Crayton v. Com.

• Decision Date: 19 November 1992
• Docket Number: No. 90-SC-761-MR,90-SC-761-MR
• Citation: 846 S.W.2d 684
• Parties: David Lynn CRAYTON, Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky

Page 684

846 S.W.2d 684

David Lynn CRAYTON, Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee.

No. 90-SC-761-MR.

Supreme Court of Kentucky.

Nov. 19, 1992.

Rehearing Denied March 18, 1993.

Ann T. Eblen, Louisville, for appellant.

Chris Gorman, Atty. Gen., Carol C. Ullerich, Asst. Atty. Gen., Criminal Appellate Div., Frankfort, for appellee.

LAMBERT, Justice.

Cardozo defined the issue here as whether "[t]he criminal is to go free because the constable has blundered." ¹ Controlling decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States generally answered "yes" until United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984), in which the Court held that the United States Constitution did not, per se, require suppression of evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. For many years, this and other state courts have had little occasion to confront the search and seizure provisions of state constitutions applying, as we were required, the Fourth Amendment and controlling federal authority to motions for suppression of evidence on grounds of an unconstitutional search. However, with the decision in Leon and its abandonment of automatic suppression as the remedy for every Fourth Amendment violation, this Court must now determine whether Section 10 of the Constitution of Kentucky mandates suppression for every violation.

At the outset, it is appropriate to reiterate that American federalism embodies a dual sovereignty whereby state courts must apply their own constitutions and safeguard the rights of their citizens secured thereby. While the Supreme Court of the United States is the final arbiter of federal constitutional law and its role is to establish minimum federal constitutional guarantees, this Court and other state courts are at liberty to interpret state constitutions to provide greater protection of individual rights than are mandated by the United States Constitution. This proposition was succinctly stated in Oregon v. Hass, 420 U.S. 714, 719, 95 S.Ct. 1215, 1219, 43 L.Ed.2d 570, 575 (1975), as follows:

"[A] State is free as a matter of its own law to impose greater restrictions on police activity than those this [United States Supreme] Court holds to be necessary upon federal constitutional standards."

For an appropriate discussion of the foregoing, see Commonwealth v. Wasson, Ky., 842 S.W.2d 487 (1992).

Appellant, David Lynn Crayton, was convicted of second degree arson and first degree wanton endangerment and sentenced to twenty years. He appealed to this Court as a matter of right claiming reversible error with respect to his motion for a directed verdict, his right to a speedy trial, his claim of double jeopardy, and the admission of evidence in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and Section 10 of the Constitution of Kentucky. We ordered supplemental briefing on the search and seizure issue under Section 10 and heard oral argument. We will address this issue first.

About one week after a fire in a building known as the Club Cabana, a warrant was obtained to search appellant's residence for various products and devices which were believed to have been used to ignite the fire. The affidavit for the search warrant was signed by Terry Jo Keeling, an officer of the Paducah Fire Department, and presented to the Honorable Ron Daniels, Judge of the McCracken District Court. On review of the affidavit, the court authorized the search and the warrant was executed by the officers. The search revealed evidentiary items which were seized, introduced against appellant at trial, and contributed to his conviction.

Prior to trial appellant moved to suppress the items seized on grounds that the affidavit in support of the search warrant did not establish probable cause. The suppression motion was heard by Judge Daniels who, in the interim, had become circuit judge. ² After hearing the evidence and reviewing the affidavit, the court held that the affidavit failed to provide sufficient information to support a finding of probable cause. ³ Despite its determination that the affidavit was defective, the trial court made additional findings and conclusions as follows:

"[T]hat the investigative officers who obtained the search warrant possessed, when the warrant was obtained, ample evidence to establish probable cause, but which evidence and facts were omitted from the affidavit in support of the search warrant in good faith by the investigative officers after consulting with and relying on the advice of the County Attorney and the Court having reviewed applicable law and having determined that the purpose of the exclusionary rule is to deter police misconduct rather than to punish errors of judges and/or prosecutors and the Court having determined that there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that the investigative officers in this case are guilty of misconduct and the Court having carefully reviewed the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 82 L.Ed.2d 677, 104 S.Ct. 3405 (1984), and the Court believing that the officers in the within case, as in Leon, supra, acted objectively reasonable and in good faith,

IT IS ORDERED that defendant's Motion to Suppress is overruled."

From the foregoing, it is apparent that we must now decide whether the Constitution of Kentucky requires suppression of evidence when, in the absence of police misconduct, the search warrant was erroneously issued by a judicial officer.

It would unnecessarily lengthen this opinion to engage in a detailed discussion of the exclusionary rule as applied by the courts of the United States and the Commonwealth of Kentucky. It is better, therefore, to begin with a recent decision of this Court, Beemer v. Commonwealth, Ky., 665 S.W.2d 912 (1984), which summarized the status of federal law and its required application by the states just prior to United States v. Leon. Beemer quoted at length and with approval from Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983), in which the Supreme Court abandoned the more rigorous test of Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964), and Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969), and adopted in its place a "totality of the circumstances" test. This Court recognized its right to retain the Aguilar and Spinelli requirements as a matter of state constitutional interpretation, but refused to do so and overruled prior decisions which had applied the more onerous requirements. Pointedly, we said:

"They [our prior decisions] did not constitute an independent determination of Kentucky law but were compelled by federal law." Beemer, at 915.

United States v. Leon was rendered shortly after our decision in Beemer v. Commonwealth and since that time, Leon has been cited by this Court and the Court of Appeals, but never in a manner which could be said to have embraced or rejected its central holding. Commonwealth v. Shelton, Ky., 766 S.W.2d 628 (1989); Commonwealth v. Walker, Ky., 729 S.W.2d 440 (1987); Coker v. Commonwealth, Ky.App., 811 S.W.2d 8 (1991); and Commonwealth v. Hubble, Ky.App., 730 S.W.2d 532 (1987).

An examination of Section 10 of the Constitution of Kentucky and the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reveals little textual difference. The language used is virtually the same and only the arrangement of the words is different. The absence of material difference between these constitutional provisions was recognized in Benge v. Commonwealth, Ky., 321 S.W.2d 247 (1959). We regard it as of paramount significance that neither the federal nor state constitution contains any mention of suppression of evidence as a possible remedy for a search and seizure violation. Suppression is "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, 414 U.S. 338, 348, 94 S.Ct. 613, 620, 38 L.Ed.2d 561 (1974). See also Young v. Commonwealth, Ky., 313 S.W.2d 580 (1958).

A renowned Kentucky decision which required suppression of evidence obtained as a result of an unlawful warrantless search is Youman v. Commonwealth, 189 Ky. 152, 224 S.W. 860 (1920). Consistent with contemporary Fourth Amendment interpretation, Youman appears to have been grounded in prevention of harm to the administration of justice and prevention of disrespect for the constitution or laws. While the ratio decidendi in Youman may be debatable in view of the sweeping language used, the practice it most severely denounced was when the police "break open the doors" and search without a warrant. In more recent times, while this Court's decisions have not been entirely consistent as to whether Section 10 and the Fourth Amendment are parallel, we have so held in Rooker v. Commonwealth, Ky., 508 S.W.2d 570 (1974), Estep v. Commonwealth, Ky., 663 S.W.2d 213 (1983), and Collins v. Commonwealth, Ky., 574 S.W.2d 296 (1978).

Having noted the similarity in the language of the Fourth Amendment and Section 10, and having recognized that neither discloses any express or implied remedy for violation, it is appropriate to review the remedy judicially created to determine whether its overriding purpose of deterring police misconduct is served by suppression of evidence when the affidavit in support of the search warrant is later determined to be insufficient. Heretofore it has been reiterated that this Court is under no obligation to follow the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States as we interpret the Constitution of Kentucky. On the other hand, we should not ignore the logic and scholarship of that Court. As United States v. Leon is directly on point, it must be considered.

In Leon, the affidavit for the search warrant was presented to a California state court judge after an...