State v. Thomas

• Decision Date: 22 May 1998
• Docket Number: No. 970049,970049
• Citation: 961 P.2d 299
• Parties: 343 Utah Adv. Rep. 32 STATE of Utah, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Richard Dee THOMAS, Defendant and Petitioner.
• Court: Utah Supreme Court

Page 299

961 P.2d 299

343 Utah Adv. Rep. 32

STATE of Utah, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Richard Dee THOMAS, Defendant and Petitioner.

No. 970049.

Supreme Court of Utah.

May 22, 1998.

Jan Graham, Atty. Gen., Joanne C. Slotnik, Asst. Atty. Gen., Salt Lake City, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

Bel-Ami Demontreux, Salt Lake City, for Defendant and Petitioner.

On Certiorari to the Utah Court of Appeals

RUSSON, Justice:

We granted certiorari to review the Utah Court of Appeals' decision that our holding in Salt Lake City v. Ohms, 881 P.2d 844 (Utah 1994) (prohibiting court commissioners from performing core judicial functions), does not apply to the issuance of a search warrant by a court commissioner. We are also asked to review the court of appeals' refusal to address defendant's claim that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress a positive eyewitness identification made from a suspect photo array. The court of appeals' refusal was based upon inadequate briefing. State v. Thomas, No. 960170-CA, slip op. (Ct.App. November 29, 1996) (memorandum decision), cert. granted, 937 P.2d 136 (Utah 1997). We reverse as to the applicability of Ohms and affirm as to the refusal to address the photo array issue.

FACTS

On the night of June 30, 1993, an armed robbery was committed at a fast food restaurant in Salt Lake County, Utah. At gun point, the assailant ordered the manager to put all the money into a bag and to accompany him to the parking lot. The manager was then released, and the assailant ran away. Shortly thereafter, police officers arrived on the scene and began their investigation of the robbery. As part of their investigation, they received a lead on a suspect who was reported to be in a nearby apartment. The suspect was defendant Richard Dee Thomas. When the police arrived at the apartment, a confrontation ensued with Thomas. The officers forced entry into the apartment but retreated after Thomas threatened to kill a hostage. ¹ Then, while some officers guarded the apartment, others went to obtain a search warrant.

During the early morning of July 1, 1993, Third District Court Commissioner Frances M. Palacios issued a search warrant. After obtaining the search warrant, the police officers returned to the scene. Shortly thereafter, Thomas surrendered, and the apartment was searched. During the search, the police seized evidence linking Thomas to the crime. On July 2, 1993, the manager of the restaurant was shown a photo array of six men and identified Thomas as the man who committed the robbery. During interrogation and after Thomas waived his Miranda rights, Thomas confessed to committing the armed robbery. On July 6, 1993, the State filed an information against Thomas, charging him with aggravated robbery, a first degree felony, in violation of Utah Code Ann. § 76-6-302. Thomas pleaded not guilty.

Prior to trial, Thomas moved to suppress evidence obtained during the search. Thomas cited Salt Lake City v. Ohms and argued that the issuance of a search warrant constitutes a fundamental court function and thus the search and seizure were unconstitutional in that the court commissioner who issued the search warrant lacked the authority to do so. This motion was denied. Thomas also moved to suppress eyewitness identification, arguing, inter alia, that the photo array of the six men was unduly suggestive. This motion was also denied. On August 4, 1995, a jury convicted Thomas as charged.

On appeal to the Utah Court of Appeals, Thomas asserted, inter alia, that the trial court erred when it denied Thomas's motion

to suppress evidence and his motion to suppress eyewitness identification. In an unpublished memorandum decision, the court of appeals affirmed the trial court's rulings. Thomas then petitioned this court for certiorari review, and we granted the petition.

ANALYSIS

"On certiorari, we review the decision of the court of appeals, not the decision of the trial court." State v. Harmon, 910 P.2d 1196, 1199 (Utah 1995). "We review the court of appeals' decision for correctness and give its conclusions of law no deference." Carrier v. Pro-Tech Restoration, 944 P.2d 346, 350 (Utah 1997).

I

The first issue we address is whether the court of appeals erred when it held that Salt Lake City v. Ohms, 881 P.2d 844 (Utah 1994), did not apply to the issuance of a search warrant. Before the court of appeals, Thomas argued that court commissioners do not have the authority to issue search warrants. In a rather scant summary disposition of the issue, the court of appeals disagreed, simply stating:

Thomas relies on Salt Lake City v. Ohms for the proposition that "the Utah Supreme Court, on August 18, 1994, held that Utah Code Annotated § 78-3-31 (1992), that gave to Utah court commissioners their powers was unconstitutional." In addition to having prospective application, Thomas's reading of Ohms is too broad and does not apply to the issuance of a search warrant.

Thomas, slip op. at 1 (citation omitted).

Although the court of appeals should have elaborated to make its ruling more clear, the essence of its holding appears to be that (1) Ohms had prospective application and therefore was inapplicable to Thomas's case because the search warrant pre-dated our ruling in Ohms; (2) Thomas's assertion that court commissioners have no power was too broad a reading of Ohms since only the exercise of core judicial functions by court commissions was prohibited; and (3) Ohms did not apply because the issuance of a search warrant is not a core judicial function. We address these holdings in turn.

In Ohms, Ohms had been charged with giving false or misleading information to a police officer, a class C misdemeanor, in violation of Salt Lake City Ordinance § 11.04.100. Ohms was tried, convicted, and sentenced by a court commissioner pursuant to Utah Code Ann. § 78-3-31(6)(a) (1992). ² Ohms appealed to this court, arguing that a court commissioner did not have the authority to enter a final judgment of conviction and impose sentence, as such was an unconstitutional exercise of ultimate judicial power. We agreed and held that court commissioners cannot exercise a judge's ultimate judicial power or, in other words, cannot perform core judicial functions. In so holding, we found significant the fact that "[c]ourt commissioners are employees of the judiciary, not duly appointed judges," and that commissioners are not subject to the "constitutional checks and balances" to which duly appointed judges are subject. Ohms, 881 P.2d at 851. We thus found section 78-3-31(6)(a) unconstitutional because it delegated the core judicial functions of entering final judgment and imposing sentence to a court commissioner. Under the doctrine of de facto authority, ³ we validated the past actions of court commissioners who had engaged in the unconstitutional exercise of core judicial functions.

A. Prospective Application

Given only the court of appeals' conclusive statement, we assume that it agreed with the State's argument that Thomas was precluded from challenging commissioner actions because we limited Ohms to prospective application and the search warrant was issued some fourteen months prior to Ohms. Indeed, a review of the record reveals that the search warrant was issued on July 1, 1993, over thirteen months prior to the Ohms decision. However, while we stated in Ohms that "actions taken by commissioners in the past are not subject to challenge since court commissioners in those cases acted with de facto authority," we declined to apply the de facto doctrine to Ohms as he had "sustained the burden of attacking an unconstitutional statute." To hold otherwise and deprive an appellant of "the fruits of victory" would have the effect of "discouraging challenges to statutes of questionable validity." Ohms, 881 P.2d at 854-55. In the case before us, by arguing that the issuance of a search warrant is a core judicial function, Thomas, like Ohms, is attacking the constitutionality of a court commissioner's exercise of power. Thus, if Thomas sustains this burden, and we hold that he does, then the de facto doctrine would not apply to him for the same reasons it did not apply to Ohms. As in Ohms, our decision today is prospective, and any search warrants issued by court commissioners in the past are valid, as they were issued with de facto authority. Id.

B. The Power of Court Commissioners

Thomas argued before the court of appeals that our decision in Ohms held section 78-3-31 unconstitutional and thus "deconstitutionalized court commissioners." The court of appeals dismissed this argument as going beyond what was actually held in Ohms. The court of appeals is correct. In Ohms, we clearly stated that section 78-3-31 violated the Utah Constitution "to the extent that it purports to vest ultimate judicial power of courts of record in persons who have not been duly appointed as article VIII judges." Id. at 855 (emphasis added). We also acknowledged that court commissioners "may perform many important functions in assistance to courts" such as conducting fact finding hearings, holding pretrial conferences, and making other recommendations to judges. In fact, we specifically stated that "our decision in no way affects the authority and functions that court commissioners have enjoyed for over thirty years and will undoubtedly continue to enjoy in the future." Id. at 851-52 n. 17. Nowhere in Ohms did we "deconstitutionalize" the court commissioner system.

C. Issuance of a Search Warrant as a Core Judicial Function

The court of appeals also held that Ohms did not apply because the issuance of a search warrant is not a core judicial function. This is a question of first impression.

In Ohms, we stated that core judicial functions include (1) " 'the power to hear and determine controversies between adverse parties and questions in litigation,' " (2) " 'the authority to hear and determine justiciable controversies,' " (3) " 'the authority to...