PEOPLE v. SWEARINGEN

CONTRABAND SEIZED: Large amounts of marijuana were found in the van after defendant was placed under arrest. A large baggie of marijuana was found in a pocket of defendant's peacoat which was in the van along with $450 in cash. The Seagram's 7 Crown bag found under the driver's seat contained a baggie of marijuana. A storage compartment in the rear of the van contained a large baggie of marijuana and another baggie of marijuana-type substance known as Thai sticks.
Fifty-four grams of hashish were also found in defendant's apartment.

DEFENDANT GUILTY: The guilty plea as to count I was pursuant to a plea bargain. At the time of his change of plea from not guilty to guilty he admitted in open court that he possessed the hashish for purposes of sale.
Here but for People v. Hill (1974) 12 Cal.3d 731 [ 117 Cal.Rptr. 393, 528 P.2d 1] (which holds that the harmless error doctrine is inapplicable on appeal from a guilty plea entered following erroneous denial of a motion to suppress evidence (Pen. Code. § 1538.5, subd. (m)), the judgment should clearly be affirmed under the harmless error doctrine.
At the time of sentencing, proceedings were suspended and defendant was placed on probation for 3 years, one condition being that he serve 180 days in local custody with credit for the 1 day he had already served. The local custody condition was stayed pending this appeal. The defendant is presently free on his own recognizance.

THE EXCLUSIONARY RULE: The exclusionary rule can be defined as a rule which prohibits the admission into evidence at trial of that which was determined to have been obtained by a government agent as a result of "unreasonable search and seizure" in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The exclusionary rule was not known to the common law. Its foundation as a rule of evidence was laid in 1886 in the case of Boyd v. United States (1886) 116 U.S. 616 [29 L.Ed. 746, 6 S.Ct. 524]. The rule was first applied in 1914 in federal courts ( Weeks v. United States (1914) 232 U.S. 383 [58 L.Ed. 652, 34 S.Ct. 341]) and adopted by the California Supreme Court in 1955 ( People v. Cahan (1955) 44 Cal.2d 434 [ 282 P.2d 905, 50 A.L.R.2d 513]). The United States Supreme Court extended the rule in 1961 to all state courts ( Mapp v. Ohio (1961) 367 U.S. 643 [6 L.Ed.2d 1081, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 84 A.L.R.2d 933]). In 1967 the California Legislature embalmed the rule in Penal Code section 1538.5.
"The rule is calculated to prevent, not to repair. Its purpose is to deter — to compel respect for the constitutional guaranty in the only effectively available way — by removing the incentive to disregard it." ( Elkins v. United States (1960) 364 U.S. 206, 217 [4 L.Ed.2d 1669, 1677, 80 S.Ct. 1437].)

THE EXCLUSIONARY RULE UNWORKABLE AND IRRATIONAL: Increasing numbers of judges, lawyers, legal scholars and concerned citizens are questioning whether the exclusionary rule itself really accomplishes the purpose for which it was intended (see fn. 3, ante) and whether our slavish adherence to the rule is worth the exorbitant cost it imposes on the criminal justice system by way of delay, expenditure of tax dollars and loss of public confidence in our courts by creating an upside-down system which diverts the focus of the criminal prosecution from the guilt or innocence of the defendant to a trial of the police.
Chief Justice Warren Burger in his dissent in the case of Coolidge v. New Hampshire (1971) 403 U.S. 443 [29 L.Ed.2d 564, 91 S.Ct. 2022], in which the majority of the court reversed the conviction of the defendant, found guilty by a jury, of the murder of a 14-year-old girl in 1964, on the grounds that evidence in the form of vacuum sweepings from the defendant's car was obtained in violation of the exclusionary rule, said: "This case illustrates graphically the monstrous price we pay for the exclusionary rule in which we seem to have imprisoned ourselves. . . ." ( Id., at p. 493 [29 L.Ed.2d at p. 598].)
In his dissent in Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents (1971) 403 U.S. 388 [29 L.Ed.2d 619, 91 S.Ct. 1999], referring to the majority holding in the Coolidge case, Chief Justice Burger said: "[I]t is hardly surprising that such results are viewed with incomprehension by nonlawyers in this country and lawyers, judges and legal scholars the world over." ( Id., at p. 419 [29 L.Ed.2d at p. 640].)
In Bivens the Chief Justice lashes out at the exclusionary rule "as an anomalous and ineffective mechanism with which to regulate law enforcement." ( Id., at p. 420 [29 L.Ed.2d at p. 640].) He observes that "[i]n a country that prides itself on innovation, inventive genius, and willingness to experiment, it is a paradox that we should cling for more than a half century to a legal mechanism that was poorly designed and never really worked, . . ." ( id., at p. 424 [29 L.Ed.2d at p. 643]) and concludes that "[r]easonable and effective substitutes can be formulated. . . ." ( Id., at p. 421 [29 L.Ed.2d at p. 641].) He recommends that in lieu of the exclusionary rule "[C]ongress . . . develop an administrative or quasi-judicial remedy against the government itself to afford compensation and restitution for persons whose Fourth Amendment rights have been violated. . . ." ( Id., at p. 422 [29 L.Ed.2d at p. 641].) "[I]ndeed there is nothing to prevent a State from enacting a comparable statutory scheme without waiting for the Congress. Steps along these lines would move our system toward more responsible law enforcement on the one hand and away from the irrational and drastic results of the suppression doctrine on the other. . . ." ( Id., at p. 424 [29 L.Ed.2d at pp. 642-643].)
I quote at length from the opinion by Chief Justice Weintraub of the State of New Jersey in State v. Bisaccia (1971) 58 N.J. 586 [ 279 A.2d 675].
"Truth and justice are inseparable. A deliberately false judgment debases the judicial process, and no less so because the false judgment is an acquittal. On a motion to suppress we deal with evidence of guilt, and the purpose of the litigant is to conceal that evidence to the end that he will escape conviction notwithstanding his guilt. Hypothetically there could be some case in which the evidence sought to be suppressed would falsely suggest guilt, but a judge would be short in realism if he did not understand that the evidence he is asked to suppress is evidence of guilt and that the judgment of not guilty which will ensue will likely be false. To justify so serious an insult to the judicial process, some compensating gain should be incontestable.
"One cannot reasonably deny the need for some remedy for a breach of the Fourth Amendment guaranty against an unreasonable search and seizure. The question is whether suppression of the truth with the consequent acquittal of the guilty is a fair and an effective measure to that end. The ostensible reason for the rule is to assure compliance with the Fourth Amendment by barring the use of the fruits of a violation. That suppression is effective in curtailing infractions of the Amendment is quite doubtful. See Oaks, `Studying the Exclusionary Rule in Search and Seizure,' 37 U.Chi.L.Rev. 665 (1970). But if it were, the justice of the suppression doctrine would remain questionable as it was when Mapp was handed down, and even more so because of a decade of experience under that decision. The reasons are evident.
"The first right of the individual is to be protected from attack. That is why we have government, as the preamble to the Federal Constitution plainly says. In the words of Chicago v. Sturges, 222 U.S. 313, 322, 32 S.Ct. 92, 93, 56 L.Ed. 215, 220 (1911): `Primarily, governments exist for the maintenance of social order. Hence it is that the obligation of the government to protect life, liberty, and property against the conduct of the indifferent, the careless, and the evil-minded, may be regarded as lying at the very foundation of the social compact.'
"The Bill of Rights was not intended to deny that primary mission. This is not to belittle the inestimable rights thus consecrated, but rather to say that those rights may not be read to defeat the very reason for government itself.
"We must be mindful that the contest is not between the State and the individual. The contest is wholly between competing rights of the individual — the right to be protected from criminal attack and the several rights in the Amendments. When the truth is suppressed and the criminal is set free, the pain of suppression is felt, not by the inanimate State or by some penitent policeman, but by the offender's next victims for whose protection we hold office. In that direct way, Mapp denies the innocent the protection due them.
"But Mapp impairs the primary right of the individual to protection from crime in still other ways. The release of the guilty must blunt and breed contempt for the deterrent thrust of the criminal law. Moreover the case-by-case process of law-making in the application of Mapp has left State officers quite at sea as to what is expected of them. The time-distance between the Supreme Court and the firing line is just too great and the case-by-case process too lumbering and too cumbersome, to permit that Court to exercise effective and responsible management of the criminal business of the States. As a result, the State courts (and the federal bench as well) are drained of energy sorely needed for the trial of criminal and civil cases, as motions to suppress are piled upon motions, appeals upon appeals, and post-conviction proceedings upon post-conviction proceedings." (279 A.2d at pp. 676-677.)
Justice Macklin Fleming of the California Court of Appeal in his book Of Crimes and Rights (1978) in discussing the susceptibility of our criminal law to fragmentation of legal theory cites as a prime illustration our two views toward "illegally" obtained evidence.
"[T]he older view, articulated by Jeremy Bentham and Professor John H. Wigmore, theorized that a violation of law should not go unpunished merely because a second violation of law had been committed in the course of investigating the first, or, as Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo put it, the murderer should not go free because the constable blundered. Under this view all illegally obtained evidence was admissible. The opposite view [the prevailing Exclusionary Rule] flatly prohibits any use of evidence obtained in violation of law, even when the violation is purely technical. The latter view theorizes, in effect, it is better for a murderer to go free than for the state to take advantage of any illegal conduct on the part of its officers. . . ." (P. 23.)
He observes that by our total adherence to the latter view "[o]ur preoccupation with restrictions on police activity has become so great that an impression circulates that the chief end of criminal law is to prevent invasions by police rather than invasions by criminals. Unquestionably, this preoccupation has led to the release of patently guilty criminals and thereby weakened the deterrent effect of criminal law. . . ." (P. 23.) "[W]e have set fire to the house of criminal law in our attempt to roast the police pig. . . ." (P. 156.)
In arguing for more effective factual inquiry, Justice Fleming points out that "[o]ur reaction to abuse of authority by criminal investigators and police has taken a curiously convoluted and byzantine turn. In suppressing evidence and undertaking to immunize judicial process against abuse, we have sought to turn back the clock and reconstruct events as though the evidence never existed. Thus, we suppress the incriminating letter, eyewitness identification, discovery of the murder weapon, even discovery of the corpse, if those items of evidence are found to have been illegally obtained, and we solemnly conduct our factual hearing under the legal fiction that those events never happened. As so-called fruit of the poisonous tree, we erase entire chains of events by pretending they never took place." (Pp. 155-156.)
He suggests that the exclusionary rule(s) shuffle(s) "wild cards" into the deck which destroys effectiveness of factual inquiry and credibility by excluding facts that are demonstrably true and that such "[a]rtificial restrictions on factual hearing[s] may bring about the following consequences: the criminal escapes public examination and self-scrutiny of his conduct; the victim and potential victim see criminal law as helpless to protect them; the potential criminal comes to look on the restraint of criminal law as ineffectual. The wrong lesson is taught, and the inevitable sequel is encouragement of rational criminal intent, emotional criminal intent, and apparent profitability of crime. By reducing reliability of factual hearing, we erode criminal law's ability to protect through deterrence, and we foster the impression that criminal law is aimed more at the process of criminal prosecution than at crime itself." (P. 157, original italics, fn. omitted.)
Justice Fleming suggests "[t]he primary remedy for abusive official conduct is not suppression of evidence but discipline of the abusive officer, and that illegally obtained evidence may be used in criminal prosecutions except when its illegality is so flagrant that its use would condone a greater crime than the one under prosecution. . . ." (P. 23.) He proposes "[t]hat in the interest of sound judicial administration we should change our rules for suppression of illegally obtained evidence from compulsory suppression to the carefully limited discretionary suppression that prevails in England." (P. 156.)
The English, based on centuries of experience, have coined a saying that "Not only must justice be done, but it must appear to have been done," which pays close attention to the public's concerns and attitudes. The exclusionary rule violates both requirements of the English saying. The proposals of Chief Justice Burger and Justice Fleming described above honor the validity of the English saying. Their proposals are reasonable alternatives to the exclusionary rule and warrant serious consideration by the legal community and the California Legislature. Logic and common sense dictate that such constructive alternatives will go a long way to reduce court congestion, restore public confidence in our criminal justice system and save California taxpayers millions of dollars annually which are presently being wasted on motions to suppress evidence.