Arizona v. Evans - Further Readings
Petitioner
State of Arizona
Respondent
Isaac Evans
Petitioner's Claim
That a computer error in law-enforcement files did not result in an unlawfulsearch, and that contraband obtained in that search may be admitted in court.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner
Gerald Grant
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Carol Carrigan
Justices for the Court
Stephen Breyer, Anthony M. Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor, William H. Rehnquist(writing for the Court), Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter, Clarence Thomas
Justices Dissenting
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Paul Stevens
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
1 March 1995
Decision
The Court ruled in favor of the state of Arizona's appeal to admit evidence obtained in a search that was underway as a result of computer error.
Significance
By the time Arizona v. Evans reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1994, asuccession of lower courts had reversed one another's decisions as to whether marijuana found in a search could be admitted as evidence against the suspect. The respondent, however, had been first placed under arrest because of anerror by a court clerk. The Court had to consider whether an error in a law-enforcement database be valid reason for declaring an arrest erroneous, and for suppressing evidence obtained against a citizen as a result of that arrest. It was a new twist in search-and-seizure law, and found the High Court deciding for the first time whether the exclusionary rule could be applied in theevent of computer error.
Tempting Arrest
Isaac Evans drove the wrong way down a one-way Phoenix street in front of a police station in January of 1991. He was stopped by a Phoenix police officer,who asked for Evans's driver's license. Evans told the officer that it had been suspended, and the officer verified this on the computer terminal in hispatrol car. That database also showed an outstanding warrant for Evans's arrest on a misdemeanor charge. The warrant was originally issued when he failedto appear in court the previous month to answer to a number of traffic tickets. Evans did eventually appear before the justice court on 19 December 1990,and a note was made in his file to "quash warrant." At that point, the clerkof the justice court should have notified the Arizona Sheriff's Office that the warrant was to be removed from the computer database; this is usually donewith a phone call to the records clerk at the sheriff's office. The call wasnot made, and for this reason the warrant for Evans's arrest was still present in the database that the officer checked.
The officer arrested Evans; despite any protestations from a citizen that thematter of the court date had been rectified, such a cursory arrest would constitute proper police procedure. When the officer handcuffed Evans, however,he dropped a hand rolled marijuana cigarette. A search of Evans's car turnedup a bag of marijuana under the seat. Evans was charged with possession, andshortly afterward the Phoenix police were informed by the justice court thatthe warrant should have been quashed.
Evans's lawyer requested a hearing to suppress the evidence. The trial courtfound for Evans, on the basis of his claim that the drugs found were the result of an unlawful search, and thus could be excluded as evidence under the "exclusionary rule." An Arizona court of appeals reversed this decision, but then when the case appeared before the Arizona Supreme Court, it was once againreversed in Evans's favor. The state of Arizona appealed to the U.S. SupremeCourt, and the case was argued in December of 1994.
The Exclusionary Rule
Evans's case hinged on the Fourth Amendment, which states that:
The exclusionary rule holds that evidence obtained as the result of an illegal search cannot be admitted in court. At the trial level, a formal arrest warrant obtained from a magistrate can be invalidated if it can be shown that the police lacked probable cause in obtaining it. Any evidence obtained in thatsearch is not allowable in court for use in prosecuting the respondent. Theuse of the exclusionary rule in state courts, especially in regard to criminal cases, dates back to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Mapp v. Ohio (1961).
The Arizona Court of Appeals reversed the first court's decision in Evans and moved to allow the marijuana into the case against Evans. It did so after deciding that the exclusionary rule did not apply in this situation, since "the purpose of the exclusionary rule was to deter police officers," and "was not intended to deter justice court employees" or other support staff.
But the Arizona Supreme Court reversed that decision. Its justices spoke of aclear distinction between police officers and office support staff. The state court decided in Evans's favor, declaring that the application of the exclusionary rule in this case would make clerks and other support personnel morediligent about record-keeping.
Reagan-Era Reversal
There is, however, the "good faith" exception to the exclusionary rule, the legality of which was affirmed in a 1984 U.S. Supreme Court decision, the United States v. Leon. It allowed for evidence to be admitted in the prosecutor's case against the respondent if it is shown that the law enforcement personnel were acting on good faith--in other words, that they had reasonablecause. With this line of reasoning, the state of Arizona argued, the evidencefound against Evans should indeed be admitted into the case against him. Itsattorneys asserted that the exclusionary rule applies only when the police officer knows that an arrest violates the search-and-seizure tenets of the Constitution. The state also pointed out to the Supreme Court justices that suchcomputer errors were rare, and occurred once every few years.
Evans and his lawyers claimed the "good faith" exception did not apply, thatonly simple police error was behind his arrest and the subsequent discovery of contraband. Their case in this regard was strong: courts in other states (California, New York, and Maryland) had declared evidence obtained for criminal trials as the result of computer error inadmissible under the exclusionaryrule. In a related case, United States v. Mackey (1975) the respondent's name was in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Crime Information Center database, but should not have been. It was not cleared from the records, and Mackey was arrested in Nevada on an outstanding California warrant.Law enforcement authorities found a firearm, for which Mackey did not have apermit.
The Ninth Circuit Court ruled in Mackey's favor, noting that he had been deprived of his liberty without due process of law. There were similar cases in subsequent years. "Each state addressing the issue held that a computer errorwas a correctable mistake by the police, and that the state should not profitfrom its own mistakes thereby depriving a respondent of his liberty," explained C. Maureen Stinger in the Richmond Journal of Law & Technology. Furthermore, a 1985 FBI study found that computerized criminal databases may have up to 12,000 invalid or inaccurate reports transmitted on a daily basis.
The Decision
The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Arizona Court of Appeals decision, rulingin favor of the state of Arizona and allowing the evidence to be admitted into the case against Evans. Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote the Court's opinion.It noted that the exclusionary rule had been designed to curb police misconduct, and found no police misconduct in this situation. Secondly, the Court'sdecision took into account that office clerks are not willfully trying to violate the Fourth Amendment rights of citizens when clerical errors are made. This was taken into consideration in contrast with the potential for abuse ofpower in an arrest situation. Lastly, the Court noted that to allow the exclusionary rule in this case on the basis of computer error would not deter future errors by office personnel.
"The evidence in this case strongly suggests that it was a court employee's departure from established record-keeping procedures that caused the record ofthe respondent's arrest warrant to remain in the computer system after the warrant had been quashed," wrote Justice O'Connor in a concurring opinion. Furthermore, she concluded:
Justices Stevens and Ginsburg dissented. Stevens wrote in his dissent that such an arrest due to computer error violated the dignity of a citizen as muchas an arrest made without probable cause; Ginsburg noted that computer technology is still developing and that the Court should be wary of making hasty decisions in such matters.
A Growing Movement to Rescind the Exclusionary Rule
The Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and seizure isseen by many historians as perhaps the most important item in the Bill of Rights. They theorize that the abuse of power by agents of the British crown inthis area was probably the impetus for the American Revolution itself.
The exclusionary rule was a relatively recent development in constitutional law, and the law-enforcement and prosecuting arms of the criminal justice system have found much fault with it. It has been claimed that criminals often gofree when their lawyers successfully argue to suppress evidence against themby claiming police misconduct. As Nat Hentoff pointed out in a 1996 Village Voice column, even New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has called theexclusionary rule "a terrible mistake." However, studies had found that lessthan 1 to 2.35 percent of cases are dismissed as a result of it.
The issue did make for good political maneuvering, since most Americans havea fear of the roaming criminal, and it became part of Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" legislative package. The bill HR 666 contained the "Exclusionary Rule Reform Act of 1995," sponsored by Florida Republican Bill McCollum. It was designed to tighten what conservatives saw as a "loophole" by expanding the good-faith exception. The bill statedthat law-enforcement personnel with "an objectively reasonable belief" that they are abiding by the terms of the Fourth Amendment can search without a warrant. This would technically allow police to simply enter any ordinary citizen's house and argue later that they had probable cause.
HR 666 passed in the House, and was still held up in the Senate Judiciary Committee three years later. Critics of the bill noted that such sweeping policepowers were characteristic of fascist or otherwise authoritarian governments, where police or the military had wide range to infringe upon the rights ofcitizens to be secure in their own homes. "This is the heart of the [Fourth]Amendment--forcing police to convince a neutral magistrate that the totalityof the circumstances indicates that evidence of a crime exists," wrote RobertBauman in the National Review.
Related Cases
The Contract with America
In 1994 Republicans gained a majority in the House of Representatives for thefirst time in four decades. Early in 1995, the new Republican majority issued their "Contract with America," a legislative "agenda for national renewal."Most significant of the planned bills were two constitutional amendments requiring a balanced budget and term limits for legislators, which they were unable to enact. Also significant were a bill capping punitive damage awards, which President Clinton vetoed, and a welfare reform bill, which was passed byCongress and signed by the president. Legislation permitting a "line-item veto," which would enable the president to strike specific parts from appropriations bills, passed and was signed into law but was later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
Sources
http://www.gopac.org
Congressional Quarterly Digest. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1997.
State of Arizona
Respondent
Isaac Evans
Petitioner's Claim
That a computer error in law-enforcement files did not result in an unlawfulsearch, and that contraband obtained in that search may be admitted in court.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner
Gerald Grant
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Carol Carrigan
Justices for the Court
Stephen Breyer, Anthony M. Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor, William H. Rehnquist(writing for the Court), Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter, Clarence Thomas
Justices Dissenting
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Paul Stevens
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
1 March 1995
Decision
The Court ruled in favor of the state of Arizona's appeal to admit evidence obtained in a search that was underway as a result of computer error.
Significance
By the time Arizona v. Evans reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1994, asuccession of lower courts had reversed one another's decisions as to whether marijuana found in a search could be admitted as evidence against the suspect. The respondent, however, had been first placed under arrest because of anerror by a court clerk. The Court had to consider whether an error in a law-enforcement database be valid reason for declaring an arrest erroneous, and for suppressing evidence obtained against a citizen as a result of that arrest. It was a new twist in search-and-seizure law, and found the High Court deciding for the first time whether the exclusionary rule could be applied in theevent of computer error.
Tempting Arrest
Isaac Evans drove the wrong way down a one-way Phoenix street in front of a police station in January of 1991. He was stopped by a Phoenix police officer,who asked for Evans's driver's license. Evans told the officer that it had been suspended, and the officer verified this on the computer terminal in hispatrol car. That database also showed an outstanding warrant for Evans's arrest on a misdemeanor charge. The warrant was originally issued when he failedto appear in court the previous month to answer to a number of traffic tickets. Evans did eventually appear before the justice court on 19 December 1990,and a note was made in his file to "quash warrant." At that point, the clerkof the justice court should have notified the Arizona Sheriff's Office that the warrant was to be removed from the computer database; this is usually donewith a phone call to the records clerk at the sheriff's office. The call wasnot made, and for this reason the warrant for Evans's arrest was still present in the database that the officer checked.
The officer arrested Evans; despite any protestations from a citizen that thematter of the court date had been rectified, such a cursory arrest would constitute proper police procedure. When the officer handcuffed Evans, however,he dropped a hand rolled marijuana cigarette. A search of Evans's car turnedup a bag of marijuana under the seat. Evans was charged with possession, andshortly afterward the Phoenix police were informed by the justice court thatthe warrant should have been quashed.
Evans's lawyer requested a hearing to suppress the evidence. The trial courtfound for Evans, on the basis of his claim that the drugs found were the result of an unlawful search, and thus could be excluded as evidence under the "exclusionary rule." An Arizona court of appeals reversed this decision, but then when the case appeared before the Arizona Supreme Court, it was once againreversed in Evans's favor. The state of Arizona appealed to the U.S. SupremeCourt, and the case was argued in December of 1994.
The Exclusionary Rule
Evans's case hinged on the Fourth Amendment, which states that:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, andno warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the personsor things to be seized.
The exclusionary rule holds that evidence obtained as the result of an illegal search cannot be admitted in court. At the trial level, a formal arrest warrant obtained from a magistrate can be invalidated if it can be shown that the police lacked probable cause in obtaining it. Any evidence obtained in thatsearch is not allowable in court for use in prosecuting the respondent. Theuse of the exclusionary rule in state courts, especially in regard to criminal cases, dates back to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Mapp v. Ohio (1961).
The Arizona Court of Appeals reversed the first court's decision in Evans and moved to allow the marijuana into the case against Evans. It did so after deciding that the exclusionary rule did not apply in this situation, since "the purpose of the exclusionary rule was to deter police officers," and "was not intended to deter justice court employees" or other support staff.
But the Arizona Supreme Court reversed that decision. Its justices spoke of aclear distinction between police officers and office support staff. The state court decided in Evans's favor, declaring that the application of the exclusionary rule in this case would make clerks and other support personnel morediligent about record-keeping.
Reagan-Era Reversal
There is, however, the "good faith" exception to the exclusionary rule, the legality of which was affirmed in a 1984 U.S. Supreme Court decision, the United States v. Leon. It allowed for evidence to be admitted in the prosecutor's case against the respondent if it is shown that the law enforcement personnel were acting on good faith--in other words, that they had reasonablecause. With this line of reasoning, the state of Arizona argued, the evidencefound against Evans should indeed be admitted into the case against him. Itsattorneys asserted that the exclusionary rule applies only when the police officer knows that an arrest violates the search-and-seizure tenets of the Constitution. The state also pointed out to the Supreme Court justices that suchcomputer errors were rare, and occurred once every few years.
The Ninth Circuit Court ruled in Mackey's favor, noting that he had been deprived of his liberty without due process of law. There were similar cases in subsequent years. "Each state addressing the issue held that a computer errorwas a correctable mistake by the police, and that the state should not profitfrom its own mistakes thereby depriving a respondent of his liberty," explained C. Maureen Stinger in the Richmond Journal of Law & Technology. Furthermore, a 1985 FBI study found that computerized criminal databases may have up to 12,000 invalid or inaccurate reports transmitted on a daily basis.
The Decision
The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Arizona Court of Appeals decision, rulingin favor of the state of Arizona and allowing the evidence to be admitted into the case against Evans. Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote the Court's opinion.It noted that the exclusionary rule had been designed to curb police misconduct, and found no police misconduct in this situation. Secondly, the Court'sdecision took into account that office clerks are not willfully trying to violate the Fourth Amendment rights of citizens when clerical errors are made. This was taken into consideration in contrast with the potential for abuse ofpower in an arrest situation. Lastly, the Court noted that to allow the exclusionary rule in this case on the basis of computer error would not deter future errors by office personnel.
"The evidence in this case strongly suggests that it was a court employee's departure from established record-keeping procedures that caused the record ofthe respondent's arrest warrant to remain in the computer system after the warrant had been quashed," wrote Justice O'Connor in a concurring opinion. Furthermore, she concluded:
Prudently, then, the Court limits itselfto the question whether a court employee's departure from such established procedures is the kind of error to which the exclusionary rule should apply. The Court holds that it is not such an error, and I agree . . . The Court's holding reaffirms that the exclusionary rule imposes significant costs on society's law enforcement interests and thus should apply only when its deterrencepurposes are most efficaciously served.
Justices Stevens and Ginsburg dissented. Stevens wrote in his dissent that such an arrest due to computer error violated the dignity of a citizen as muchas an arrest made without probable cause; Ginsburg noted that computer technology is still developing and that the Court should be wary of making hasty decisions in such matters.
A Growing Movement to Rescind the Exclusionary Rule
The Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and seizure isseen by many historians as perhaps the most important item in the Bill of Rights. They theorize that the abuse of power by agents of the British crown inthis area was probably the impetus for the American Revolution itself.
The exclusionary rule was a relatively recent development in constitutional law, and the law-enforcement and prosecuting arms of the criminal justice system have found much fault with it. It has been claimed that criminals often gofree when their lawyers successfully argue to suppress evidence against themby claiming police misconduct. As Nat Hentoff pointed out in a 1996 Village Voice column, even New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has called theexclusionary rule "a terrible mistake." However, studies had found that lessthan 1 to 2.35 percent of cases are dismissed as a result of it.
The issue did make for good political maneuvering, since most Americans havea fear of the roaming criminal, and it became part of Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" legislative package. The bill HR 666 contained the "Exclusionary Rule Reform Act of 1995," sponsored by Florida Republican Bill McCollum. It was designed to tighten what conservatives saw as a "loophole" by expanding the good-faith exception. The bill statedthat law-enforcement personnel with "an objectively reasonable belief" that they are abiding by the terms of the Fourth Amendment can search without a warrant. This would technically allow police to simply enter any ordinary citizen's house and argue later that they had probable cause.
HR 666 passed in the House, and was still held up in the Senate Judiciary Committee three years later. Critics of the bill noted that such sweeping policepowers were characteristic of fascist or otherwise authoritarian governments, where police or the military had wide range to infringe upon the rights ofcitizens to be secure in their own homes. "This is the heart of the [Fourth]Amendment--forcing police to convince a neutral magistrate that the totalityof the circumstances indicates that evidence of a crime exists," wrote RobertBauman in the National Review.
Related Cases
- Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961).
- United States v. Mackey, 387 F.Supp. 1121 (1975).
- United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984).
The Contract with America
In 1994 Republicans gained a majority in the House of Representatives for thefirst time in four decades. Early in 1995, the new Republican majority issued their "Contract with America," a legislative "agenda for national renewal."Most significant of the planned bills were two constitutional amendments requiring a balanced budget and term limits for legislators, which they were unable to enact. Also significant were a bill capping punitive damage awards, which President Clinton vetoed, and a welfare reform bill, which was passed byCongress and signed by the president. Legislation permitting a "line-item veto," which would enable the president to strike specific parts from appropriations bills, passed and was signed into law but was later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
http://www.gopac.org
Congressional Quarterly Digest. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1997.
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