United States v. Jordan

1 M.J. 334, 1976 CMA LEXIS 5717
CourtUnited States Court of Military Appeals
DecidedMarch 12, 1976
DocketNo. 29,592
StatusPublished
Cited by25 cases

This text of 1 M.J. 334 (United States v. Jordan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Military Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Jordan, 1 M.J. 334, 1976 CMA LEXIS 5717 (cma 1976).

Opinions

OPINION OF THE COURT

FLETCHER, Chief Judge:

Following the release of our initial opinion in this case, the Government filed a timely petition for reconsideration1 urging that we reexamine the exclusionary rule promulgated by the majority “that evidence obtained by search and seizure in a foreign country must meet Fourth Amendment standards in order to be admitted in evidence in a trial by court-martial, regardless of whether it . [was] obtained by foreign police acting on their own or in [336]*336conjunction with American authorities.” United States v. Jordan, 23 U.S.C.M.A. 525, 527, 50 C.M.R. 664, 666, 1 M.J. 145, 149 (1975). We subsequently granted the Government’s motion and, in addition, offered the other services an opportunity to file amicus curiae briefs. The question then was redocketed for oral argument which was heard on November 17, 1975.

The Government contends that the practical effect of our initial decision, although couched in terms of the admissibility of evidence, is to thwart the congressional policy of maximizing American criminal jurisdiction over our service-members who commit offenses while stationed in a foreign country.2 Stated differently, the admissibility standard announced would lead to trial in foreign courts of a substantial number of criminal offenses committed by servicemen overseas.3 The Government views such a result as neither constitutionally required nor judicially warranted.

I

We turn first to the constitutional question whether compliance with the Fourth Amendment by foreign authorities conducting a search in their own country is a prerequisite for use of the seized evidence in a trial by court-martial. Re-examination of the underlying purpose of the exclusionary rule convinces us that extension of the concept to encompass searches conducted solely by foreign officials is not constitutionally mandated. Mr. Justice Clark, writing for a majority of the Supreme Court in Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 636-37, 85 S.Ct. 1731, 1741, 14 L.Ed.2d 601 (1965), observed that “all of the cases since Wolf4 requiring the exclusion of illegal evidence have been based on the necessity for an effective deterrent to illegal police action.” More recently, in United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 347, 94 S.Ct. 613, 619, 38 L.Ed.2d 561 (1974), the Supreme Court reiterated that “[t]he purpose of the exclusionary rule is not to redress the injury to the privacy of the search victim . . .. Instead, the rule’s prime purpose is to deter future unlawful police conduct and thereby effectuate the guarantee of the Fourth Amendment.” Accord, United States v. Peltier, 422 U.S. 531, 538-39, 95 S.Ct. 2313, 45 L.Ed.2d 374 (1975); Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 488, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971).

We agree with Government counsel that application of the exclusionary rule to all actions of the foreign police would have minimal deterrent effect and perhaps for legitimate reason since foreign police action, even though violative of our Constitution, may be perfectly acceptable conduct under the law of their sovereign. This being the case, it is only logical that most foreign police officials would elect to comply with their own legal scheme rather than with ours. Thus, extension of the exclusionary rule to encompass all foreign searches would not serve the principal purpose for the rule’s existence, the deterrence [337]*337of future unlawful police conduct.5 In addition, as the Government has suggested, the practical effect of our prior ruling was to hinder rather than to protect servicemen’s constitutional rights by encouraging trial in foreign courts with no American constitutional safeguards. While virtually no one relishes a criminal trial in which he or she must appear as the defendant, most would agree that if given the Hobson’s choice of appearing at trial with some constitutional safeguards as opposed to none, the question becomes, at best, rhetorical.

II

Of equal importance is whether the DeLeo6 standard for American police participation in foreign searches remains the appropriate formula for determining when the Fourth Amendment and the exclusionary rule safeguard should be activated. In DeLeo, this Court modified for foreign searches what was then known in federal practice as the “silver platter doctrine” which mandated Fourth Amendment compliance in Federal prosecutions where agents of the United States participated “to some recognizable extent” in a search conducted by state officials. See Lustig v. United States, 338 U.S. 74, 69 S.Ct. 1372, 93 L.Ed. 819 (1949); Byars v. United States, 273 U.S. 28, 47 S.Ct. 248, 71 L.Ed. 520 (1927). Assuming a protective posture, the Court concluded that the “mere presence” of American officials at the scene of a foreign search was desirable “for the purpose of assuring that the legitimate interests of the [American] suspect are protected in the conduct of the foreign investigation,” and such presence was deemed insufficient to trigger the Fourth Amendment. United States v. DeLeo, 5 U.S.C.M.A. 148, 156, 17 C.M.R. 148, 156 (1954).

While we still believe that American scrutiny of foreign searches is desirable where American servicemen are involved, no longer are we willing to exact Fourth Amendment protections as the price for such presence. Military as well as federal practice has evidenced continuing difficulty in drawing the line between “mere presence” and participation.7 Such ambivalence on the part of the courts inevitably leads enforcement authorities to test the limits of the doctrine. Yet such stress defeats the very reason for the exclusionary rule, to deter violations of the Fourth Amendment by removing the incentive to disregard it. See Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 217, 80 S.Ct. 1437, 4 L.Ed.2d 1669 (1960), citing Eleuteri v. Richman, 26 N.J. 506, 513, 141 A.2d 46, 50 (1958). See also People v. Kelley, 66 Cal.2d 232, 57 Cal.Rptr. 363, 424 P.2d 947, 961 (1967).

The temptation confronting American officials to avoid the Fourth Amendment by merely delegating primary search authority to those not subject to our Constitution coupled with the unending judicial dilemma of resolving what is and is not sufficient participation to trigger the constitutional guaranty leads us to conclude that the DeLeo standard no longer is satisfactory to [338]*338safeguard the constitutional rights of servicemen stationed in a foreign country. Much the same rationale led the Supreme Court to invalidate the “silver platter doctrine” as it had been applied to state-secured evidence used in Federal prosecutions. Elkins v.

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