State v. Malecha
| Decision Date | 06 March 2023 |
| Docket Number | A22-1314 |
| Parties | State of Minnesota, Appellant, v. Rebecca Julie Malecha, Respondent. |
| Court | Minnesota Court of Appeals |
This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by Minn. R Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).
Rice County District Court File No. 66-CR-21-517
Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and Brian M Mortenson, Rice County Attorney, Sean R. McCarthy, Assistant County Attorney, Faribault, Minnesota (for appellant)
Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, St Paul, Minnesota; and Melvin R. Welch, Welch Law Firm, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)
Considered and decided by Frisch, Presiding Judge; Slieter, Judge; and Smith, John, Judge.
We reverse the district court's order granting respondent's motion to suppress evidence obtained incident to an arrest because the police followed appropriate steps in verifying the validity of the warrant. As a result, a good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies when the warrant, which served as the basis for the arrest, had been withdrawn but not properly documented due to a clerical error. Because the district court erred in applying the exclusionary rule, we conclude that the evidence should be admitted and remand for further proceedings.
On November 12, 2020, the district court issued a bench warrant on respondent, Rebecca Julie Malecha, after she failed to appear for her sentencing hearing.[1] Once the bench warrant was issued, the warrant was sent to the Rice County Sheriff's office and entered in the district court records otherwise known as the Minnesota Court Information System (MNCIS). About a month later respondent's trial counsel moved to quash the warrant. On December 15, 2020, the district court granted respondent's request to quash the warrant, but the recall of the warrant did not appear on MNCIS because of a clerical error made by district court administration. The clerical error was failing to provide notice of the recalled warrant. Thus, Rice County Sherriff's office did not receive notice that the warrant was recalled, nor did the district court administration contact the sheriff's office.
Notably, the error was not discovered until respondent's arrest on March 7, 2021. The next day, district court administration issued a notice of judicial determination stating:
This notice is to provide verification that, based on [respondent's] request, [the district court] did grant the request to recall the warrant on December 14, 2020. The request was processed, and the warrant was recalled on December 15, 2020.
In other words, the district court backdated the recall of the warrant to reflect the December 15, 2020, date.
On March 7, 2021, police officers from the Faribault Police Department were dispatched to conduct a welfare check on a woman behaving suspiciously and possibly waiting for someone. When officers arrived, they identified the woman to be respondent and suspected that respondent had an active warrant. To confirm their suspicion, the police officers contacted dispatch. Dispatch contacted the National Crime Information Center and the Rice County Jail, and both reported the warrant as active. Within a couple of minutes, dispatch relayed that information back to the police officers.
Based on the information received, the police officers placed respondent under arrest. Following the arrest, officers performed a search incident to arrest and found respondent in possession of controlled substances. Consequently, the state charged respondent with four felony counts in violation of: (1) Minn. Stat. § 152.022.1 (2020); (2) Minn. Stat. § 152.022.1(7)(ii) (2020); (3) Minn. Stat. § 152.023.2(a)(1)(2020); (4) Minn. Stat. § 152.023.2(a)(4) (2020). Respondent moved to suppress all evidence, arguing that the evidence was obtained in violation of her constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizure. A contested omnibus hearing was held on the search and seizure issue. At the hearing, both parties agreed to submit briefs and then have the district court issue an order. The district court granted respondent's motion to dismiss and determined that respondent's arrest on a quashed warrant violated her constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizure and that all evidence obtained as a result should be suppressed. The state filed this pretrial appeal.
The district court erred by concluding that the Fourth Amendment violation required applying the exclusionary rule as a remedy for a clerical error.
Appellant State of Minnesota argues that the district court erred by determining that a Fourth Amendment violation automatically requires the exclusionary rule to be applied as a remedy. We agree.
In a pretrial appeal by the state, an appellate court will only reverse if the state can "clearly and unequivocally show both that the trial court's order will have a critical impact on the state's ability to prosecute the defendant successfully and that the order constituted error." State v. Zanter, 535 N.W.2d 624, 630 (Minn. 1995) (quotations omitted). "When facts are not in dispute, as here, we review a pretrial order on a motion to suppress de novo and 'determine whether the police articulated an adequate basis for the search or seizure at issue.'" State v. Williams, 794 N.W.2d 867, 871 (Minn. 2011) (quoting State v. Flowers, 734 N.W.2d 239, 247-48 (Minn. 2007)).
The Fourth Amendment and the Minnesota Constitution protect the "right of the people to be secure in their persons houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." U.S. Const. amend. IV; Minn. Const. art. I, § 10. "The first step when analyzing an alleged constitutional violation is to determine whether the officer's conduct constituted a search or seizure." State v. Sargent, 968 N.W.2d 32, 37 (Minn. 2021). The second step is to decide whether it was unreasonable. Id. "A search or seizure conducted without a warrant is considered unreasonable per se." Id. However, a few specifically established and well delineated exceptions exist. State v. Burbach, 706 N.W.2d 484, 488 (Minn. 2005). The state has the burden to show that a warrantless search or seizure falls within an exception to the warrant requirement. Sargent, 968 N.W.2d at 37.
"A search incident to a lawful arrest is a well-recognized exception to the warrant requirement under the Fourth Amendment." State v. Bradley, 908 N.W.2d 366, 369 (Minn.App. 2018) (quotation omitted). An arrest is lawful if an officer has probable cause to believe that a person has committed a crime. In re Welfare of G.M., 560 N.W.2d 687, 695 (Minn. 1997). "The arresting officer may then search (1) the arrestee's person, and (2) the area within the arrestee's immediate control." Bradley, 908 N.W.2d at 369.
The district court found that the police officers searched respondent because of the "misinformation provided to them that there was an active arrest warrant for [respondent]." It further found that "the warrant was quashed by the [d]istrict [c]ourt and thus [] no longer active." Id. As a result, the district court determined that because the warrant was recalled, the officers did not have a valid basis to arrest respondent, so their subsequent "search incident to arrest" was invalid. Thus, the district court applied the exclusionary rule and suppressed the evidence. We therefore agree with the district court that the warrant had been recalled and that the police officers did not a have a valid basis to arrest respondent or to conduct a search incident to arrest. We agree that there was a Fourth Amendment violation, but disagree that the exclusionary rule applies.
Appellant argues on appeal that the "flaw in the district court's logic starts with its singular analysis of Lindquist, and ends with its erroneous conclusion that every violation of the Fourth Amendment automatically requires application of the exclusionary rule as a remedy." See State v. Lindquist, 869 N.W.2d 863, 864 (Minn. 2015). When evidence is obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, "[t]he exclusionary rule has traditionally barred from trial physical, tangible materials obtained either during or as a direct result of an unlawful invasion." State v. McDonald-Richards, 840 N.W.2d 9, 15 (Minn. 2013). The Minnesota Supreme Court has recognized that the "exclusionary rule was historically designed as a means of deterring police misconduct." Lindquist, 869 N.W.2d at 869. Moreover, "[t]he exclusionary rule does not require suppression of evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment where the erroneous information resulted from clerical errors of court employees." Arizona v. Evans, 514 U.S. 1, 2 (1995).
It is undisputed that the police officers followed proper protocol when they responded to the welfare check on respondent. The exclusionary rule was meant to deter police misconduct and the police officers here did nothing wrong in executing what they believed (with good reason) was a valid warrant. The judiciary wants to promote the execution of its orders. Further, it does not want to have the police second guessing whether court orders are valid since that would be counterproductive and would not deter police misconduct. Therefore, we conclude that the exclusionary rule does not apply in this case. The issue then becomes what the proper remedy should be in a unique case such as this one. Which bring us to the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule.
The good-faith exception provides "that the exclusionary rule does not apply when the police conduct a search in objectively reasonable reliance on a warrant later held invalid." Davis v. United States, 564 U.S. 229 238 (2011). In Lindquist, the Minnesota Supreme...
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