Sheetz v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore

• Decision Date: 01 September 1986
• Docket Number: No. 1443,1443
• Citation: 72 Md.App. 51,527 A.2d 787
• Parties: Melvin SHEETZ v. MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE. ,
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 51

72 Md.App. 51

527 A.2d 787

Melvin SHEETZ v.MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE.

No. 1443, Sept. Term, 1986.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

July 9, 1987.

Carol L. Rubin, Pikesville, and Jack B. Rubin(Walker, Rubin and Van Bavel, P.A., on brief), Baltimore, for appellant.

John S. Wood, Chief Sol.(Benjamin L. Brown, City Sol. and Laurice D. Royal, Asst. Sol., on brief), Baltimore, for appellee.

Argued before BISHOP and POLLITT, JJ., and GETTY (JAMES S.), Associate Judge of the Court of Special Appeals(retired), Specially Assigned.

BISHOP, Judge.

This case presents one issue of first impression in Maryland: whether the fourth amendment exclusionary rule, usually applicable in criminal cases, applies to civil administrative disciplinary proceedings involving the alleged misconduct of Baltimore City Jail correctional officers.In resolving this issue, our methodology is grounded in the pragmatism of cost-benefit analysis.Specifically, we must balance the social benefits in excluding illegally obtained evidence against the societal costs for such exclusion.Because of the especially important public interests in ensuring the safe and efficient operation of our prisons, we decline to extend the exclusionary rule to the administrative proceeding involved in this case.

I.FACTS

On the evening of November 3, 1983, members of the Baltimore City Police Department had under surveillance a red van of Baltimore City Correctional OfficerLieutenant Clifford Weems, which he had parked across the street from the City Jail.Noticing the trafficking of people to and from the van around 10:15 p.m., the police moved in and arrested Lieutenant Weems, appellant and four other Baltimore City correctional officers, all of whom were inside the vehicle.In a warrantless search incident to the arrest, police seized packaged cocaine, heroin, marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

The State charged appellant with possession of cocaine, marijuana, drug paraphernalia and resisting arrest.The State's Attorney, however, dropped its prosecution of those charges when the District Court for Baltimore City suppressed all evidence amassed during the arrest on the ground that the search and seizure was in violation of appellant's fourth amendment rights.

Subsequently, a civil administrative proceeding was initiated in which the Warden of the Baltimore City Jail set out to discipline appellant.Relying on the illegally seized evidence, the Warden ruled that appellantMelvin Sheetz had conducted himself in a manner "unbecoming of an employee of the City," and was thus in violation of Baltimore City Civil Service CommissionRule 56(1)(f).Since the violation of this rule constitutes a "sufficient cause[ ] for removal or discharge,"id., the Warden terminated the employment of appellant as a correctional guard at the Baltimore City Jail.

Sheetz appealed the Warden's decision to the Civil Service Commission.A hearing officer for the Commission conducted a consolidated hearing involving appellant and several other similarly situated correctional officers.During that hearing, appellant argued that the district court's recent suppression order should apply to the Warden's disciplinary proceeding.The hearing officer denied appellant's request for suppression.The evidence was received over appellant's standing objection.

In a written opinion dated September 7, 1984, the hearing officer recommended that the Commission should sustain the Warden's decision to terminate appellant's employment.The Commission adopted the recommendation in toto.

Appellant then filed a petition for Writ of Mandamus¹ in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City against the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, appellees.The circuit court, however, affirmed the decision, holding that the exclusionary rule is not applicable in a civil administrative disciplinary proceeding.

The Scope of the Exclusionary Rule

A.

Criminal Cases

The Fourth Amendment guarantees:

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.Based on this amendment, the Supreme Court has crafted the exclusionary rule as "a judicially created remedy designed to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights generally through its deterrent effect."United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 348, 94 S.Ct. 613, 620, 38 L.Ed.2d 561(1974);accordUnited States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 906, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 3411, 82 L.Ed.2d 677(1984)(quoting Calandra );see alsoWhitaker v. Prince George's County, 307 Md. 368, 381, 514 A.2d 4(1986).In emphasizing that "the rule's prime purpose is to deter future unlawful police conduct and thereby effectuate the guarantee of the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures,"the Court in Calandra pointed out:

"The rule is calculated to prevent not to repair.Its purpose is to deter--to compel respect for the constitutional guaranty in the only effectively available way--by removing the incentive to disregard it."

Calandra, 414 U.S. at 347, 94 S.Ct. at 620 (quoting Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 217, 80 S.Ct. 1437, 1444, 4 L.Ed.2d 1669(1960).

The evolution of the rule began in 1914 when the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts must exclude evidence that a federal officer seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment.Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 34 S.Ct. 341, 58 L.Ed. 652(1914).This rule, supervisory in nature, applied to federal, and not to state court proceedings.State officials could illegally seize material for trial without the threat of judicial sanction in state proceedings, except in the most extreme cases.See, e.g., Wolf v. Colorado, 328 U.S. 25, 27, 69 S.Ct. 1359, 1361, 93 L.Ed. 1782(1949)(determining that Fourth Amendment was applicable to states through the Fourteenth Amendment, but only to the extent of protecting against intrusions that "are implicit in the concept of ordered liberty");Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165, 172-73, 72 S.Ct. 205, 209-10, 96 L.Ed. 183(1952)(ruling that an illegal seizure of evidence could be sufficiently offensive to the concept of "ordered liberty" as to render the admission of that evidence a violation of the due process clause).

Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081(1961) expanded radically the scope of the exclusionary rule.Holding the rule applicable to state criminal proceedings, the Court explained:

Since the Fourth Amendment's right of privacy has been declared enforceable against the States through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth, it is enforceable against them by the same sanction of exclusion as is used against the Federal Government.Were it otherwise, then just as without the Weeks rule the assurance against unreasonable federal searches and seizures would be "a form of words," valueless and undeserving of mention in a perpetual charter of inestimable human liberties, so too, without that rule the freedom from state invasions of privacy would be so ephemeral and so neatly severed from its conceptual nexus with the freedom from all brutish means of coercing evidence as not to merit this Court's high regard as a freedom "implicit in the 'concept of ordered liberty.' "

Id. at 655, 81 S.Ct. at 1691.

The effect of Mapp was simply to prevent the use of illegally obtained evidence in the State's case-in-chief.The Court left unanswered the question of what other situations the exclusionary rule should apply.A review of decisions subsequent to Mapp, however, indicates that the Court has taken a conservative approach to expanding the scope of the rule in other criminal contexts.For example, the Court has declined to extend the rule to federal habeas corpus proceedings filed in a federal court by a state prisoner, Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 96 S.Ct. 3037, 49 L.Ed.2d 1067(1976), to grand jury proceedings, United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 94 S.Ct. 613, 38 L.Ed.2d 561(1974), and has limited the rule in situations in which law enforcement officials have conducted a search and seizure in good faith reliance on a facially valid search warrant, which a court subsequently renders invalid.United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677(1984);see alsoMichigan v. DeFillippo, 443 U.S. 31, 99 S.Ct. 2627, 61 L.Ed.2d 343(1979)(holding exclusionary rule not applicable when police conduct search in good faith reliance on a substantive criminal statute that subsequently is declared unconstitutional).In addition, the Court has recognized that evidence, which is inadmissible in the case-in-chief, may be used to impeach defendant's direct testimony.United States v. Havens, 446 U.S. 620, 627, 100 S.Ct. 1912, 1916, 64 L.Ed.2d 559(1980).See generallyLeon, 468 U.S. at 910-13, 104 S.Ct. at 3413-15(discussing narrow scope of the exclusionary rule).

B.Noncriminal Cases

In discussing the scope of the exclusionary rule, the Supreme Court has admonished:

Despite its broad deterrent purpose, the exclusionary rule has never been interpreted to proscribe the use of illegally seized evidence in all proceedings or against all persons.As with any remedial device, the application of the rule has been restricted to those areas where its remedial objectives are thought most efficaciously served.

Calandra, 414 U.S. at 348, 94 S.Ct. at 620.Following this conservative approach, the Court has concluded that the rule's remedial objectives are not efficaciously served in several types of noncriminal proceedings.See, e.g., I.N.S. v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032, 104 S.Ct. 3479, 82 L.Ed.2d 778(1984)(holding exclusionary rule is not applicable to deportation proceedings);United States v. Janis, 428 U.S. 433, 96 S.Ct. 3021, 49 L.Ed.2d...