State v. Burke

717 P.2d 1039, 110 Idaho 621, 1986 Ida. App. LEXIS 390
CourtIdaho Court of Appeals
DecidedMarch 31, 1986
Docket15565
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 717 P.2d 1039 (State v. Burke) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Burke, 717 P.2d 1039, 110 Idaho 621, 1986 Ida. App. LEXIS 390 (Idaho Ct. App. 1986).

Opinion

BURNETT, Judge.

John Edward Burke stands convicted of possessing marijuana with intent to deliver. On appeal he contends that the marijuana and other related evidence should have been suppressed because they were obtained, directly or indirectly, through a search and a police interrogation in Canada that did not meet American constitutional standards. He also attacks the legality of searches conducted in Idaho. Moreover, he raises a host of challenges to the fairness of his trial, urging that the trial was tainted by newspaper publicity, by admission of hearsay evidence, by denial of his right to confront an adverse witness, by failure to instruct the jury on a lesser crime of “attempted” possession, by prosecutorial misconduct, and by denial of a motion for judgment of acquittal. For reasons explained below, we reject each of these arguments and affirm the judgment of conviction.

I

We first turn to the suppression issues. Our facts begin with a telephone call on November 10, 1981. The call was placed by an officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to a narcotics investigator for the Idaho Department of Law Enforcement. The Canadian officer said a confidential informant had told him that a large amount of marijuana soon would be transported to Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, by one John Edward Burke, a resident of Coeur d’Al-ene. At the Canadian officer’s request, the Idaho investigator kept watch on Burke’s residence. He saw Burke performing some kind of work on a pickup truck in his garage. In the early morning hours of November 13 the investigator found that the pickup was gone. He notified the Canadian officer that Burke apparently had departed the Coeur d’Alene area.

On the following day, the Idaho investigator received another call. The Canadian officer informed him that Burke had been arrested in Red Deer the evening of November 13. Approximately thirty pounds of marijuana had been found in a false gas *624 tank and in the spare tire of Burke’s pickup truck. The Canadian officer requested that a warrant be obtained to search Burke’s home for evidence showing a conspiracy or scheme to import marijuana into Canada. The Idaho investigator interviewed two of Burke’s stepsons who had been at the Burke home on November 13. They reported seeing items often used in the sale of marijuana, such as duct tape, a scale and plastic bags. They also reported seeing Burke carry an empty gas tank to his bedroom, which they were forbidden to enter. Armed with this information and with the facts provided by the Canadian officer, the Idaho investigator obtained a warrant to search Burke’s house and an attached garage. The search produced a scale, gray duct tape, plastic bags, a heat-sealing device, and documents indicating the purchase of a large quantity of marijuana in South America. In the garage the investigator also found several burlap bags with South American labels. The bags contained marijuana residue.

On November 18 the Idaho investigator notified the Canadian officer of his findings. Later the same day the Canadian officer called again. This time the Canadian officer said he had examined Burke’s wallet, seized during the arrest, and had found a rental agreement pertaining to a commercial ministorage facility in Coeur d’Alene. He asked the Idaho investigator to procure a warrant to search the ministo-rage unit. The Idaho investigator complied. A search that evening revealed approximately two hundred fifty pounds of marijuana in storage. This information was transmitted to the Canadian officer who, on November 19, conveyed it to Burke. In response to a question by the officer, Burke admitted that he had rented the ministorage unit and had kept a key on the headboard of his bed at home in Coeur d’Alene.

Burke pled guilty to charges filed against him in Canada and served a sentence of confinement. Upon his return to Idaho, he confronted the instant charge of possessing, with intent to deliver, the marijuana found in the ministorage unit. He moved to suppress the marijuana, the min-istorage agreement, evidence seized in the garage of his house and any testimony concerning his admission of having rented the unit. The motion was denied.

A

Burke’s effort to suppress the marijuana and the ministorage agreement requires us to examine the limits of protection afforded by the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution. Burke contends that the warrantless search of his wallet by the Canadian officer, several days after the arrest at Red Deer, violated the fourth amendment. Upon this hypothesis, Burke argues that the agreement and the marijuana found in the ministorage unit were the products of an illegal search. However, we need not decide whether the fourth amendment was violated. In our view, the fourth amendment simply is not applicable.

In general, the United States Constitution does not govern the acts of foreign officials outside the United States, even if they seize evidence from American citizens and the evidence later is adduced at trial in an American court. United States v. Rose, 570 F.2d 1358 (9th Cir.1978); Stonehill v. United States, 405 F.2d 738 (9th Cir.1968), cert. denied, 395 U.S. 960, 89 S.Ct. 2102, 23 L.Ed.2d 747 (1969); Brulay v. United States, 383 F.2d 345 (9th Cir.1967), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 986, 88 S.Ct. 469, 19 L.Ed.2d 478 (1967). There are two closely related exceptions to this broad axiom. First, the evidence may be excluded on due process grounds if the circumstances of the foreign search are so extreme that they shock the American judicial conscience. Second, the evidence may be suppressed under an extension of the fourth amendment exclusionary rule if American law enforcement authorities jointly conduct the foreign search or if the foreign officials conduct the search as agents for their American counterparts. United States v. Hensel, 699 F.2d 18 (1st Cir.1983), cert. denied, 401 U.S. 958, 103 *625 S.Ct. 2431, 77 L.Ed.2d 1317 (1983); United States v. Rose, supra. Here, no shocking acts were committed; neither did any American officer jointly engage in searching Burke’s wallet. Consequently, the question is narrowed to whether the Canadian officer acted as an agent for the Idaho investigator in conducting the search.

Occasionally, and perhaps unfortunately, the agency exception has been called a “joint venture” exception. Seizing upon this vague term, Burke has argued that the cooperation exhibited by Idaho and Canadian authorities in this case provides a “classic” illustration of a “joint venture.” Such loose language simply obtunds the analysis. The notion of a “joint venture” has a sharply defined historical meaning. It originated in the days before Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961), and Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 80 S.Ct.

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Bluebook (online)
717 P.2d 1039, 110 Idaho 621, 1986 Ida. App. LEXIS 390, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-burke-idahoctapp-1986.