State v. Austin

• Decision Date: 10 September 1991
• Docket Number: No. 1706,1706
• Citation: 409 S.E.2d 811,306 S.C. 9
• Court: South Carolina Court of Appeals
• Parties: The STATE, Respondent, v. Steven Columbus AUSTIN, Appellant. . Heard

Page 811

409 S.E.2d 811

306 S.C. 9

The STATE, Respondent, v. Steven Columbus AUSTIN, Appellant.

No. 1706.

Court of Appeals of South Carolina.

Heard Sept. 10, 1991.

Decided Oct. 7, 1991.

Asst. Appellate Defender Wanda H. Haile, of South Carolina Office of Appellate Defense, Columbia, for appellant.

Atty. Gen. T. Travis Medlock, and Asst. Atty. Gen. Harold M. Coombs, Jr., Columbia, and Sol. Holman C. Gossett, Jr., Spartanburg, for respondent.

SANDERS, Chief Judge:

Defendant Steven Columbus Austin appeals his conviction for possession with intent to distribute marijuana. He argues that the trial judge erred in admitting certain evidence seized by the police as the result of a search. We remand.

I THE ISSUES

The evidence in question, a quantity of marijuana, was seized following the issuance of a search warrant. Mr. Austin's single exception presents the issues of whether the warrant was defective in violation of the Federal and State Constitutions. The trial judge ruled that the warrant was, indeed, defective, but that the evidence was, nevertheless, admissible under the so-called "good faith exception." The State argues that, even if the exception is not applicable, Mr. Austin did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the searched premises. Thus, the issues presented are: (1) whether the evidence should have been excluded under the Federal Constitution; (2) whether the evidence should have been excluded under the State Constitution; and (3) whether Mr. Austin had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the premises. ¹

II THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION

The Fourth Amendment to the Federal Constitution is a straightforward piece of legal draftsmanship. Mincing no words, the Founding Fathers provided:

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. ²

Most people have little concern about the Fourth Amendment in their daily lives. They are rightly confident that their homes and businesses will not be ransacked by agents of the government. Accordingly, they tend to view the constitutional guarantee as an impediment to law enforcement and a benefit only to "the criminal element." They are not completely wrong. One impact of the Fourth Amendment is to make it more difficult to convict criminals. But, larger considerations should not be overlooked. A. Cox, The Court and the Constitution (1987).

Constitutional rights cannot be accorded to anybody unless they are accorded to everybody. State v. Williams, 285 S.C. 544, 331 S.E.2d 354 (Ct.App.1985). Moreover, the Fourth Amendment was not written solely for ordinary times but also for periods of political upheaval. In times like these, only the constitutional safeguard, coupled with an effective sanction, keeps the storm trooper from the dissident's door. The framers of the Fourth Amendment lived in such times. The Court and the Constitution.

The King's ministers issued general warrants which did not specify who or what was sought or which premises were to be searched. Writs of assistance, a form of general warrant, were regularly used to ransack homes and businesses in the colonies.

                Writs issued in Massachusetts caused the riots which [306 S.C. 12] eventually led to the "shot heard 'round the world."   According to John Adams:  "Then and there the Child Independence was born."   J. Lieberman, The Enduring Constitution 287 (1987). 3
                

Diverse personalities, from Brandeis to Traynor to Sam Ervin, have written eloquently on Fourth Amendment values.

Many years ago, Justice Brandeis wrote for the United States Supreme Court:

Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.

Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 485, 48 S.Ct. 564, 575, 72 L.Ed. 944 (1928) (dissenting opinion), overruled, Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967).

Thereafter, Chief Justice Traynor wrote for the California Supreme Court:

[The criminal] does not go free because the constable blundered, but because the Constitutions prohibit securing the evidence against him. Their very provisions contemplate that it is preferable that some criminals go free than that the right of privacy of all the people be set at naught.

People v. Cahan, 44 Cal.2d 434, 449, 282 P.2d 905, 914 (1955).

More recently, Sam J. Ervin, Jr., formerly a justice on the North Carolina Supreme Court, wrote:

The constitutional guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures has its roots deeply implanted in the human heart, the common law of England, and tyrannies perpetrated by government on the people of England and the colonies.

The oldest and deepest hunger of the human heart is for a place where one may dwell in peace and security and keep inviolate from public scrutiny one's innermost aspirations and thoughts, one's most intimate associations and communications, and one's most private activities. This truth was documented by Micah, the prophet, 2,700 years ago when he described the Mountain of the Lord as a place where "they shall sit every man under his own vine and fig tree and none shall make them afraid" (MICAH 4:4).

Ervin, The Exclusionary Rule: An Essential Ingredient of The Fourth Amendment, The True Bill (N.C.Bar Ass'n), vol. 5, No. 1, at 1-3 (1985), quoted in State v. Carter, 322 N.C. 709, 717-18, 370 S.E.2d 553, 558 (1988).

For more than three quarters of a century, the United States Supreme Court has given effect to the Fourth Amendment by declaring that evidence seized in an unconstitutional search must be excluded in federal criminal proceedings. Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 34 S.Ct. 341, 58 L.Ed. 652 (1914). ⁴ In Weeks, the Court emphasized the importance of preserving not only the right of the individual but also the integrity of judicial proceedings. Needless to say, this exclusionary rule has never been without controversy.

In 1949, the Court applied the Fourth Amendment proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures to the states. Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 69 S.Ct Twelve years later, the Court overruled Wolf, holding that "all evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution is, by that same authority, inadmissible in a state court." Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 655, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 1691, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961). The Court reasoned that "[t]o hold otherwise is to grant the right but in reality to withhold its privilege and enjoyment." Id. at 656, 81 S.Ct. at 1692. Thus, the exclusionary rule again became an integral part of the Fourth Amendment.

                1359, 93 L.Ed. 1782 (1949), overruled, Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961).   The states were not, however, required to use the exclusionary rule as a means of enforcement.  Id.  This marked the first separation of the Fourth Amendment right from the remedy of exclusion.   The dissent soundly criticized the decision:  "[T]here is but one alternative to the rule of exclusion.   That is no sanction at all."  Id. at 41, 69 S.Ct. at 1369 (Murphy, J., dissenting)
                

Then came United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984). There, the Court adopted the good faith exception, holding that the "exclusionary rule does not bar the admission of evidence obtained by officers acting in reasonable reliance on a search warrant which was issued by a detached neutral magistrate [even though the warrant was] ultimately found to be invalid." State v. Johnson, 302 S.C. 243, ----, 395 S.E.2d 167, 170 (1990) (stating the holding in Leon ). The Court employed a cost/benefit analysis in reaching this result. In evaluating the costs, the Court considered the fact that the rule interfered with the truth-finding function of the criminal justice system and the further fact that "some guilty defendants may go free or receive reduced sentences as a result of favorable plea bargains." Leon, 468 U.S. at 907, 104 S.Ct. at 3412. In evaluating the benefits, the Court concluded that, in cases of good faith reliance on a defective search warrant, the deterrent effect on police officers is "marginal or nonexistent." Id. at 922, 104 S.Ct. at 3420. The dissent severely criticized the decision on numerous grounds, not the least of which was the accusation that the exception "put a premium on police ignorance of the law." Id. at 955, 104 S.Ct. at 3443 (Brennan, J., dissenting). Whether we agree with the decision is of no moment, at least not in this case. We are obligated to follow Supreme Court precedent when interpreting or applying cases under the Federal Constitution. See Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U.S. 331, 66 S.Ct. 1029, 90 L.Ed. 1295 (1946) (the Supreme Court has the ultimate authority to determine the meaning and application of the Federal Constitution). ⁵

III

THE STATE CONSTITUTION

In words similar to those of the Fourth Amendment, Article I, § 10 of the South Carolina Constitution provides:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures and unreasonable invasions of privacy 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, the person or thing to be seized,...