State v. Barnett

543 N.W.2d 774, 1996 N.D. LEXIS 47, 1996 WL 56869
CourtNorth Dakota Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 13, 1996
DocketCr. 950144
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 543 N.W.2d 774 (State v. Barnett) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering North Dakota Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Barnett, 543 N.W.2d 774, 1996 N.D. LEXIS 47, 1996 WL 56869 (N.D. 1996).

Opinions

LEVINE, Justice.

In this appeal from a judgment of conviction for delivery of a controlled substance, William Joseph Barnett challenges the trial court’s rulings on two suppression motions, its refusal to give a requested jury instruction on lost evidence, and the prosecutor’s closing argument. We affirm.

Hoping to improve her position after being arrested for DUI, Naomi Martinez told law enforcement authorities that she could make a drug buy for them in Valley City. On January 19, 1994, Martinez, who was wired with a transmitter, went to Barnett’s home to buy marijuana. Barnett did not have any marijuana, but had Martinez take him to another person’s house. Martinez gave Barnett $60 in marked bills, and Barnett went into the house and returned with a quarter ounce of marijuana for Martinez.

Martinez gave the marijuana to the authorities at approximately 9:30 p.m. on January 19, 1994. Officers secured a search warrant for the house where the buy was made, seized some controlled substances and some money, including two marked $20 bills, and made an arrest. At approximately 1:30 a.m. on January 20, 1994, three officers arrested Barnett at his home without securing an arrest warrant. While he was being booked, a marked $10 bill was seized from Barnett.

After a jury trial, Barnett was convicted of delivery of a controlled substance and he appealed.

I

Prior to trial, Barnett moved to suppress all evidence on the ground that his warrantless arrest in his home was illegal. The trial court determined that the officers had probable cause to arrest Barnett, but [777]*777that there were no exigent circumstances justifying his warrantless arrest in his home. The court ordered the suppression of all evidence obtained after the arrest.1 Barnett contends “that the more appropriate remedy would have been an outright dismissal or the suppression of all evidence gathered from the moment confidential informant [Martinez] made contact with Barnett.” We disagree.

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits police from making a warrantless, nonconsensual entry into a suspect’s home to make a routine felony arrest. Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980).2 “Absent exigent circumstances,” the threshold to a suspect’s home “may not reasonably be crossed without a warrant.” Payton, 445 U.S. at 590, 100 S.Ct. at 1382, 63 L.Ed.2d at 653. A defendant must stand trial even if his or her arrest was illegal. New York v. Harris, 495 U.S. 14, 18, 110 S.Ct. 1640, 1643, 109 L.Ed.2d 13, 20 (1990); Payton v. New York, supra, 445 U.S. at 592 n. 34, 100 S.Ct. at 1383, n. 34, 63 L.Ed.2d at 654 n. 34.

The remedy for a suspect’s war-rantless in-home arrest is application of the exclusionary rule. Payton, supra, 445 U.S. at 591-92, 100 S.Ct. at 1383, 63 L.Ed.2d at 654. “[I]n this context, ... ‘[t]he penalties visited upon the Government ... because its officers have violated the law must bear some relation to the purposes which the law is to serve.’ ” New York v. Harris, supra, 495 U.S. at 17, 110 S.Ct. at 1642-43, 109 L.Ed.2d at 20, quoting United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U.S. 268, 279, 98 S.Ct. 1054, 1063-64, 55 L.Ed.2d 268, 279 (1978). “The warrant requirement for an arrest in the home is imposed to protect the home.” New York v. Harris, supra, 495 U.S. at 20, 110 S.Ct. at 1644, 109 L.Ed.2d at 22. Under Payton, supra, “a warrantless entry will lead to the suppression of any evidence found, or statements taken, inside the home.” New York v. Harris, supra, 495 U.S. at 20, 110 S.Ct. at 1644, 109 L.Ed.2d at 22. Other evidence need not be suppressed if suppression would not serve the purpose of the warrant requirement. Id.

We conclude the trial court properly refused to dismiss the case and properly suppressed only evidence obtained after Barnett’s arrest. Suppression of evidence acquired before the arrest would not serve the warrant requirement’s purpose of protecting the home. That other evidence “was not the product of [Barnett] being in unlawful custody” or “the fruit of having been arrested in the home rather than someplace else” or “an exploitation of the illegal entry into [Barnett’s] home.” New York v. Harris, supra, 495 U.S. at 19, 110 S.Ct. at 1644, 109 L.Ed.2d at 21.

II

After learning that the tape recording of Martinez’s conversations with Barnett had been lost, Barnett filed a motion to suppress “all written, oral or physical evidence obtained as a result of the ‘body bug’ or ‘wire’ that was on the informant’s body.” The trial court noted there was no indication of bad faith and denied the motion, but reserved the right to issue an instruction on the matter. Noting that several officers testified about “what they recall hearing while the bug was operational,” and that “[t]he actual tape would have been the best evidence of what conversations occurred,” Barnett argues that “without the surveillance tape, he was precluded from putting forth a possible entrapment defense.”

There was no evidence of bad faith by the officers — they just could not find the tape. Because there was no bad faith, there was no federal due process violation under Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 109 S.Ct. 333, 102 L.Ed.2d 281 (1988). State v. Steffes, 500 N.W.2d 608 (N.D.1993).

There may be other grounds for adopting some kind of prophylactic response to lost evidence. Justice Stevens, for example, concurring in the judgment in Arizona v. Youngblood, supra, 488 U.S. at 61, 109 S.Ct. [778]*778at 339, 102 L.Ed.2d at 291, said that “there may well be eases in which the defendant is unable to prove that the State acted in bad faith but in which the loss or destruction of evidence is nonetheless so critical to the defense as to make a criminal trial fundamentally unfair.” The Stevens rationale has generated a line of cases based upon state constitutional grounds that impose a higher due process standard than the Arizona v. Youngblood bad faith test. See Steffes, supra, at 611, n. 3. Barnett has not briefed the state constitutional issue.

This court, however, has recognized that bad faith is not the only basis for ameliorating the impact of lost or destroyed evidence:

“If there is a ‘systemic disregard,’ Madison v. North Dakota Dept. of Transp., 503 N.W.2d 243, 246 (N.D.1993), of the ‘State’s duty to zealously protect evidence in its possession,’ Steffes at 614 n. 5, so that ‘haphazard handling and destruction of evidence ... is commonplace,’ Steffes, the adoption of prophylactic measures, such as an adverse-inference instruction, may be justified in cases of a failure to preserve evidence in order to protect defendants from the loss or destruction of potentially helpful evidence and to induce the state to adopt better safeguards to protect evidence in its possession.”

Bismarck v. Holden,

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State v. Barnett
543 N.W.2d 774 (North Dakota Supreme Court, 1996)

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Bluebook (online)
543 N.W.2d 774, 1996 N.D. LEXIS 47, 1996 WL 56869, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-barnett-nd-1996.