A-111-13 State v. Thomas Shannon(074315) , 222 N.J. 576 ( 2015 )

SYLLABUS
(This syllabus is not part of the opinion of the Court. It has been prepared by the Office of the Clerk for the
convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the Supreme Court. Please note that, in the
interest of brevity, portions of any opinion may not have been summarized.)
State v. Thomas Shannon (A-111-13) (074315)
Argued April 27, 2015 -- Decided August 19, 2015
PER CURIAM
In this appeal, the Court considers whether evidence seized after defendant’s arrest, made in the absence of
a valid warrant or probable cause, is subject to exclusion without application of an exception based on the subjective
good faith of the executing officers, who relied upon an arrest warrant that had been judicially vacated but had not
been removed from the computer database showing active warrants.
On March 26, 2009, a municipal court judge issued a warrant for defendant’s arrest for non-payment of
fines owed in connection with a criminal conviction and a motor vehicle violation. Defendant learned of the
warrant, and wrote to the municipal court requesting that the fines be vacated based on hardship. On April 16, 2010,
a municipal court judge granted defendant’s request.
When a judge vacates a fine, the disposition is entered in the relevant database and the outstanding warrant
in that database also is vacated. Municipal court employees, not the police department, are responsible for entering
that information. Notably, separate computer databases are used for traffic violations and criminal matters. In this
case, a deputy municipal court administrator properly vacated the fines in the traffic system, but failed to vacate the
fines in the criminal matter. As a result, the criminal complaint database did not reflect that the fines were vacated,
and, correspondingly, the arrest warrant associated with those fines was not vacated.
On October 18, 2011, a dispatcher directed an Asbury Park police officer to 835 Dunlewy Street to
investigate a report of a suspicious vehicle parked in front of the residence. The officer found defendant sitting in a
vehicle meeting the reported description, and defendant explained that he was waiting for a friend in a nearby house.
The officer asked dispatch to run a warrant check, and dispatch advised the officer that defendant had an outstanding
arrest warrant. Defendant was placed under arrest, and the officer brought defendant to the police station in his
patrol car. During the trip, the officer noticed that defendant was moving around in the back seat. After defendant
was removed from the vehicle, the officer noticed suspected cocaine on the back seat and white residue on
defendant’s fingers. The officer found additional suspected controlled dangerous substances under the bench seat in
the back of the car. The substances found in the vehicle were seized as evidence. None of the officers involved in
the case were aware that the warrant on which defendant was arrested had been vacated.
Defendant was indicted for third-degree possession of a controlled dangerous substance (CDS), and second
degree possession of a CDS with intent to distribute. Defendant moved to suppress the evidence seized from the
police vehicle, contending that the officer’s questioning and warrant check were unconstitutional. Following a
hearing at which only the arresting officer testified, the court denied defendant’s motion. On the eve of trial,
defendant asked the court to reopen his suppression motion, relying on a letter from the municipal court, dated April
21, 2010, which indicated that his fines had been vacated. The court reopened defendant’s motion, and, following a
hearing at which the municipal court administrator testified, granted the motion to suppress. The court found that
defendant was arrested unlawfully, the drugs seized from the vehicle were inadmissible fruits of an unlawful arrest,
and that the lack of culpability of the police department was irrelevant.
The Appellate Division granted the State’s motion for leave to appeal, and affirmed the trial court’s
suppression of the evidence. This Court granted the State’s motion for leave to appeal. 218 N.J. 528 (2014).
HELD: The judgment of the Appellate Division is affirmed by an equally divided Court. The arresting officer’s
good faith belief that a valid warrant for defendant’s arrest was outstanding cannot render an arrest made in the
absence of a valid warrant or probable cause constitutionally compliant.
JUSTICE LaVECCHIA, CONCURRING, joined by CHIEF JUSTICE RABNER and JUSTICE
ALBIN, expresses the view that an officer’s subjective, good faith belief that a valid warrant was outstanding cannot
render an arrest made without a valid warrant or probable cause constitutionally compliant. Justice LaVecchia states
that, to hold otherwise, would be akin to adopting the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule that has been
explicitly and consistently rejected by the Court in State v. Novembrino, 105 N.J. 95 (1987) and subsequent cases.
In Novembrino, the Court reasoned that the exclusionary rule functioned not only as a deterrent for police
misconduct, but also as “the indispensable mechanism for vindicating the constitutional right to be free from
unreasonable searched.” Id. at 157. Justice LaVecchia states that in this matter, which involves an unconstitutional
seizure from a man who had secured relief eighteen months earlier from his outstanding arrest warrant, defendant’s
right to be free from unreasonable seizure trumps the subjective, good faith reliance by the police on the invalid
warrant. Justice LaVecchia therefore would affirm the decision of the Appellate Division upholding application of
the exclusionary rule, without any exception based on the officer’s good faith.
JUSTICE SOLOMON, DISSENTING, joined by JUSTICE PATTERSON and JUSTICE
FERNANDEZ-VINA, would decline to apply the exclusionary rule to the evidence seized after defendant’s arrest.
Justice Solomon states that the exclusionary rule should not be applied where, as here, law enforcement personnel
share no responsibility for the error giving rise to the unlawful search or seizure, and the officer’s reliance on the
warrant is found to be objectively reasonable. Justice Solomon concludes that application of the exclusionary rule
under these circumstances divorces the rule from its primary purpose -- to deter future police misconduct -- and
ignores the significant costs of suppressing competent evidence. Justice Solomon would therefore reverse the
judgment of the Appellate Division.
The members of the Court being equally divided, the judgment of the Appellate Division is AFFIRMED.
CHIEF JUSTICE RABNER, JUSTICE LaVECCHIA, and JUSTICE ALBIN concur in the
judgment of the Court, and join the separate, concurring opinion filed by JUSTICE LaVECCHIA. JUSTICE
SOLOMON filed a separate, dissenting opinion, in which JUSTICES PATTERSON and FERNANDEZ-
VINA join. JUDGE CUFF (temporarily assigned) did not participate.
2
SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY
A-111 September Term 2013
074315
STATE OF NEW JERSEY,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
THOMAS SHANNON,
Defendant-Respondent.
Argued April 27, 2015 – Decided August 19, 2015
On appeal from the Superior Court, Appellate
Division.
Ian D. Brater, Special Deputy Attorney
General/Acting Assistant Prosecutor, argued
the cause for appellant (Christopher J.
Gramiccioni, Acting Monmouth County
Prosecutor, attorney; Mr. Brater and Mary R.
Juliano, Special Deputy Attorney
General/Acting Assistant Prosecutor, on the
briefs).
Matthew J. Astore, Deputy Public Defender,
argued the cause for respondent (Joseph E.
Krakora, Public Defender, attorney).
Frank Muroski, Deputy Attorney General,
argued the cause for amicus curiae Attorney
General of New Jersey (John J. Hoffman,
Acting Attorney General, attorney).
Lawrence S. Lustberg argued the cause for
amicus curiae American Civil Liberties Union
of New Jersey (Gibbons, attorneys; Mr.
Lustberg and Joseph A. Pace, on the brief).
PER CURIAM.
1
The judgment of the Appellate Division is affirmed by an
equally divided Court.
JUSTICE LaVECCHIA, concurring.
The Court granted the State leave to appeal an
interlocutory order of the Appellate Division. The Appellate
Division’s order affirmed the grant of defendant’s motion to
suppress evidence seized after his arrest on a warrant that,
unbeknownst to the arresting officers, had been judicially
vacated eighteen months earlier but had not been removed from
the relevant computer database showing active warrants.
I and the concurring members of the Court conclude that
defendant’s arrest -- made in the absence of either a valid
warrant or probable cause -- was unlawful. In accordance with
our decision in State v. Novembrino, 105 N.J. 95 (1987), the
evidence seized as a result of that unlawful arrest is subject
to exclusion without application of an exception based on the
subjective good faith of the executing officers. Thus, we
affirm the Appellate Division judgment.
I.
A.
This matter comes before us based on the record developed
in defendant’s motion to suppress. On March 26, 2009, Municipal
Court Judge Daniel J. DiBenedetto issued a warrant for the
arrest of defendant for non-payment of fines owed to the City of
2
Asbury Park. Defendant learned of that warrant while
incarcerated in Bayside State Prison on an unrelated charge. He
sent a letter to the municipal court requesting that his fines
in connection with two matters –- a criminal conviction and a
motor vehicle violation -- be vacated due to hardship. On April
16, 2010, Municipal Court Judge Mark T. Apostolou granted
defendant’s request.
The Asbury Park Municipal Court Administrator, Patricia
Green, provided testimony that when a judge vacates a fine, the
warrant associated with the non-payment of that fine is
necessarily vacated. Specifically, she explained that once the
vacation of a fine is entered into the relevant database, the
outstanding warrant in that database is also vacated. The
municipal court employees, not the police department, are
responsible for entering that information. According to Green,
in carrying out their responsibility of processing paperwork for
arrests and violations within Asbury Park, she and her
colleagues utilize separate computer databases for traffic
violations and criminal matters: the Automated Traffic System
(ATS) and the Automated Complaint System (ACS), respectively.
In respect of defendant, Green stated that a deputy municipal
court administrator properly vacated the traffic fines in the
ATS system but “failed to go into the [ACS] system and vacate
the criminal” fines there. Therefore, the ACS computer system
3
did not reflect that the criminal fines were vacated, and,
correspondingly, the arrest warrant associated with those fines
was not vacated.
B.
On October 18, 2011, Officer Love of the Asbury Park Police
Department received a call directing him to 835 Dunlewy Street.
The dispatcher informed the officer that a suspicious vehicle --
a white Mercury with tinted windows and containing two males --
had been idling at that address for some time. Officer Love
reported that Dunlewy Street was a “high crime area,” where
drugs were both used and sold and where there had been recent
burglaries. Officer Love proceeded to Dunlewy Street and, upon
arrival, approached the vehicle meeting the reported
description. Officer Love inquired of the driver, defendant,
his purpose for sitting there. Defendant responded that he was
waiting for a female friend that he had met recently and pointed
out 831 Dunlewy Street as her residence. Officer Love asked
defendant for identification; he provided a New Jersey driver’s
license.
Subsequent efforts to substantiate defendant’s given reason
for his presence on Dunlewy Street proved unfruitful but are not
relevant to this appeal. What is important is that Officer Love
asked dispatch to run a warrant check, and dispatch advised
Officer Love that defendant had an outstanding arrest warrant.
4
Defendant was placed under arrest. Officer Love patted
defendant down for weapons and felt what he thought was a large
amount of money; defendant confirmed that he had money on him.
Officer Love brought defendant to the police station in his
patrol car. Officer Love testified that he had inspected the
inside of his patrol car earlier that day and that no one else
had been inside since. During the drive, the officer noticed
that defendant was moving around in the back seat.
After removing defendant from the vehicle, Officer Love
spotted suspected cocaine on the back seat and white residue on
defendant’s fingers. Another officer secured defendant while
Officer Love pulled up the bench seat in the back of the car,
revealing additional suspected controlled dangerous substances.
Those substances were seized as evidence and their admissibility
is the subject of this appeal. Defendant was later found to be
in possession of $2,317 in cash. None of the officers were
aware that the warrant on which defendant was initially arrested
had been vacated.
C.
For purposes of this appeal, we note defendant was indicted
for third-degree possession of a controlled dangerous substance
(cocaine), N.J.S.A. 2C:35-10(a)(1), and second-degree possession
of a controlled dangerous substance (cocaine) with intent to
distribute, N.J.S.A. 2C:35-5(b)(2).
5
On April 30, 2012, defendant filed a motion to suppress the
evidence seized from the police vehicle. In support of that
motion, defendant argued that Officer Love’s questioning and
warrant check were unconstitutional. Following a hearing at
which only Officer Love testified, the motion court denied the
motion to suppress, finding the officer’s conduct
constitutionally permissible.
In January 2013, after the jury had been selected and sworn
in defendant’s criminal trial, defendant asked the court to
reopen his suppression motion, relying on a letter from the
Asbury Park Municipal Court, dated April 21, 2010, which
indicated that defendant’s fines had been vacated. Defendant
submitted that that letter showed that his initial arrest was
unlawful. The court adjourned the trial’s start to research the
matter further. Thereafter, with defendant’s consent and waiver
of double jeopardy, the trial judge declared a mistrial and
granted defendant’s motion to reopen the suppression issue.
Following a hearing at which Green, the municipal court
administrator, testified, the trial court granted the motion to
suppress. Relying on State v. Moore, 260 N.J. Super. 12, 16
(App. Div. 1992), the trial court held that defendant was
arrested unlawfully and therefore the seized drugs were
inadmissible “fruits of such an unlawful arrest.” The trial
court determined that “the lack of culpability on the part of
6
the [police department]” was irrelevant, citing “the non-
deterrent purposes of the exclusionary rule.”
The Appellate Division granted leave for the State to
appeal and, on April 11, 2014, affirmed the trial court’s
suppression of the evidence. The appellate panel pointed to
Moore, supra, in which an earlier Appellate Division panel had
relied on Novembrino, in finding inadmissible the fruits of an
arrest based on a vacated warrant that improperly remained
marked as “active” in police records, “even though the
particular arresting officer acted in good faith and without
culpability.” 260 N.J. Super. at 14, 16-20. The panel also
distinguished the arrests in State v. Diloreto, 180 N.J. 264
(2004), and State v. Pitcher, 379 N.J. Super. 308 (App. Div.
2005), certif. denied, 186 N.J. 242 (2006), by noting that the
arrests were not constitutionally defective. Addressing the
question left open in State v. Handy, 206 N.J. 39, 51-52 (2011),
regarding the admissibility of evidence when “[t]he police
department did not behave in an unreasonable manner in that it
relied on an ostensibly valid arrest warrant,” the panel held
that, consistent with Novembrino, the evidence seized from
defendant must be excluded.
This Court granted the State’s motion for leave to appeal
the interlocutory order of the Appellate Division. State v.
Shannon, 218 N.J. 528 (2014). We also granted amicus curiae
7
status to the Attorney General of New Jersey and to the American
Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey (ACLU).
II.
A.
The State submits that because the test for assessing the
constitutionality of a search or seizure is “objective
reasonableness,” neither the exclusionary rule nor the good
faith exception is implicated in this appeal. The State
contends that defendant’s arrest was based on Officer Love’s
objectively reasonable reliance on the vacated warrant; thus, no
constitutional violation occurred, and the Appellate Division
decision should be reversed.
The State argues that New Jersey case law has permitted
officer reliance on erroneous database information to
substantiate a stop or arrest and that, in practical effect,
this case is indistinguishable from State v. Green, 318 N.J.
Super. 346 (App. Div. 1999). The State also cites to Herring v.
United States, 555 U.S. 135, 129 S. Ct. 695, 172 L. Ed. 2d 496
(2009), and Arizona v. Evans, 514 U.S. 1, 115 S. Ct. 1185, 131
L. Ed. 2d 34 (1995), as demonstrative of situations in which the
United States Supreme Court has declined to suppress evidence
seized following arrests made on misinformation contained in
official databases.
8
Even if defendant’s constitutional rights were violated,
the State argues that the exclusionary rule should not be
applied. The State maintains that the exclusionary rule’s
primary purpose is deterrence and that neither police officers
nor court clerks would be deterred by suppression of the
evidence in this matter. Likewise, the State argues that the
exclusionary rule’s aim of preserving judicial integrity would
not be offended when the officers believed their conduct
complied with the law. Relatedly, the State urges this Court to
follow the path taken in other states that have rejected the
good faith exception established in United States v. Leon, 468
U.S. 897, 104 S. Ct. 3405, 82 L. Ed. 2d 677 (1984), but have
nonetheless permitted introduction of evidence seized following
the reliance of law enforcement officials on erroneous
information in a database.
B.
Defendant says his case involves a straightforward
application of the Novembrino precedent. He was illegally
arrested, and the evidence resulting from his arrest should be
suppressed.
According to defendant, the outcome of this appeal should
follow in line with the outcome in Moore, supra, in which the
Appellate Division, relying on Novembrino, suppressed evidence
seized following the defendant’s arrest based on a vacated
9
warrant that remained active in police records due to an
administrative error. 260 N.J. Super. at 16-17. Defendant
distinguishes Pitcher, supra, 379 N.J. Super. at 320, and
Diloreto, supra, 180 N.J. at 277-78. Defendant also emphasizes
that the New Jersey Constitution provides greater protection for
its citizens than the United States Constitution and, thus, any
reliance on Herring and Evans is inapt.
Finally, defendant argues that deterring officer misconduct
is not the only purpose behind the exclusionary rule. Instead,
the rule is designed also to vindicate the individual’s right to
privacy and to maintain judicial integrity. Thus, defendant
submits that the Appellate Division’s decision should be
affirmed.
C.
As amicus, the Attorney General supports the State’s
position, providing further bases for concluding that
defendant’s constitutional rights were not violated or, assuming
a constitutional violation, that the exclusionary rule should
not apply. However, the Attorney General adds that, to the
extent that Evans cannot be reconciled with this Court’s holding
in Novembrino, Novembrino should be reconsidered and overruled.
According to the Attorney General, the concerns that influenced
the Novembrino Court to reject the Leon good faith exception
10
have not come to pass. Thus, review of that decision is
warranted.
Amicus ACLU supports defendant’s position, submitting that
an arrest without a warrant is constitutionally impermissible
and that the exclusionary rule must apply to evidence seized as
a result of that constitutional violation. The ACLU
characterizes the State’s argument as an attempt to “carve out a
good faith exception” in contravention of Novembrino. The ACLU
points to the non-deterrent rationales for the exclusionary rule
and contends that the State’s position conflicts with those
rationales. In addition, the ACLU maintains that the deterrence
rationale for the exclusionary rule would be furthered by
suppression in this matter, pointing to the infrequent
occurrence of clerical errors in New Jersey as evidence of the
efficacy of deterrence.
III.
Both the United States Constitution and the New Jersey
Constitution guarantee the right to be free from unreasonable
searches and seizures. U.S. Const. amend. IV; N.J. Const. art.
I, ¶ 7. In accordance with that guarantee, both constitutions
require that arrest warrants be supported by probable cause and
that warrantless arrests in public places be supported by the
same. State v. Brown, 205 N.J. 133, 144 (2011) (citing State v.
Basil, 202 N.J. 570, 584 (2010)). “[A] police officer has
11
probable cause to arrest a suspect when the officer possesses ‘a
well[-]grounded suspicion that a crime has been or is being
committed.’” Basil, supra, 202 N.J. at 585 (quoting State v.
Sullivan, 169 N.J. 204, 211 (2001)). That well-grounded
suspicion should be based on the totality of the circumstances
as viewed by “an objectively reasonable police officer.” Ibid.
(citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
The consequence for a violation of those constitutional
principles is generally the exclusionary rule, Handy, supra, 206
N.J. at 45, which prohibits evidence obtained as a result of
such violative conduct from being “use[d] in the prosecution’s
case in chief,” Leon, supra, 468 U.S. at 900, 104 S. Ct. at
3409, 82 L. Ed. 2d at 684. While the United States Supreme
Court has acknowledged a good faith exception to that rule in
certain circumstances, see, e.g., id. at 926, 104 S. Ct. at
3422, 82 L. Ed. 2d at 700-01, this Court has declined to do so,
see, e.g., Novembrino, supra, 105 N.J. at 157-58. That is the
relevant point of divergence between state and federal law in
this matter.
A.
In Leon, supra, the United States Supreme Court declined to
apply the exclusionary rule to evidence seized by officers
relying in good faith on a search warrant issued by a magistrate
judge even though that warrant was later determined “to be
12
unsupported by probable cause.” 468 U.S. at 900, 926, 104 S.
Ct. at 3409, 3422, 82 L. Ed. 2d at 684, 700-01. In so doing,
the Leon Court noted that the exclusionary rule was “‘a
judicially created remedy designed to safeguard Fourth
Amendment rights generally through its deterrent effect, rather
than a personal constitutional right of the party
aggrieved.’” Id. at 906, 104 S. Ct. at 3412, 82 L. Ed. 2d at
687-88 (quoting United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 348, 94
S. Ct. 613, 620, 38 L. Ed. 2d 561, 571 (1974)). After reviewing
the objectives of the exclusionary rule, the Court concluded
that “it c[ould ]not be expected, and should not be applied, to
deter objectively reasonable law enforcement activity.” Id. at
906-09, 919, 104 S. Ct. at 3412-13, 3418, 82 L. Ed. 2d at 688-
89, 696. Thus, weighing the costs and benefits of exclusion of
the evidence at issue, the Court determined that suppression was
inappropriate. Id. at 922, 104 S. Ct. at 3420, 82 L. Ed. 2d at
698. Thus sprang into being the “good faith exception” to the
exclusionary rule.
Since Leon, the Supreme Court has expanded the good faith
exception to include situations similar to that presently before
this Court. In Evans, supra, the Supreme Court addressed
“whether evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment by
an officer who acted in reliance on a police record indicating
the existence of an outstanding arrest warrant -- a record that
13
is later determined to be erroneous -- must be suppressed by
virtue of the exclusionary rule.” 514 U.S. at 3-4, 115 S. Ct.
at 1187, 131 L. Ed. 2d at 39. In that case, the warrant for the
defendant’s arrest had been quashed seventeen days prior to his
arrest; however, for an undetermined reason, the warrant
remained in police computer records. Id. at 4-5, 115 S. Ct. at
1188, 131 L. Ed. 2d at 40-41. The State conceded that the
defendant’s arrest violated his Fourth Amendment rights. Id. at
6 n.1, 115 S. Ct. at 1189 n.1, 131 L. Ed. 2d at 41 n.1. Despite
that constitutional violation, the Court found that the
“[a]pplication of the Leon framework support[ed] a categorical
exception to the exclusionary rule for clerical errors of court
employees.” Id. at 16, 115 S. Ct. at 1194, 131 L. Ed. 2d at 47.
In Herring, supra, the Supreme Court answered the
“unresolved” question in Evans: “whether the evidence should be
suppressed if police personnel [rather than judicial clerks]
were responsible for the error.” 555 U.S. at 142-43, 129 S. Ct.
at 701, 172 L. Ed. 2d at 505-06 (internal quotation marks
omitted). The defendant in Herring drove to the sheriff’s
department to retrieve items from his impounded truck and was
recognized by one of the police investigators. See id. at 137,
129 S. Ct. at 698, 172 L. Ed. 2d at 502. Upon inquiry, the
investigator was informed that an active arrest warrant existed
for the defendant. Ibid. The officer arrested the defendant
14
and conducted a search incident to that arrest that revealed
narcotics and a weapon. Ibid. It was later discovered that the
warrant had been recalled five months earlier, but the recall
had not been updated in the relevant database. Id. at 138, 129
S. Ct. at 698, 172 L. Ed. 2d at 502.
Importantly, like in Evans, the Court accepted the parties’
assumption that a Fourth Amendment violation occurred and
restricted the analysis to whether the exclusionary rule should
apply. Id. at 139, 129 S. Ct. at 699, 172 L. Ed. 2d at 503.
The Court again relied on the Leon framework and maintained that
“the benefits of deterrence must outweigh the costs” of applying
the exclusionary rule. Id. at 141, 129 S. Ct. at 700, 172 L.
Ed. 2d at 505. The Court concluded that “when police mistakes
are the result of negligence such as that described here, rather
than systemic error or reckless disregard of constitutional
requirements, any marginal deterrence does not ‘pay its way.’”
Id. at 147-48, 129 S. Ct. at 704, 172 L. Ed. 2d at 509 (quoting
Leon, supra, 468 U.S. at 907 n.6, 104 S. Ct. at 3412 n.6, 82 L.
Ed. 2d at 688 n.6).
B.
In Novembrino, supra, this Court relied on Article I,
Paragraph 7, of the New Jersey Constitution in rejecting the
Leon Court’s good faith exception. 105 N.J. at 157-59. Thus,
the Court interpreted the New Jersey Constitution to provide
15
broader protection than the Fourth Amendment. See id. at 145,
157-59. In its decision, the Court expressed concern that “the
good-faith exception w[ould] ultimately reduce respect for and
compliance with the probable-cause standard.” Id. at 154. The
Court also characterized the exclusionary rule as “an integral
element of our state-constitutional guarantee,” noting that
“[i]ts function is not merely to deter police misconduct[] [but]
. . . also [to] serve[] as the indispensable mechanism for
vindicating the constitutional right to be free from
unreasonable searches.” Id. at 157. This Court has not
retreated from its rejection of a good faith exception. State
v. Adkins, 221 N.J. 300, 314 (2015) (“Post-Novembrino, our
Court’s adherence to its holding has remained steadfast . . .
.”).
In Moore, supra, the Appellate Division considered whether
suppression was appropriate for evidence seized following an
arrest based on a warrant that “had been judicially marked
‘vacated’ 27 days” earlier but remained outstanding in the local
police log book. 260 N.J. Super. at 14. The panel noted that
while the parties disputed who was at fault for the failure to
update the record, there was “no dispute that the arresting
officer acted in good faith in executing what he thought was a
valid warrant.” Id. at 15. However, “[t]he inescapable
consequence, after the finger-pointing [wa]s over, [wa]s that
16
defendant was arrested illegally.” Id. at 16. Therefore, the
Appellate Division concluded that “the fruits of such an
unlawful arrest [we]re not available to the State for [the
defendant’s] prosecution even though the particular arresting
officer acted in good faith and without culpability.” Ibid.
The panel rejected the State’s argument that “th[e] mistaken
arrest situation [i]s different from the issuance of a bad
search warrant in Novembrino,” finding “no justifiable
distinction between a judicial error on the existence of
probable cause” and the administrative errors committed in that
case. Id. at 17. In fact, the panel denoted the State’s
argument “no more than a plea for a ‘good faith’ exception to
the exclusionary rule” that the Court had rejected in
Novembrino. Id. at 16.
By contrast, in Diloreto, supra, this Court found no
constitutional violation, and thus did not apply the
exclusionary rule, in circumstances in which officers relied, in
part, on misinformation from the National Crime Information
Center (NCIC) database in questioning, detaining, and conducting
a pat-down search of the defendant. 180 N.J. at 271-74, 282.
More specifically, the Court concluded that, given an NCIC alert
that the defendant was an “endangered” missing person along with
other factors, the community caretaker doctrine justified the
police conduct. Id. at 277-78. In discussing the role of the
17
officer’s reliance on the erroneous NCIC alert in its decision,
the Court acknowledged that it had rejected the good faith
exception in Novembrino; however, because “the error in failing
to remove defendant’s name from the NCIC database occurred not
within the framework of an intended prosecution, but under the
protective rubric of the community caretaker doctrine,”
Novembrino was inapplicable. Id. at 280.
In Pitcher, supra, the Appellate Division similarly dealt
with a database error; this time, misinformation in the motor
vehicle database reflected that the defendant’s license was
suspended. 379 N.J. Super. at 312. The defendant was stopped
based on that misinformation, and the officer observed that the
defendant was intoxicated. Id. at 312-13. In moving to
suppress the evidence of intoxication, the defendant argued that
the stop was unconstitutional because it was based on an
erroneous license suspension. Id. at 313. The panel analogized
the license suspension information to information received from
an unreliable informant, noting that “[a] license suspension,
unlike a warrant or report of reasonable suspicion, is not a
determination about the justification for a stop or arrest. The
license suspension is simply factual information that leads to a
suspicion of a violation of the motor vehicle laws, i.e., one
articulable fact.” Id. at 318. Thus, the panel found that the
18
stop was constitutional and that the good faith exception
rejected in Novembrino was irrelevant. Id. at 313.
Most recently, in Handy, supra, this Court addressed a
scenario in which officers arrested the defendant based on
receipt of erroneous information from the dispatcher that the
defendant had an outstanding warrant. 206 N.J. at 42-43.
Incident to that arrest, the defendant was found to be in
possession of drugs. Id. at 42. The police dispatcher then
informed the officer that there was a birth-date discrepancy
between that provided by the defendant and that listed in the
warrant. Ibid. Upon return to headquarters, the officer
learned that the warrant on which he had arrested the defendant
was for a different individual, with a similar, but somewhat
differently spelled, name. Id. at 42-43. The defendant
nevertheless was charged with possession of the drugs. Id. at
43. In assessing whether that evidence should be suppressed,
this Court found that the “conduct by the dispatcher, an
integral link in the law enforcement chain, was objectively
unreasonable” and thus violative of the state and federal
constitutions. Id. at 42.
In rendering its decision, the Court discussed the Supreme
Court decisions in Evans and Herring, and found them
inapplicable. Id. at 48-50, 52-53. The Handy Court further
highlighted that neither case “dispensed with the standard of
19
‘objective reasonableness’ that governs the execution of a
warrant,” id. at 53, on which the Court’s decision was premised.
IV.
The arguments before the Court call into question the
significance of law enforcement reliance on an ostensibly valid
arrest warrant in assessing the constitutionality of an arrest
as well as the application of the exclusionary rule.
Beginning with the constitutionality of defendant’s arrest,
there is no dispute in this case that, at the moment of
defendant’s arrest, no valid warrant was in effect. Defendant’s
arrest was based solely on the existence of the allegedly
outstanding arrest warrant that, in fact, had been vacated
eighteen months earlier but had not been removed from the
computer database accessed by the dispatcher. No other probable
cause provides a leg on which the State can stand to assert a
lawful arrest. “The inescapable consequence . . . is that
defendant was arrested illegally.” Moore, supra, 260 N.J.
Super. at 16.1 The officer’s belief, even in good faith, that a
valid warrant for defendant’s arrest was outstanding cannot
render an arrest made absent a valid warrant or probable cause
constitutionally compliant. See Brown, supra, 205 N.J. at 144.
1 Notably, in Evans and Herring, a constitutional violation was
conceded or assumed. Herring, supra, 555 U.S. at 139, 129 S.
Ct. at 699, 172 L. Ed. 2d at 503; Evans, supra, 514 U.S. at 6
n.1, 115 S. Ct. at 1189 n.1, 131 L. Ed. 2d at 41 n.1.
20
To the extent that the State relies for its position on
Diloreto and Pitcher, those decisions are inapposite, as the
Appellate Division properly concluded.
In Diloreto, supra, the Court considered the officers’
reliance on the misinformation contained in the NCIC database as
one factor supporting their conduct under the community
caretaker doctrine. 180 N.J. at 282. Thus, the Court applied
an exception to the general prohibition against warrantless
searches. Id. at 275, 282. That decision cannot, and should
not, be read to support the proposition that objective and
reasonable reliance on information in the NCIC database, even if
later determined to be erroneous, can support probable cause for
an arrest. In fact, the Court specifically highlighted the
limited nature of its holding. Id. at 282 (“The State should
not construe our holding as approving wide application of the
community caretaker doctrine in this setting.”).
In Pitcher, supra, the Appellate Division found that
information in a motor vehicle database, even if later found to
be erroneous, could be “one articulable fact” that can “lead[]
to a suspicion of a violation of the motor vehicle laws” to
substantiate a motor vehicle stop. 379 N.J. Super. at 318. The
panel did not opine that reasonable reliance on that information
21
could support probable cause to arrest.2 See ibid. The same
rationale applies to the Appellate Division decision in Green,
supra, in which officers were in possession of a valid warrant
for a person matching the defendant’s description and were
executing that warrant at the address listed for that person
when the defendant fled and was arrested. 318 N.J. Super. at
349. In allowing admission of the evidence seized following
defendant’s arrest, the panel relied on law enforcement’s
objective and reasonable execution of the valid warrant, id. at
353-54; the panel did not suggest that an invalid warrant,
unsupported by probable cause, could supply the basis for an
objective and reasonable belief that there is probable cause to
arrest. See ibid.
Our decision does not alter the standard of objective
reasonableness applicable to the assessment of probable cause to
arrest. See Basil, supra, 202 N.J. at 585; cf. Handy, supra,
206 N.J. at 42 (finding conduct of police dispatcher, “an
integral link in the law enforcement chain, was objectively
unreasonable and violat[ive of]” the New Jersey and United
2 The State submitted a supplemental letter brief to the Court
bringing to its attention the United States Supreme Court’s
decision in Heien v. North Carolina, ___ U.S. ___, 135 S. Ct.
530, 190 L. Ed. 2d 475 (2014). We note that Heien, too, dealt
with law enforcement’s objective reasonableness in effectuating
a stop; it did not find justification for an arrest absent
probable cause or a valid warrant. See id. at ___, 135 S. Ct.
at 539, 190 L. Ed. 2d at 485.
22
States Constitutions). We conclude only that an invalid warrant
cannot provide the basis for an objective and reasonable belief
that probable cause to arrest exists; an arrest made under that
standard is constitutionally defective. To hold otherwise would
be akin to adopting the good faith exception to the exclusionary
rule that has been explicitly, and consistently, rejected by
this Court, most recently in Adkins, supra, 221 N.J. at 314.
See also Moore, supra, 260 N.J. Super. at 16 (labeling State’s
argument “no more than a plea for a ‘good faith’ exception to
the exclusionary rule”). We decline to carve out an exception
to that explicit rejection in the manner requested by the State
or the Attorney General.
In respect of the exclusionary rule, defendants are
afforded greater rights under the New Jersey Constitution than
under the United States Constitution. See Novembrino, supra,
105 N.J. at 144-45. In Novembrino, this Court relied on the New
Jersey Constitution in rejecting the Leon good faith exception.
Id. at 159. The United States Supreme Court decisions in Evans
and Herring are premised on the Court’s decision in Leon. Thus,
to follow their reasoning, as the State and the Attorney General
advocate, would be a retrenchment of our decision in Novembrino.
We can see it no other way.
The Court in Novembrino based its decision on the
conclusion that the exclusionary rule functioned not only as a
23
deterrent for police misconduct but also as “the indispensable
mechanism for vindicating the constitutional right to be free
from unreasonable searches.” Id. at 157. This case involves an
unconstitutional seizure of a man who had secured relief
eighteen months earlier from his outstanding arrest warrant.
His constitutional right to be free of that unreasonable seizure
trumps the subjective good faith reliance by the police on the
unpurged, but in fact vacated, arrest warrant. Novembrino’s
important purpose to secure vindication of constitutional rights
cannot be ignored. We decline to do so here. Moreover, the
inevitable result will cause people to be more careful -- a
laudatory effect on all state actors.
V.
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the
Appellate Division affirming the trial court’s suppression
order.
CHIEF JUSTICE RABNER, JUSTICE LaVECCHIA, and JUSTICE ALBIN
concur in the judgment of the Court, and join the separate,
concurring opinion filed by JUSTICE LaVECCHIA. JUSTICE SOLOMON
filed a separate, dissenting opinion, in which JUSTICES
PATTERSON and FERNANDEZ-VINA join. JUDGE CUFF (temporarily
assigned) did not participate.
24
SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY
A-111 September Term 2013
074315
STATE OF NEW JERSEY,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
THOMAS SHANNON,
Defendant-Respondent.
JUSTICE SOLOMON, dissenting.
The Court held in State v. Novembrino, 105 N.J. 95 (1987),
only that, in recognition of the exclusionary rule’s secondary
function as a mechanism for the enforcement of citizens’
constitutional rights, where law enforcement is involved in the
error giving rise to the unlawful search or seizure, the police
officer’s good faith conduct is not a basis to avoid
suppression. Reading Novembrino to require suppression for a
purely judicial error, as the concurring opinion does, ignores
the significant costs of suppressing competent evidence and
renders the deterrent function of the exclusionary rule
insignificant. In my view, the concurring opinion’s conclusion
cannot be reconciled with our subsequent decisions. See, e.g.,
State v. Shaw, 213 N.J. 398, 414 (2012) (holding that, in light
of “the high price exacted by suppressing evidence,” suppression
is unwarranted where law enforcement obtains “evidence that is
1
sufficiently independent of the illegal conduct”); State v.
Williams, 192 N.J. 1, 14-15 (2007) (same); State v. Badessa, 185
N.J. 303, 310-11 (2005).
By holding that the officer’s objectively reasonable
conduct is irrelevant in a case in which no law enforcement
personnel are remotely responsible for the impropriety of the
arrest, the concurring opinion not only fails to give effect to
“[t]he ‘prime purpose’ of the [exclusionary] rule,” State v.
Smith, 212 N.J. 365, 388 (2012) (quoting State v. Evers, 175
N.J. 355, 376 (2003)), cert. denied, __ U.S. __, 133 S. Ct.
1504, 185 L. Ed. 2d 558 (2013), it also misreads our
jurisprudence since Novembrino rejected the federal good-faith
exception to the exclusionary rule announced in United States v.
Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S. Ct. 3405, 82 L. Ed. 2d 677 (1984).
As recently as four years ago, this Court considered whether law
enforcement personnel’s conduct was objectively reasonable in a
situation where a police officer, through carelessness on the
part of the police dispatcher, arrested defendant pursuant to a
validly issued warrant against another individual. State v.
Handy, 206 N.J. 39, 41-42 (2011). The Appellate Division
applied a similar analysis in State v. Green, 318 N.J. Super.
346 (App. Div. 1999), where the officer arrested the defendant
based on the mistaken belief that the defendant was the man
referenced on the arrest warrant. Id. at 348-49.
2
The concurring opinion finds these cases inapposite because
the warrants upon which those arrests were based were valid.
However, while the arrest warrants in those cases were supported
by probable cause, the arrests were not. The fact remains that,
as here, the defendants in those cases were arrested unlawfully;
there is no principled basis to distinguish between the unlawful
arrests in Handy and Green, where the defendants were mistakenly
arrested pursuant to valid arrest warrants issued against other
individuals, and defendant’s unlawful arrest pursuant to a once-
validly issued arrest warrant that was, unbeknownst to law
enforcement, subsequently vacated.
Moreover, because municipal court staff were entirely
responsible for the error in this case, application of the
exclusionary rule here improperly conflates law enforcement with
the judiciary. The judiciary and law enforcement are separate
and independent components of our criminal justice system,
serving entirely different functions. Law enforcement, for its
part, investigates criminal activity and secures incriminating
evidence for use in obtaining convictions. The judiciary, in
turn, weighs the evidence presented, applies the relevant law to
that evidence, and determines if there is sufficient probable
cause to support a warrant. The judiciary also functions as a
check against executive power exercised by law enforcement.
“Judges and magistrates are not adjuncts to the law enforcement
3
team; as neutral judicial officers, they have no stake in the
outcome of particular criminal prosecutions.” Leon, supra, 468
U.S. at 917, 104 S. Ct. at 3417, 82 L. Ed. 2d at 695. Thus,
absent some indicia of law enforcement involvement, suppressing
evidence based on a purely judicial oversight improperly
suggests that the judiciary is in collusion with law enforcement
to obtain convictions, and therefore may be deterred from
obtaining such evidence through unlawful means.
I.
There is no dispute regarding the facts relevant to our
analysis. Patrolman Steven Love arrested defendant in October
2011 pursuant to an arrest warrant, which was later determined
to have been vacated in 2010. However, due to a clerical
oversight by a municipal court administrator, the arrest warrant
was not listed as vacated in the automated criminal system (ACS)
-- a statewide database that tracks, among other things, warrant
history -- for each criminal complaint. It is undisputed that
this process in no way involves law enforcement personnel.
Following defendant’s arrest, Officer Love discovered
illegal narcotics and $2,317 in cash on defendant -- evidence
which formed the basis of the charges against him. On
rehearing, the motion court granted defendant’s suppression
motion based on testimony from the Asbury Park Municipal Court
administrator, indicating that defendant’s warrant had been
4
vacated prior to his arrest and that defendant’s arrest was
therefore unlawful. Relying on Novembrino, the Appellate
Division affirmed, holding that regardless of who was
responsible for the clerical error, “New Jersey jurisprudence
does not permit the State to use the fruits of an illegal arrest
against a defendant even if the police acted reasonably.”
II.
As the concurring opinion notes, it is undisputed that the
arrest warrant upon which defendant’s arrest was based was
invalid, notwithstanding Officer Love’s reasonable understanding
to the contrary. Therefore, the disagreement here does not
turn on whether Officer Love had probable cause to arrest
defendant or whether an exception to the warrant requirement
applied, but on whether the appropriate remedy for the error
leading to defendant’s arrest is suppression.
The appropriate remedy for a police violation of a
citizen’s right to be free from unreasonable searches and
seizures has long been the topic of debate. See Novembrino,
supra, 105 N.J. at 100 (“‘The debate within the Court on the
exclusionary rule has always been a warm one.’” (quoting United
States v. Janis, 428 U.S. 433, 446, 96 S. Ct. 3021, 3028, 49 L.
Ed. 2d 1046, 1056 (1976)); see also Leon, supra, 468 U.S. at
907, 104 S. Ct. at 3412, 82 L. Ed. 2d at 688 (“The substantial
social costs exacted by the exclusionary rule for the
5
vindication of Fourth Amendment rights have long been a source
of concern.”). In light of the dispute before this Court, a
brief history of the exclusionary rule is instructive here.
A.
The development and history of the exclusionary rule
illustrates its core purpose: deterrence of future unlawful
police conduct. The United States Supreme Court first applied
the exclusionary rule in a criminal case in Weeks v. United
States, 232 U.S. 383, 398, 34 S. Ct. 341, 346, 58 L. Ed. 652,
657-58 (1914). In doing so, the Court observed:
The tendency of those who execute the criminal
laws of the country to obtain conviction by
means of unlawful seizures and enforced
confessions, the latter often obtained after
subjecting accused persons to unwarranted
practices destructive of rights secured by the
Federal Constitution, should find no sanction
in the judgments of the courts which are
charged at all times with the support of the
Constitution and to which people of all
conditions have a right to appeal for the
maintenance of such fundamental rights.
[Id. at 392, 34 S. Ct. at 344, 58 L. Ed. at
655.]
Thirty-five years later, the Court in Wolf v. Colorado, 338
U.S. 25, 33, 69 S. Ct. 1359, 1364, 93 L. Ed. 1782, 1788 (1949),
declined the invitation to apply the exclusionary rule to the
States via the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Court, noting other remedies available to citizens for
disruption caused by unlawful police intrusion, explained that
6
it could not “brush aside the experience of States which deem
the incidence of such conduct by the police too slight to call
for a deterrent remedy not by way of disciplinary measures but
by overriding the relevant rules of evidence.” Id. at 31-32, 69
S. Ct. at 1363-64, 93 L. Ed. at 1787-88.
In the seminal case of Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 660, 81
S. Ct. 1684, 1694, 6 L. Ed. 2d 1081, 1093 (1961), the Court
reversed course, holding the exclusionary rule applicable to the
States via the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
In doing so, the Court noted that it had consistently held the
exclusionary rule is “a clear, specific, and constitutionally
required -- even if judicially implied -- deterrent safeguard
without insistence upon which the Fourth Amendment would have
been reduced to ‘a form of words.’” Id. at 648, 81 S. Ct. at
1688, 6 L. Ed. 2d at 1086 (quoting Silverthorne Lumber Co. v.
United States, 251 U.S. 385, 392, 40 S. Ct. 182, 183, 64 L. Ed.
319, 321 (1920)).
The Mapp Court further noted its recent “recogni[tion] that
the purpose of the exclusionary rule ‘is to deter -- to compel
respect for the constitutional guaranty in the only effectively
available way -- by removing the incentive to disregard it.’”
Id. at 656, 81 S. Ct. at 1692, 6 L. Ed. 2d. at 1090 (quoting
Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 217, 80 S. Ct. 1437,
1444, 4 L. Ed. 2d 1669, 1677 (1960) (further stating “[t]he
7
[exclusionary] rule is calculated to prevent, not to repair,”
constitutional violations)). In disapproving of “the double
standard” resulting from finding the exclusionary rule
applicable to federal agents but not to state law enforcement,
the Court explained:
In nonexclusionary States, federal officers,
being human, were by it invited to and did, as
our cases indicate, step across the street to
the State’s attorney with their
unconstitutionally seized evidence.
Prosecution on the basis of that evidence was
then had in a state court in utter disregard
of the enforceable Fourth Amendment. If the
fruits of an unconstitutional search had been
inadmissible in both state and federal courts,
this inducement to evasion would have been
sooner eliminated.
[Id. at 658, 81 S. Ct. at 1693, 6 L. Ed. 2d at
1091-92.]
Over the next twenty-three years, the United States Supreme
Court decided a series of cases paring back the exclusionary
rule where, in the Court’s view, the deterrent effect did not
outweigh the truth-finding function of the criminal justice
system. See, e.g., Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165,
171-72, 89 S. Ct. 961, 965, 22 L. Ed. 2d 176, 185-86 (1969)
(holding only those whose Fourth Amendment rights have been
violated have standing to invoke exclusionary rule); United
States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 349-52, 94 S. Ct. 613, 620-22,
38 L. Ed. 2d 561, 572-73 (1974) (rejecting application of
exclusionary rule to evidence presented at grand jury
8
proceedings because such application “would achieve a
speculative and undoubtedly minimal advance in the deterrence of
police misconduct at the expense of substantially impeding the
role of the grand jury”); United States v. Havens, 446 U.S. 620,
626, 100 S. Ct. 1912, 1916, 64 L. Ed. 2d 559, 565 (1980)
(holding exclusionary rule does not bar use of unlawfully seized
evidence for impeachment purposes). Then, in what this Court
described as “the most significant limitation of the
exclusionary rule since its genesis in Weeks,” Novembrino,
supra, 105 N.J. at 139, the Supreme Court in Leon, supra, 468
U.S. 897, 104 S. Ct. 3405, 82 L. Ed. 2d 677, adopted the good-
faith exception to the exclusionary rule.
The Supreme Court in Leon, supra, applying “the balancing
approach that has evolved during the years of experience with
the rule,” determined that “reliable physical evidence seized by
officers reasonably relying on a warrant issued by a detached
and neutral magistrate should be admissible in the prosecution’s
case in chief.” 468 U.S. at 913, 104 S. Ct. at 3415, 82 L. Ed.
2d at 692. In denying the suppression motion, the District
Court in that case found the affidavit in support of the search
warrant on which the search of the defendant’s home was based
“insufficient to establish probable cause,” but determined that
there was no question the officer who procured the warrant “had
9
acted in good faith.” Id. at 903-04 & n.4, 104 S. Ct. at 3410 &
n.4, 82 L. Ed. 2d at 685-86 & n.4.
Turning to the question of the appropriate remedy, the
Court considered “the tension between the sometimes competing
goals of, on the one hand, deterring official misconduct and
removing inducements to unreasonable invasions of privacy and,
on the other, establishing procedures under which criminal
defendants are ‘acquitted or convicted on the basis of all the
evidence which exposes the truth.’” Id. at 900-01, 104 S. Ct.
at 3409, 82 L. Ed. 2d at 684 (quoting Alderman, supra, 394 U.S.
at 175, 89 S. Ct. at 967, 22 L. Ed. 2d at 187). The Court
determined that, on balance, “the marginal or nonexistent
benefits produced by suppressing evidence obtained in
objectively reasonable reliance on a subsequently invalidated
search warrant cannot justify the substantial costs of
exclusion.” Id. at 922, 104 S. Ct. at 3420, 82 L. Ed. 2d at
698. Thus, while suppression remains the appropriate remedy
where “the officers were dishonest or reckless in preparing
their affidavit or could not have harbored an objectively
reasonable belief in the existence of probable cause,” id. at
926, 104 S. Ct. at 3422, 82 L. Ed. 2d at 701, suppression is not
warranted where “an officer acting with objective good faith has
obtained a search warrant from a judge or magistrate and acted
10
within its scope,” id. at 920, 104 S. Ct. at 3419, 82 L. Ed. 2d
at 697.
The Supreme Court then provided four distinct rationales
for finding a good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule.
“First, the exclusionary rule is designed to deter police
misconduct rather than to punish the errors of judges and
magistrates.” Id. at 916, 104 S. Ct. at 3417, 82 L. Ed. 2d at
694. Additionally, “there exists no evidence suggesting that
judges and magistrates are inclined to ignore or subvert the
Fourth Amendment or that lawlessness among these actors requires
application of the extreme sanction of exclusion.” Ibid.
Third, the Court could “discern no basis . . . for believing
that exclusion of evidence seized pursuant to a warrant will
have a significant deterrent effect on the issuing judge or
magistrate.” Ibid. Finally, the Court reasoned that exclusion
of evidence “‘[w]here the official action was pursued in
complete good faith . . . loses much of its force.’” Id. at
919, 104 S. Ct. at 3418, 82 L. Ed. 2d at 696 (citations
omitted). Thus,
where the officer’s conduct is objectively
reasonable, “excluding the evidence will not
further the ends of the exclusionary rule in
any appreciable way; for it is painfully
apparent that . . . the officer is acting as
a reasonable officer would and should act in
similar circumstances. Excluding the evidence
can in no way affect his future conduct unless
it is to make him less willing to do his duty.”
11
[Id. at 919-20, 104 S. Ct. at 3419, 82 L. Ed.
2d at 697 (citation omitted).]
Against this backdrop, we consider the application of the
exclusionary rule in New Jersey.
B.
With some exception, in the fifty-four years since this
Court first addressed the exclusionary rule in State v.
Valentin, 36 N.J. 41 (1961), our courts have resisted the
federal trend towards erosion of the exclusionary rule. Most
relevant to the matter before us, a majority of the Court in
Novembrino, supra, 105 N.J. at 157-58, rejected the federal good
faith exception established in Leon.
In Novembrino, a detective discovered evidence of drug
trafficking following a search of the defendant’s workplace.
Id. at 102-03. The detective conducted the search pursuant to a
warrant issued by a judge, who had signed the warrant based on
an affidavit prepared by the detective stating that the
defendant was selling narcotics out of his gas station. Id. at
102-04. The trial court suppressed the evidence, finding the
affidavit “failed to establish probable cause.” Id. at 103. In
affirming suppression, the Appellate Division rejected the
State’s contention that the good faith exception should be
applied in this state, reasoning that the good faith exception
“would undermine the constitutional requirement of probable
12
cause.” Id. at 105. This Court granted the State’s petition
for certification, determined that the detective’s affidavit
failed to establish probable cause, and turned to the question
of whether the good faith exception should apply in this State.
Id. at 124-30.
In rejecting the good faith exception to the exclusionary
rule, the Novembrino majority began by noting that the Court
“has frequently resorted to our own State Constitution in order
to afford our citizens broader protection of certain personal
rights than that afforded by analogous or identical provisions
of the federal Constitution.” Id. at 145. Finding academic
criticism of Leon persuasive, the majority stated:
By eliminating any cost for noncompliance with
the constitutional requirement of probable
cause, the good-faith exception assures us
that the constitutional standard will be
diluted.
. . . .
Our view that the good-faith exception will
ultimately reduce respect for and compliance
with the probable-cause standard that we have
steadfastly enforced persuades us that there
is a strong state interest that would be
disserved by adopting the Leon rule.
[Id. at 152-54.]
The majority agreed with the dissenting Justice’s
observation “that the public will view the good-faith exception
to the exclusionary rule as a sensible accommodation between
protecting an individual’s constitutional rights and punishing
13
the guilty.” Id. at 156. Nevertheless, the majority determined
that it could not countenance the “erosion of the probable-cause
guarantee” enshrined in article I, paragraph 7 of our State
Constitution, which it felt was likely to “be a corollary to the
good-faith exception.” Id. at 159.
Recently, in the context of a police officer’s execution of
an arrest warrant, this Court in Handy, supra, again considered
the standard for suppression of evidence uncovered in the
execution of a warrant. The Court affirmed the Appellate
Division’s conclusion that, where the execution of a warrant is
at issue, “the basic test under both” the federal and our state
constitutions is: “was the conduct objectively reasonable in
light of ‘the facts known to the law enforcement officer at the
time of the search.’” 206 N.J. at 46-47 (quoting State v.
Bruzzese, 94 N.J. 210, 221 (1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1030,
104 S. Ct. 1295, 79 L. Ed. 2d 695-96 (1984)); accord Green,
supra, 318 N.J. Super. at 354. In doing so, we noted that,
“under federal and state jurisprudence,” objective
reasonableness is the appropriate standard because “‘room must
be allowed for some mistakes by the police,’” provided of course
“the police have behaved reasonably.” Handy, supra, 206 N.J. at
54 (quoting Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177, 186, 110 S. Ct.
2793, 2800, 111 L. Ed. 2d 148, 159-60 (1980)). Thus, we
14
observed, the “standard of objective reasonableness is the
polestar for our inquiry.” Id. at 47.
Applying that standard, we affirmed the Appellate
Division’s finding that a police dispatcher, who had erroneously
informed the arresting officer that the defendant had an
outstanding arrest warrant, acted unreasonably. Id. at 41-42.
The officer had arrested Handy in response to the police
dispatcher’s report that Handy had an outstanding arrest
warrant, and, in a search incident to that arrest, found illegal
drugs. Id. at 42. The officer later learned that the warrant
matched neither Handy’s name nor his birthdate, but nevertheless
charged Handy with drug offenses. Id. at 42-43. We held that
“our own constitution requires suppression” because the police
dispatcher, “an integral link in the law enforcement chain,” had
acted unreasonably “in failing to take further steps when she
recognized that she did not have a match on the warrant check.”
Id. at 42, 54.
Notably, the error in the execution of the arrest warrant
was not due to inadequate or inaccurate information provided by
the police officer. Hence, we looked to whether the police
dispatcher’s conduct was objectively reasonable under the
circumstances rather than whether the officer relied upon the
warrant in good faith. The Appellate Division in Handy found
its decision “fully consistent with [its] decision in State v.
15
Moore, 260 N.J. Super. 12, 16 (App. Div. 1992),” a case in which
the police, in good faith, arrested a defendant pursuant to an
arrest warrant that was no longer valid, but which “the police
never deleted . . . from their computer databases.” State v.
Handy, 412 N.J. Super. 492, 503 (App. Div. 2010). Observing
that police inaction led to the mistake giving rise to the
unlawful arrest, the Appellate Division “relied on Professor
LaFave’s assertion that ‘the police may not rely upon incorrect
or incomplete information when they are at fault in permitting
the records to remain uncorrected.’” Ibid. (internal quotation
marks omitted) (quoting Moore, supra, 260 N.J. Super. at 18).
Similarly, in Green, supra, 318 N.J. Super. at 354, the
Appellate Division held that Novembrino does not govern cases
“deal[ing] with the validity of a police officer’s actions in
executing a warrant.” The officers in that case mistook Green
for another individual, Lovett, who was the person identified in
a search warrant they were executing. Id. at 349. During the
course of the arrest, the officers discovered drugs belonging to
Green. Ibid. The Appellate Division determined that, because
Green closely resembled Lovett, Green was standing outside of
Lovett’s home when the officers arrived, and Green ran into
Lovett’s house when the officers announced themselves, the
officers’ belief that Green was Lovett was objectively
reasonable. Id. at 352. Observing the United States Supreme
16
Court’s assertion that law enforcement agents need not always be
correct but must “‘always be reasonable,’” the appellate panel
concluded that, “if a police officer’s actions in executing a
warrant are reasonable, there is no constitutional violation and
thus no need to consider the availability of a good faith
exception to the exclusionary rule.” Id. at 354 (quoting
Rodriguez, supra, 497 U.S. at 185, 110 S. Ct. at 2800, 111 L.
Ed. 2d at 159).
III.
Considered together, the above decisions demonstrate that,
where law enforcement personnel share no responsibility for the
error giving rise to the unlawful search or seizure, the
question is not whether the police officer acted in good faith,
but whether the officer’s conduct was objectively reasonable
under the circumstances. The Court’s decision today, in finding
suppression is required where the police bear no responsibility
for the error resulting in the defendant’s unlawful arrest,
extends Novembrino beyond its intended scope.
While Novembrino accords greater weight to the vindication
function of the exclusionary rule than does the federal system,
nothing in Novembrino suggests that the exclusionary rule is no
longer intended to operate prophylactically against future
unlawful misconduct by law enforcement. The Novembrino majority
did not reject Leon’s well-settled assertion that “the
17
exclusionary rule is designed to deter police misconduct rather
than to punish the errors of judges and magistrates.” Leon,
supra, 468 U.S. at 916, 104 S. Ct. at 3417, 82 L. Ed. 2d at 694.
Rather, Novembrino, supra, stated that the exclusionary rule’s
function “is not merely to deter police conduct,” 105 N.J. at
157, indicating that deterrence of future police misconduct
remains a significant purpose of the exclusionary rule.
Indeed, since Novembrino, we have consistently affirmed our
view that “[t]he ‘prime purpose’ of the [exclusionary] rule, if
not the sole one, ‘is to deter future unlawful police conduct.’”
E.g. Smith, supra, 212 N.J. at 388 (quoting Evers, supra, 175
N.J. at 376); see also Shaw, supra, 213 N.J. at 413 (noting one
of two purposes of exclusionary rule “is to deter future
unlawful police conduct” (citations and internal quotation marks
omitted)); Williams, supra, 192 N.J. at 14 (“The overarching
purpose of the rule is to deter the police from engaging in
constitutional violations[.]”); Badessa, supra, 185 N.J. at 310
(same).
Nor have we rejected Leon’s premise that the exclusionary
rule is “‘a judicially created remedy designed to safeguard
Fourth Amendment rights generally through its deterrent
effect.’” Handy, supra, 206 N.J. at 45; see also Williams,
supra, 192 N.J. at 14; Shaw, supra, 213 N.J. at 413. As we have
recently observed, “[a]lthough the exclusionary rule ‘may
18
vindicate the Fourth Amendment rights of a particular defendant,
and more generally the privacy rights of all persons,’ it may
also ‘depriv[e] the jury or judge of reliable evidence that may
point the way to the truth.’” Shaw, supra, 213 N.J. at 414
(second alteration in original) (quoting Williams, supra, 192
N.J. at 14-15).
Because of the high price exacted by
suppressing evidence, “the exclusionary rule
is applied to those circumstances where its
remedial objectives can best be achieved.”
Thus, when law enforcement officials secure
evidence that is sufficiently independent of
the illegal conduct -- evidence that is not
tainted by the misdeed -- then withholding
evidence from the trier of fact is a cost that
may not be justified by the exclusionary rule.
[Ibid. (citations omitted).]
Accordingly, the exclusionary rule applies where its
purposes may best be served, mindful of the costs suppression of
evidence imposes on the criminal justice system; it is not
applied as a matter of constitutional right. In light of our
steadfast adherence to the United States Supreme Court’s
balancing approach in applying the exclusionary rule, in which
deterrence of future police misconduct plays a heavy role,
Novembrino must be read only to preclude good-faith reliance by
police officers on a warrant where law enforcement personnel
contribute to a mistake that renders the warrant invalid.
Reading Novembrino as the concurrence does here relegates the
19
exclusionary rule’s deterrent function to a mere ancillary
benefit. Novembrino does not go so far, and such a conclusion
is contrary to our jurisprudence following Novembrino.
IV.
There is no basis to find that the exclusionary rule,
applied to these facts, has any deterrent value whatsoever.
Patricia Green, the Asbury Park Municipal Court administrator,
offered unrebutted testimony that, in her twenty-seven-year
tenure as administrator, as far as she was aware, this type of
oversight had never occurred before. Green affirmed that “[i]t
was our error,” and that “there’s no way the police would have
known that” the warrant had been vacated. Therefore,
suppression in this case divorces the exclusionary rule from its
primary function: deterrence of future unlawful police conduct.
Cf. Moore, supra, 260 N.J. Super. at 13-15 (upholding
suppression of evidence discovered following arrest based on
vacated bench warrant, where police involvement in failure to
vacate warrant was disputed). No reported decision goes so far,
and it is error to do so here.
As the concurring opinion observes, Officer Love arrested
defendant pursuant to a vacated warrant, “‘[t]he inescapable
consequence’” of which “‘is that defendant was arrested
illegally.’” Ante at __ (slip op. at 20) (quoting Moore, supra,
260 N.J. Super. at 16). However, contrary to the concurrence’s
20
position, there is no meaningful distinction between defendant’s
arrest pursuant to a once validly issued warrant, and the
arrests of the defendants in Handy and Green, who were arrested
pursuant to validly issued warrants for other individuals. At
the end of the day, there was no probable cause supporting the
arrests of any of these defendants. More importantly, “unlike
Novembrino, th[ese] case[s] do[] not involve any issue relating
to the integrity of the warrant-issuing process.” Green, supra,
318 N.J. Super. at 353. Because there is no evidence that any
law enforcement personnel were responsible for failing to vacate
defendant’s warrant, the standard is whether Officer Love’s
actions were objectionably reasonable “in light of ‘the facts
known to [him] at the time.’” Id. at 354 (quoting Bruzzese,
supra, 94 N.J. at 221).
“Suppressing evidence sends the strongest possible message
that constitutional misconduct will not be tolerated and
therefore is intended to encourage fidelity to the law.”
Williams, supra, 192 N.J. at 14. Where, as here, law
enforcement had no involvement in the fault giving rise to the
unlawful arrest and “the officer’s actions in executing a
warrant are reasonable, there is no constitutional violation and
thus no need to consider the availability of a good faith
exception to the exclusionary rule.” Green, supra, 318 N.J.
Super. at 354. Because Officer Love’s conduct was objectively
21
reasonable, there was no constitutional misconduct here, and
thus no need to send the costly message suppression offers.
I agree with my colleagues in the concurring opinion that,
under Novembrino, a police officer’s objectively reasonable
conduct is irrelevant where law enforcement personnel are
responsible for the mistake giving rise to an unlawful arrest.
However, neither Novembrino nor any decision since suggest that
deterrence is no longer a relevant consideration when deciding
whether suppression is the appropriate remedy. Nevertheless,
the concurring opinion concludes that Novembrino requires
application of the exclusionary rule -- notwithstanding that the
record is devoid of evidence of police misconduct, and that the
exclusionary rule has no deterrent value in this case. It is
from this conclusion that I dissent.
For the foregoing reasons, I would reverse the judgment of
the Appellate Division.
22
SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY
NO. A-111 SEPTEMBER TERM 2013
ON APPEAL FROM Appellate Division, Superior Court
STATE OF NEW JERSEY,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
THOMAS SHANNON,
Defendant-Respondent.
DECIDED August 19, 2015
Chief Justice Rabner PRESIDING
OPINION BY Per Curiam
CONCURRING OPINION BY Justice LaVecchia
DISSENTING OPINION BY Justice Solomon
CHECKLIST AFFIRM CONCUR DISSENT
CHIEF JUSTICE RABNER X (X)
JUSTICE LaVECCHIA X (X)
JUSTICE ALBIN X (X)
JUSTICE PATTERSON X
JUSTICE FERNANDEZ-VINA X
JUSTICE SOLOMON X
JUDGE CUFF (t/a) --------------- --------------- ---------------
TOTALS 3 3