supreme Court has held that under the federal constitution the automobile exception requires only probable cause. “Matters of constitutional interpretation are questions of law that we review for correctness, and we provide no deference to the district court‘s legal conclusions.” State v. Gonzalez-Camargo, 2012 UT App 366, ¶ 15, 293 P.3d 1121 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); see also Menzies v. State, 2014 UT 40, ¶ 27, 344 P.3d 581 (“Constitutional issues ... are questions of law that we review for correctness....” (first omission in original) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)).
ANALYSIS
¶7 Both the United States Constitution and the Utah Constitution contain nearly identical provisions safeguarding an individual‘s right against unreasonable searches and seizures.3 Both protect “[t]he right of the
I. The Automobile Exception to the Warrant Requirement
¶8 Because warrantless searches are “per se unreasonable,” Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967), “[p]olice officers generally need a warrant to search a place in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy,” State v. Boyles, 2015 UT App 185, ¶ 10, 356 P.3d 687 (citing Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 164, 98 S.Ct. 2674, 57 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978)); see also id. at 164 (noting that “[b]efore issuing a search warrant, a magistrate must determine that probable cause exists to conduct the search“). “There are, of course, exceptions to the general rule ... one [of which] is the so-called ‘automobile exception‘....” California v. Carney, 471 U.S. 386, 390, 105 S.Ct. 2066, 85 L.Ed.2d 406 (1985). Historically, under the automobile exception, police were permitted to search an automobile without a warrant so long as both probable cause and exigent circumstances existed. See, e.g., Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 48-51, 90 S.Ct. 1975, 26 L.Ed.2d 419 (1970); State v. Limb, 581 P.2d 142, 144 (Utah 1978).
A. The Automobile Exception Under Federal Case Law
¶9 In 1925, the United States Supreme Court decided Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925), the seminal case addressing the automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment‘s warrant requirement. In Carroll, the Court determined that while an individual has a constitutionally protected privacy interest in an automobile, the degree of protection is lessened “because the vehicle can be quickly moved out of the locality or jurisdiction in which the warrant must be sought.” Id. at 153. This mobility principle has continued to be a factor in the Supreme Court‘s approach to automobile search cases since Carroll. See, e.g., Labron, 518 U.S. at 940; New York v. Class, 475 U.S. 106, 112-13, 106 S.Ct. 960, 89 L.Ed.2d 81 (1986); Carney, 471 U.S. at 392-93; South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 367, 96 S.Ct. 3092, 49 L.Ed.2d 1000 (1976); Cardwell v. Lewis, 417 U.S. 583, 588-89, 94 S.Ct. 2464, 41 L.Ed.2d 325 (1974); Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 441-42, 93 S.Ct. 2523, 37 L.Ed.2d 706 (1973); Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 459-60, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971); Chambers, 399 U.S. at 52; Cooper v. California, 386 U.S. 58, 59, 87 S.Ct. 788, 17 L.Ed.2d 730 (1967).
¶10 The Court has recognized, however, that “ready mobility is not the only basis for the [automobile] exception.” Carney, 471
¶11 Historically, the automobile exception has required two circumstances. First, there must be probable cause for a search. See Chambers, 399 U.S. at 48 (“[A]utomobiles may be searched without a warrant in circumstances that would not justify the search without a warrant of a house or an office, provided that there is probable cause....“). And second, there must be exigent circumstances. See id. at 50-51 (“But the circumstances that furnish probable cause to search a particular auto for particular articles are most often unforeseeable; moreover, the opportunity to search is fleeting since a car is readily movable.... Only in exigent circumstances will the judgment of the police as to probable cause serve as a sufficient authorization for a search.“). The required exigency was usually found to inhere in a factor fundamental to the exception itself, i.e., the characteristic mobility of an automobile. See, e.g., Acevedo, 500 U.S. at 569 (citing Carroll, 267 U.S. at 158-59) (stating that “a warrantless search of an automobile, based upon probable cause to believe that the vehicle contained evidence of crime in light of an exigency arising out of the likely disappearance of the vehicle, [does] not contravene the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment“).
¶12 In 1996, however, the Supreme Court concluded that the warrantless search of an automobile no longer required separate consideration of exigent circumstances, so long as there was probable cause for the search. Labron, 518 U.S. at 940. The Court held that “ready mobility [was] exigency sufficient to excuse failure to obtain a search warrant once probable cause to conduct the search is clear.” Id. (citing Carney, 471 U.S. at 390-91). In reaching this conclusion the Court reasoned that in addition to the mobility principle, its prior recognition of the “reduced expectation of privacy in an automobile” justified recasting the description of the automobile exception to permit a warrantless search “[i]f a car is readily mobile and probable cause exists ... without [anything] more.” Id. (citing Carney, 471 U.S. at 393).
B. The Automobile Exception Under Utah Case Law
¶13 Historically, Utah case law has mirrored federal case law with respect to the automobile exception to the warrant requirement. Utah cases, like their federal counterparts, have recognized that “[w]arrantless searches are per se unreasonable unless undertaken pursuant to a recognized exception to the warrant requirement.” State v. Brown, 853 P.2d 851, 855 (Utah 1992) (citing Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967)). Our case law has also echoed federal case law in recognizing that “[t]here are ... several exceptions to the warrant requirement ... includ[ing] ... [the] search of an automobile based on probable cause.” State v. Hygh, 711 P.2d 264, 267 (Utah 1985) (citing Chambers, 399 U.S. 42, 90 S.Ct. 1975 (1970)); see also State v. Limb, 581 P.2d 142, 144-45 (Utah 1978) (discussing the automobile exception to the warrant requirement and quoting Chambers, 399 U.S. at 51, with approval).
[The Fourth Amendment] has been construed practically since the beginning of the Government, as recognizing a necessary difference between a search of a store, dwelling house or other structure in respect of which a proper official warrant readily may be obtained, and a search of a ship, motor boat, wagon or automobile for contraband goods where it is not practicable to serve a warrant because the vehicle can be quickly moved out of the jurisdiction in which the warrant is sought.
Id. at 608 (quoting Carroll, 267 U.S. at 153); see also State v. Dorsey, 731 P.2d 1085, 1087 (Utah 1986) (citing Carroll, 267 U.S. 132, (“It has long been held that warrantless vehicle searches are not invalid under the Fourth Amendment if probable cause for a search exists.“)). And subsequent to City of Price, the court has repeatedly referred to the mobility principle as justification for the automobile exception. See, e.g., State v. Baker, 2010 UT 18, ¶ 11, 229 P.3d 650; State v. James, 2000 UT 80, ¶ 10, 13 P.3d 576; State v. Anderson, 910 P.2d 1229, 1234-37 (Utah 1996) (plurality opinion); Limb, 581 P.2d at 144-45; State v. Farnsworth, 30 Utah 2d 435, 519 P.2d 244, 247 (1974); State v. Shields, 28 Utah 2d 405, 503 P.2d 848, 849 (1972).
¶15 Further, like the federal courts, our supreme court has recognized that in addition to an automobile‘s ready mobility, the automobile exception finds support in reduced privacy expectations. For instance, in State v. Baker, the Utah Supreme Court noted that the “automobile exception to the warrant rule arises because occupants of a vehicle have a lesser expectation of privacy due to the mobile nature of vehicles and their highly regulated status.” 2010 UT 18, ¶ 11, 229 P.3d 650 (alteration, citation, and internal quotation marks omitted); accord James, 2000 UT 80, ¶ 10, 13 P.3d 576 (“Due to the mobile nature of vehicles and their highly-regulated status, persons traveling in vehicles have a lesser expectation of privacy than they would have within a private dwelling.“); see also State v. Lopez, 873 P.2d 1127, 1131-34 (Utah 1994); State v. Schlosser, 774 P.2d 1132, 1135 (Utah 1989).
¶16 And like the federal courts until Labron, the Utah Supreme Court has historically described the automobile exception as requiring both probable cause and exigent circumstances to justify a police officer in the warrantless search of an automobile. See, e.g., State v. Christensen, 676 P.2d 408, 411 (Utah 1984) (“For [the automobile] exception to apply, the police must have probable cause to believe that the automobile contains either contraband or evidence of a crime and that they may be lost if not immediately seized.“); see also State v. Larocco, 794 P.2d 460, 470 (Utah 1990) (plurality opinion) (approving the logic of Christensen, 676 P.2d 408, and re-iterating the requirement that police officers have both probable cause and exigent circumstances to justify a search under the automobile exception); Limb, 581 P.2d at 144 (citing Carroll, 267 U.S. 132, with approval and holding that probable cause and exigent circumstances existed to justify a warrantless search of an automobile). Also in line with the federal approach, the Utah Supreme Court has recognized that the required exigency generally arises from the inherent mobility of an automobile. See Shields, 503 P.2d at 849 (“In exigent circumstances, the judgment of a police officer as to probable cause will serve as sufficient authorization for a search, i.e., a search warrant is unnecessary where there is probable cause to search an automobile stopped on the highway, for the car is movable, ... and the car‘s contents may never be found again if a warrant must be obtained.“).
II. The Automobile Exception Under Pennsylvania v. Labron
¶17 On July 1, 1996, the United States Supreme Court decided the companion cases
III. The Automobile Exception Under Article I, Section 14 of the Utah Constitution
¶18 The Utah Supreme Court has not specifically considered the effect of Labron
¶19 Here, Rigby acknowledges that both “the U.S. Constitution and the Utah Constitution contain almost identical protections against unreasonable searches” and that “in 1996 the U.S. Supreme Court [in Labron] changed the requirements under the U.S. Constitution to require probabl[e] cause only,” no longer requiring a separate showing of exigency. Rigby argues, however, that “[n]o such decision has been issued regarding the status of the Utah Constitution.” And therefore, according to Rigby, “under the Utah Constitution an officer must still have both probable cause and exigent circumstances to justify the warrantless search of an automobile.” Unlike the appellant in Despain, we believe that Rigby analyzes the issue in a manner sufficient to warrant our consideration of whether, in light of Labron, the Utah Constitution now provides its citizens greater protection against unreasonable searches than the United States Constitution by continuing to require that police officers have both probable cause and exigent circumstances to justify a warrantless search under the automobile exception. Rigby primarily draws support for his argument that Utah ought to depart from the federal path with regard to the automobile exception from three opinions, which seem to be the Utah Supreme Court‘s last ventures into the realm of the Utah Constitution‘s relationship to the automobile exception prior to Labron: State v. Watts, 750 P.2d 1219 (Utah 1988), State v. Larocco, 794 P.2d 460 (Utah 1990) (plurality opinion), and State v. Anderson, 910 P.2d 1229 (Utah 1996) (plurality opinion). We address each case in order to determine whether our supreme court has established a discernible distinction between the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitu
A. State v. Watts
¶20 In State v. Watts a majority of the Utah Supreme Court affirmed the appellant‘s conviction for unlawful production and possession of marijuana. Watts, 750 P.2d at 1225. The appellant in Watts had unsuccessfully moved the trial court to suppress evidence based upon the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 14 of the Utah Constitution. Id. at 1220. While ultimately holding that private searches did not fall within the protection of the Utah Constitution, the Watts court acknowledged and affirmed its historical pattern of interpreting both the federal and the state constitutions as providing identical protections:
Article I, section 14 of the Utah Constitution reads nearly verbatim with the fourth amendment, and thus this Court has never drawn any distinctions between the protections afforded by the respective constitutional provisions. Rather, the Court has always considered the protections afforded to be one and the same. We do not depart from that view in this case, and hold that unreasonable private searches are not subject to the protection of article I, section 14 of the Utah Constitution.
Id. at 1221 (footnotes omitted).
¶21 Although Rigby acknowledges the court‘s reasoning, he points to a footnote in Watts in which the court opined that “choosing to give the Utah Constitution a somewhat different construction may prove to be an appropriate method for insulating this state‘s citizens from the vagaries of inconsistent interpretations given to the fourth amendment by the federal courts.” Id. at 1221 n. 8. Rigby interprets this footnote as indicating that “the Watts court reserved the right to distinguish between the protections afforded by the two Constitutions.” But the footnote‘s indication of the court‘s willingness to consider a different direction at some point in the future must be considered in light of the majority‘s unequivocal decision not to “depart ... from [the court‘s] consistent refusal ... to interpret article I, section 14 of [the Utah] constitution in a manner different from the fourth amendment to the federal constitution.” Id. Therefore, the supreme court‘s statement in Watts reinforces Utah‘s historical pattern of tracking federal law in this area both in principle and in practice while keeping open the possibility of departing from that pattern, should the circumstances undergirding it change in some significant way. Cf. State v. Worwood, 2007 UT 47, ¶ 11, 164 P.3d 397 (“In cases involving Fourth Amendment questions under the United States Constitution, we review mixed questions of law and fact under a correctness standard in the interest of creating uniform legal rules for law enforcement.” (emphasis added)).
B. State v. Larocco
¶22 In State v. Larocco a plurality of the supreme court (two justices concurring and one concurring only in the result) urged departure from continued reliance on federal jurisprudence as the basis for interpreting Article I, Section 14 of the Utah Constitution. Larocco, 794 P.2d at 470-71. The plurality reasoned that although both federal and Utah courts had historically interpreted the automobile exception to require both probable cause and exigent circumstances, id. at 470, exigency had become essentially a given based on a too-simplistic notion about the ready mobility of automobiles, id. at 469. The Larocco plurality thus concluded that an automobile‘s mere potential for mobility ought no longer to be sufficient to satisfy the exigency requirement under the Utah Constitution. Rather, a two-step process was required: first, it should be established that officers had probable cause for a search; then in order to meet the required level of exigency, “the next step requires justification of the warrantless search by showing either that the procurement of a warrant would have jeopardized the safety of the police officers or that the evidence was likely to have been lost or destroyed.” Id. at 470. In other words, for the automobile exception to apply, the State must go beyond the general concept of ready mobility and show exigency particularized to the actual circumstances at hand. Thus, in Larocco, there was
¶23 But Larocco‘s plurality status “represents the view of only two justices ... and is therefore not the law of this state.” Anderson, 910 P.2d at 1234 n. 5. Accordingly, the holding from Watts remained “the law of this state.” See id.; see also State v. Giron, 943 P.2d 1114, 1121 (Utah Ct. App.1997) (“Because Larocco was only a plurality opinion, its analysis is not binding.“). Therefore, we cannot conclude that the plurality decision in Larocco signals our supreme court‘s intent to interpret the state constitution to provide different protections than the federal constitution. See State v. Mohi, 901 P.2d 991, 996 n. 3 (Utah 1995) (noting that “a plurality opinion ... does not establish precedent“). A subsequent plurality decision, State v. Anderson, underscores this notion.
C. State v. Anderson
¶24 In State v. Anderson, issued just months before Labron,5 the Utah Supreme Court was again asked to depart from its practice of interpreting in tandem the search and seizure requirements of the state and federal constitutions in the context of the automobile exception. See Anderson, 910 P.2d at 1235. But the Anderson plurality rejected the approach taken by the Larocco plurality and affirmed that Utah would continue to track the federal path in this area: “Because this portion of Larocco coincides with federal law, we agree with those who joined the Larocco plurality that article I, section 14 of the Utah Constitution requires that warrantless searches of automobiles be justified by a showing of probable cause and exigent circumstances.” Id. at 1237. Based on this statement, Rigby urges us to acknowledge Anderson as the irrefutable last word on the issue. In other words, Rigby argues that even if Larocco‘s more restrictive plurality approach is not binding, we should conclude at a minimum that the Anderson plurality has accurately articulated Utah law just prior to Labron as holding that probable cause alone is not sufficient to justify the warrantless search of an automobile but that exigent circumstances are also required. Rigby contends that the Anderson court “went into great detail to explain that under both the Federal and Utah constitutions the warrantless search of an automobile required ‘both probable cause and exigent circumstances.‘” (Quoting Anderson, 910 P.2d at 1236.)
¶25 While that is true, Anderson does not support Rigby‘s position as strongly as he contends, because Rigby does not acknowledge the context in which that explanation occurred. Although the Anderson plurality recognized that in the past, federal Fourth Amendment law had been “the source of much confusion among judges, lawyers, and police,” it went on to explain that our supreme court “ha[s] endeavored toward uniformity in the application of the search and seizure requirements of the state and federal constitutions, particularly since the respective provisions are practically identical,” cautioning that “[a]n opposite approach could lead to unfavorable results.” Id. at 1235-36 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). In accordance with this principle, recognizing that at the time Anderson was issued, federal law “require[d] that such a search be premised on probable cause and exigent circumstances,” id. at 1237, the plurality concluded that the Utah Constitution required the same: “[T]he Utah Constitution requires that warrantless searches of automobiles be justified by a showing of probable cause and exigent circumstances,” id. Thus, rather than fixing the combination of probable cause and exigent circumstances as the invariable components of the automobile exception under the Utah Constitution, Anderson can be read to express the plurality‘s view that the Utah Supreme Court had expressed a distinct and continuing preference to have Article 1, Section 14 interpreted consistently with the Fourth Amendment in order to avoid the “unfavorable results” that a different approach “could lead to.” Id. at 1235 (“For these reasons, Utah courts should construe article 1, section 14 in a manner similar to constructions of the Fourth amendment except in compelling circumstances.” (citing, among other cases, Watts, 750 P.2d at 1221 & n. 8)).
¶26 The plurality decisions in Larocco and Anderson present two competing approaches. On the one hand, the Larocco plurality analyzes the automobile exception to require a complex, policy-based analysis giving due consideration to the principle that the Utah Constitution ought to be independently analyzed with the potential for affording Utah citizens greater liberties than the federal. Larocco, 794 P.2d at 469-71. On the other hand, the Anderson plurality firmly rejects that approach and urges that the court instead adhere to the historical pattern of following the path of federal law to avoid confusion and “unfavorable results.” Anderson, 910 P.2d at 1234-37. But although the pluralities in Larocco and Anderson began an internal dialogue that could eventually lead to changes in Utah‘s approach, we are effectively left with Watts as the supreme court‘s last majority expression, and therefore what appears to be the court‘s last word on the automobile exception. And while Watts held that the automobile exception required both probable cause and exigent circumstances, its reasoning was firmly based on the principle of tracking the path set by the United States Supreme Court. Watts, 750 P.2d at 1220-21 & n. 8.
¶27 Certainly, Rigby‘s contention that Utah courts ought now to depart from the federal interpretive path and determine that Article I, Section 14 of the Utah Constitution provides Utah citizens with more expansive rights than those guaranteed under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution finds resonance in the language of some prior cases. See State v. Brake, 2004 UT 95, ¶ 16 n. 2, 103 P.3d 699 (first citing Anderson, 910 P.2d at 1234-37; and then citing Larocco, 794 P.2d at 469-70) (declining “the implicit invitation” inherent in the circumstances of the case “to revisit the dormant but unresolved debate in this court over the merits of whether and when to depart from federal Fourth Amendment doctrine and chart our own course in the realm of search and seizure law based on the protections afforded by article I, section 14 of the Utah Constitution“); State v. DeBooy, 2000 UT 32, ¶ 12, 996 P.2d 546 (“While this court‘s interpretation of article I, section 14 has often paralleled the United States Supreme Court‘s interpretation of the Fourth Amendment, we have stated that we will not hesitate to give the Utah Constitution a different construction where doing so will more appropriately protect the rights of this state‘s citizens.“); Larocco, 794 P.2d at 465 (“[W]e have by no means ruled out the possibility of [drawing distinctions between the protections afforded by article I, section 14 of the Utah Constitution and the fourth amendment of the United States Constitution].” (quoting Watts, 750 P.2d at 1221 n. 8)); Watts, 750 P.2d at 1221 n. 8 (“In declining to depart in this case from our consistent refusal heretofore to interpret article I, section 14 of our constitution in a manner different from the fourth amendment to the federal constitution, we have by no means ruled out the possibility of doing so in some future case. Indeed, choosing to give the Utah Constitution a somewhat different construction may prove to be an appropriate method for insulating this state‘s citizens from the vagaries of inconsistent interpretations given to the fourth amendment by the federal courts.“). But the decades-long pattern of Utah decisions following the lead of federal law in this area before Larocco and Anderson—a pattern acknowledged and applied in Watts—is established enough that the burden must be on the challenging party to persuade us that a change is justifiable, and Rigby has not carried that burden here. Rather, the strength of that pattern and the very intensity of the disagreement between the Larocco and Anderson pluralities deter us from concluding that the current court would mark Labron as Utah‘s point of departure from the path of federal law on the automobile exception.
¶28 And even were we tempted to do so,
CONCLUSION
¶29 For the reasons stated above, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
STEPHEN L. ROTH
JUDGE
Notes
Dyson, 527 U.S. at 466-67 (emphasis in original). But Labron itself did not mention Ross and seemed at the time to mark a point of departure from the exigency requirement. Certainly, the conclusion Dyson draws from Ross seems more apparent in Labron‘s clarifying light than it may have been before then. It is tempting to surmise that Labron‘s per curiam nature may have signaled that the Court did not consider its decision to be so much a departure from the past as an acknowledgement that, given its foundation in the mobility principle, the exigency requirement may already have largely lost its role as an independent component of the automobile exception.The Fourth Amendment generally requires police to secure a warrant before conducting a search. California v. Carney, 471 U.S. 386, 390-91, 105 S.Ct. 2066, 85 L.Ed.2d 406 (1985). As we recognized nearly 75 years ago in Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925), there is an exception to this requirement for searches of vehicles. And under our established precedent, the “automobile exception” has no separate exigency requirement. We made this clear in United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 809, 102 S.Ct. 2157, 72 L.Ed.2d 572 (1982), when we said that in cases where there was probable cause to search a vehicle “a search is not unreasonable if based on facts that would justify the issuance of a warrant, even though a warrant has not been actually obtained.” In a case with virtually identical facts to this one (even down to the bag of cocaine in the trunk of the car), Pennsylvania v. Labron, 518 U.S. 938, 116 S.Ct. 2485, 135 L.Ed.2d 1031 (1996) (per curiam), we repeated that the automobile exception does not have a separate exigency requirement: “If a car is readily mobile and probable cause exists to believe it contains contraband, the Fourth Amendment ... permits police to search the vehicle without more.” Id. at 940.