Walker v. State ( 2019 )

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE
KEVIN A. WALKER, §
§ No. 183, 2018
Defendant Below, §
Appellant, § Court Below: Superior Court of
§ the State of Delaware
v. §
§ I.D. No. 1607007865 (K)
STATE OF DELAWARE, §
§
Plaintiff Below, §
Appellee. §
Submitted: December 6, 2018
Decided: February 21, 2019
Before VAUGHN, SEITZ, and TRAYNOR, Justices.
Upon appeal from the Superior Court. REVERSED.
Stephanie Blaisdell, Esquire, Assistant Public Defender, Dover, Delaware, for
Appellant, Kevin A. Walker.
John Williams, Esquire, Deputy Attorney General, Dover, Delaware, for Appellee,
State of Delaware.
VAUGHN, Justice:
I. INTRODUCTION
Appellant, Kevin A. Walker, appeals from a Superior Court order finding that
he violated the terms of his probation. The issue we address is whether evidence
seized as a result of an unlawful administrative search of Walker’s residence should
have been suppressed from use as evidence at his violation of probation hearing.
II. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
Walker began probation on May 10, 2017, as a result of a felony driving-
under-the-influence conviction. On June 1, 2017, the State received a tip from a
past-proven reliable informant that Walker had heroin in his home that he planned
to distribute. On June 5, 2017, Delaware probation officers conducted an
administrative search of Walker’s residence pursuant to an administrative warrant.
Administrative warrants and searches are authorized by 11 Del. C. § 4321(d), which
permits the State to conduct administrative searches of probationers that are “in
accordance with Department [of Correction] procedures.” The Department of
Correction promulgated Probation and Parole Procedure 7.19 (“Procedure 7.19”),
which sets out the procedural requirements for conducting administrative searches.1
During the search, probation officers discovered 252 bags of heroin, drug
paraphernalia, and a locked safe. The officers took the safe to Delaware State
1
See Culver v. State, 956 A.2d 5, 10-11 (Del. 2008) (en banc) (discussing the requirements of
Procedure 7.19).
1
Police Troop 3. After the officers opened the safe there, they found a loaded 9mm
handgun, five doses of Suboxone,2 and five grams of marijuana. The Delaware
State Police then arrested Walker and took him to the Sussex Correctional Institution
(“SCI”). At SCI, correctional officers found 86 bags of heroin and nine grams of
crack cocaine inside Walker’s rectum.
In the criminal proceeding based on the new charges, Walker filed a motion
to suppress all the evidence found as a result the administrative search, claiming that
the search was not conducted in accordance with the provisions of 11 Del. C. §
4321(d) and Procedure 7.19. At the suppression hearing, the Superior Court,
guided by our decision in Culver v. State, 3 analyzed the four factors that the
probation officer and the officer’s supervisor were required to consider under
Procedure 7.19 before making the decision to conduct the administrative search. In
Culver, we explained that Procedure 7.19 requires the following:
The officer and supervisor will hold a case conference . . . .
During the case conference the supervisor will review the
“Yes” or “No” responses of the officer to the following
search decision factors:
(1) Sufficient reason to believe the offender
possesses contraband.
2
Suboxone is a prescription medication used to treat opiate and opioid addiction but is also
frequently itself abused for its narcotic effects.
3
956 A.2d 5.
2
(2) Sufficient reason to believe the offender
is in violation of probation/parole.
(3) Information from a reliable informant,
indicating offender possesses contraband or
is violating the law.
(4) Information from the informant is
corroborated.4
Where an informant is involved, Procedure 7.19 also requires the officers to consider
the detail of the information received from the informant, the consistency of the
information, the reliability of the informant in the past, and any reasons why the
informant would supply the information.5
After considering these factors, the Superior Court concluded that the
administrative warrant failed to satisfy Procedure 7.19. In particular, it found there
was a lack of detail concerning the informant’s tip and that no effort was made at all
to corroborate the tip or consider the reason why the informant was supplying
information. The court concluded that “there was no attempt to comply with these
basic aspects of the probation procedures.” 6 Accordingly, the court held that
suppression of evidence in the criminal case was an appropriate remedy for the
violation of 11 Del. C. § 4321(d). The State did not appeal the suppression order.
4
Id. at 10 (internal quotation marks omitted).
5
Id.
6
App. to Appellant’s Opening Br. at A33.
3
Instead, the State dismissed the criminal action against Walker but continued to
pursue a violation of probation (“VOP”).
The Superior Court then held a contested VOP hearing. Applying the
balancing test from Pennsylvania Board of Probation & Parole v. Scott,7 the court
held that “the exclusionary rule does not apply in violation of probation proceedings,
even when the illegal search was a result of an administrative warrant issued and
executed by probation officials.”8 The court accordingly denied Walker’s motion
to suppress the evidence from his VOP proceeding. Walker was then found to have
violated his probation, his probation was revoked, and he was resentenced. This
appeal followed.
III. STANDARD OF REVIEW
We review the Superior Court’s revocation of a defendant’s probation for an
abuse of discretion. 9 We review questions of law and alleged constitutional
violations de novo.10
IV. DISCUSSION
Walker contends that the evidence seized as a result of the administrative
search should have been suppressed under both the Fourth Amendment to the U.S.
7
524 U.S. 357 (1998).
8
State v. Walker, 177 A.3d 1235, 1236 (Del. Super. 2018), available at Appellant’s Opening Br.
Ex. A.
9
Thompson v. State, 192 A.3d 544, 549 (Del. 2018).
10
Zebroski v. State, 12 A.3d 1115, 1119 (Del. 2010) (en banc).
4
Constitution and Article I, § 6 of the Delaware Constitution. Recently, in
Thompson v. State, we recognized that the overwhelming weight of federal authority
holds that the exclusionary rule of the Fourth Amendment does not apply in VOP
proceedings.11 Our ruling in Thompson disposes of Walker’s federal claim.12
In Culver, this Court was confronted with a statutory violation of 11 Del. C.
§ 4321(d) in a criminal proceeding.13 We concluded that “[w]ithout reasonable
suspicion determined in compliance with [the probation officers’] duties under
Procedure 7.19, the unlawfully seized evidence . . . should have been suppressed.”14
“To hold otherwise,” we reasoned, “would render 11 Del. C. § 4321 and the
regulations promulgated under it meaningless.”15 This decision was not based on
any constitutional basis. As stated in a footnote, “[b]ecause we find that probation
officers violated their clear statutory mandate, we do not reach any constitutional
questions.”16 The suppression of evidence based on violation of a statute enforces
the public policy embodied by the statute and promotes the proper and orderly
administration of justice.17 Culver is consistent with other cases from this Court
11
192 A.3d at 551-552.
12
See id. at 552 (“We have no reason not to follow what appears to be the entirety of the federal
weight of authority, and hold that the exclusionary rule does not apply to probation revocation
proceedings under Amendments IV and XIV of the Federal Constitution.”).
13
956 A.2d at 10-11.
14
Id. at 15.
15
Id. at 7.
16
Id. at 7 n.1.
17
See Webster v. State, 213 A.2d 298, 301 (Del. 1965) (“[T]he exclusionary rule with which we
deal here [for an alleged statutory violation] is a rule of evidence, adopted by the courts as an
5
where evidence has been suppressed based upon a statutory, rather than a
constitutional, violation.18
Here, we are confronted with a statutory violation of 11 Del. C. § 4321(d) in
a VOP proceeding. We have frequently recognized that the rights of probationers
are curtailed as compared to the rights of ordinary citizens. 19 We have also
recognized that probation officers are not required to “satisfy each technical
requirement of the search and seizure regulations of the Department of Correction”
for a search to be reasonable.20 In this case, however, the Superior Court found that
“there was no attempt to comply with . . . basic aspects of the probation
procedures,”21 a finding we accept and which has not been challenged. Because
there was no attempt to comply with basic aspects of the probation procedure, we
think that the proper and orderly administration of justice calls for suppression,
under the statute-based rule enunciated in Culver,22 of the evidence seized in the
instrument to implement the proper administration of criminal justice; and it does not stand upon
constitutional grounds.”).
18
See Vorhauer v. State, 212 A.2d 886, 892 (Del. 1965) (applying an exclusionary rule based on
a violation of a statute requiring the defendant to be presented to a magistrate within twenty-four
hours of detention and finding that incriminating statements made after the expiration of that
twenty-four-hour period should have been suppressed in a criminal proceeding); see also Wright
v. State, 633 A.2d 329, 334-35 (Del. 1993) (en banc) (applying the exclusionary rule from
Vorhauer but finding no statutory violation); Hanna v. State, 591 A.2d 158, 162-64 (Del. 1991)
(explaining that a failure to comply with 11 Del. C. § 2308, which sets the requirements for a
nighttime search, is alone sufficient for the evidence to be excluded under the statutory-based
exclusionary rule even if there was no constitutional violation).
19
E.g., Donald v. State, 903 A.2d 315, 318-19 (Del. 2006) (en banc).
20
Id. at 319.
21
App. to Appellant’s Opening Br. at A33.
22
956 A.2d at 7 n.1, 10-15.
6
unlawful administrative search. We therefore find it unnecessary to consider
Walker’s claim under Article I, § 6 of the Delaware constitution.23
Accordingly, the judgment of the Superior Court is reversed.
23
Id. at 7 n.1 (“We address any statutory violation before reaching questions under the United
States and Delaware Constitutions.”).
7