Opinion
CR-18-0233
09-20-2019
Frederick Leterrence Berry v. State of Alabama
Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance sheets of Southern Reporter . Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Alabama Appellate Courts, 300 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334) 229-0649), of any typographical or other errors, in order that corrections may be made before the opinion is printed in Southern Reporter. Appeal from Pike Circuit Court
(CC-18-107) WINDOM, Presiding Judge.
Frederick Leterrence Berry appeals his guilty-plea conviction for possession of a controlled substance, see § 13A-12-212(a)(1), Ala. Code 1975, and his sentence of 24 months in prison. That sentence was suspended and he was ordered to serve 24 months of supervised probation. Before pleading guilty, Berry preserved and reserved his right to appeal the circuit court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence discovered and seized as the result of a warrantless arrest.
On April 6, 2017, a be-on-the-lookout bulletin was issued to officers with the Troy Police Department for a female who had been reported by her family as a missing person. Lt. Matthew Raiti located the missing female's vehicle in a motel parking lot. Lt. Raiti spoke to the motel clerk, who directed him to room 120. Lt. Raiti knocked on the door to Room 120 but received no response. Lt. Raiti knocked again and heard noise coming from inside the motel room. The officer could see through a gap in the curtains a male walking toward the door while a female, who matched the description of the missing female, walked toward the bathroom.
The male opened the door, and Lt. Raiti spoke to him about the missing female. Berry identified himself to Lt. Raiti. Lt. Raiti gave Berry's name to police dispatch and learned that there were two outstanding warrants for Berry's arrest.
Berry was placed under arrest, and Lt. Raiti performed a search incident to arrest. In Berry's right front pocket, Lt. Raiti found 15 Alprazolam pills; 3 blue oval pills, which he could not identify; and cash. After confirming that the female in the motel room was the missing female, Lt. Raiti took Berry to the police station for processing. There Berry was given copies of the outstanding warrants for his arrest.
Berry argues on appeal, as he did below, that his arrest was illegal because Lt. Raiti did not have possession of the arrest warrants at the time Berry was placed under arrest. Thus, Berry asserts, that his arrest was illegal and that the drug evidence was due to be suppressed as the product of an illegal arrest.
Here, Lt. Raiti was the only witness and the facts are not in dispute. Therefore, this Court will review de novo the circuit court's denial of Berry's motion to suppress. See State v. Otwell, 733 So. 2d 950, 952 (Ala. Crim. App. 1999) (citing State v. Hill, 690 So. 2d 1201 (Ala. 1996); Barnes v. State, 704 So. 2d 487 (Ala. Crim. App. 1997)).
Although Lt. Raiti knew of the existence of warrants for Berry's arrest, he did not possess them at the time Berry was arrested. This fact alone, of course, does not render Berry's arrest illegal. Law-enforcement officers are authorized to arrest individuals with or without a warrant. § 15-10-1, Ala. Code 1975. Even so, an officer's authority to arrest without a warrant is limited. Section 15-10-3, Ala. Code 1975, establishes the circumstances under which an officer may arrest an individual without an arrest warrant. Many of these circumstances are inapplicable here, though, because there was no indication that Berry had committed an offense at the time of his arrest. The State asserted that the arrest was lawful pursuant to § 15-10-3(a)(6), which states that an officer may arrest a person without a warrant, on any day and at any time
"[w]hen the officer has actual knowledge that a warrant for the person's arrest for the commission of a felony or misdemeanor has been issued, provided the warrant was issued in accordance with this chapter. However, upon request the officer shall show the warrant to the arrested person as soon as possible. If the officer does not have the warrant in his or her possession at the time of arrest the officer shall inform the defendant of the offense charged and of the fact that a warrant has been issued."
Berry argues that his arrest did not comply with § 15-10-3(a)(6) because his outstanding arrest warrants were not issued for the "commission of a felony or misdemeanor." Indeed, Lt. Raiti testified that the arrest warrants were issued by the Troy Municipal Court for "possession of marijuana second and ... driving while [his license was] revoked," (R. 12), both of which are misdemeanor offenses. See §§ 13A-12-214(b) and 32-6-19(a)(1), Ala. Code 1975. However, Lt. Raiti later clarified that the warrants were capias warrants. "Capias" is "[a]ny of various types of writs that require an officer to take a named defendant into custody[, and] is often issued when a respondent fails to appear or when an obligor has failed to pay child support." Black's Law Dictionary, 249-50 (10th ed. 2014). Lt. Raiti did not specifically identify the acts or omissions that led to the issuance of Berry's capias warrants, but did explain that capias warrants are typically issued after "they've been in front of a judge and have pled guilty or been found guilty and essentially they owe money to the Court or ... [are] not complying with conditions of their probation." (R. 18.) Lt. Raiti agreed on cross-examination that, despite his earlier testimony, neither capias warrant was a warrant of arrest for second-degree possession of marijuana or driving while his license was revoked.
"[W]hen a police officer arrests without a warrant, and the defendant objects to the introduction of evidence seized as an incident to the arrest, 'the burden is on the State to show that the arrest was lawful' pursuant to § 15-10-3. Duncan v. State, 278 Ala. 145, 161, 176 So. 2d 840, 855 (1965)." Ex parte Brownlee, 535 So. 2d 218, 219 (Ala. 1988). It is unclear from the record why the capias warrants were issued for Berry's arrest. Stated differently, the State failed to demonstrate that Lt. Raiti had "actual knowledge that a warrant for [Berry's] arrest for the commission of a felony or misdemeanor" had been issued. § 15-10-3(a)(6) (emphasis added).
In Johnson v. State, 675 So. 2d 512, 513 (Ala. Crim. App. 1995), this Court held that, because the appellant's arrest warrant, which was issued for contempt of court, "was not for the commission of a felony or a misdemeanor, the arresting officer could not legally arrest the appellant without personally possessing the arrest warrant." Here, Lt. Raiti did not possess the arrest warrants and the State failed to carry its burden to demonstrate that Lt. Raiti had actual knowledge that the arrest warrants had been issued for the commission of a felony or misdemeanor. This Court holds that Berry's arrest, as was the arrest in Johnson, was unlawful.
The State asserts on appeal that, even if Berry's arrest was unlawful under § 15-10-3, the drug evidence was still admissible under the good-faith exception. "The good faith exception provides that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment by officers acting in objectively reasonable reliance on a warrant issued by a neutral and detached magistrate need not be excluded from the State's case-in-chief even if the warrant is ultimately found to be invalid." Ex parte Morgan, 641 So. 2d 840, 843 (Ala. 1994) (citing United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984)). Here, though, Lt. Raiti was not relying on the judgment of another. Instead, it was Lt. Raiti's own mistake of law in failing to comply with § 15-10-3(a)(6). Further, the language of § 15-10-3(a)(6) is straightforward and unambiguous. Under the circumstances, Lt. Raiti's mistake of law was unreasonable. See Morgan, 641 So. 2d at 843 (assessing reasonableness of officer's mistake of law in determining whether the good-faith exception should apply). See also Heien v. North Carolina, 574 U.S. 54 (2014) (although in the context of whether a Fourth Amendment violation even occurred, the Court looked to the clarity of the statutes at issue in assessing the reasonableness of an officer's mistake of law). An officer's objectively unreasonable mistake of law cannot justify application of the good-faith exception.
The State failed to carry its burden to show that Berry's arrest was lawful. This Court has recognized that the "Constitution of the United States, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, compels a holding that evidence seized as a result of an unlawful arrest is inadmissible." State v. Phillips, 517 So. 2d 648, 652 (Ala. Crim. App. 1987) (citing Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963); Lawrence v. Henderson, 478 F.2d 705 (5th Cir. 1973); Ingram v. State, 45 Ala. App. 108, 226 So. 2d 169 (1969)). Therefore, the circuit court erred in denying Berry's motion to suppress the drug evidence found in his possession incident to his arrest.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Kellum and McCool, JJ., concur. Cole, J., dissents, with opinion, which Minor, J., joins. COLE, Judge, dissenting.
The main opinion reverses the circuit court's denial of Frederick Leterrence Berry's motion to suppress drug evidence found in his possession incident to his arrest, concluding that "[t]he State failed to carry its burden to show that Berry's arrest was lawful." ___ So. 3d at ___. Because the main opinion conflicts with cases from this Court, the Alabama Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court of the United States, I respectfully dissent.
As noted in the main opinion, in April 2017 the Troy Police Department was searching for a female who had been reported missing by her family. While looking for her, Lt. Matthew Raiti saw her vehicle in the parking lot of a Motel 6. After speaking with the clerk at the front desk of the motel, Lt. Raiti went to room 120 and knocked on the door but received no response. Lt. Raiti knocked again and heard "some noises" coming from inside the room. He then looked through the window and saw a "black male walk towards the front of the room and then a white female walk into the restroom." (R. 9.) Lt. Raiti was "pretty sure" that the female was the missing person.
The black male then opened the door and spoke with Lt. Raiti. Lt. Raiti told the male why he was at the motel and asked him for his name, to which the male responded, "Frederick Berry." (R. 11.) At that point, Lt. Raiti ran Berry's name "through NCIC and through dispatch." (Id.) Lt. Raiti did this because, he said, it was "common practice"; he was looking for a missing person; and he did not know if the female had been kidnapped; thus, he explained, "it's pretty imperative I know who I'm speaking with." (R. 11-12.)
Dispatch responded to Lt. Raiti's request, informing him that Berry had two active capias warrants from the Troy Municipal Court--"[o]ne was for possession of marijuana second and one was driving while [his license was] revoked." (R. 12-13, 15.) "Once [Lt. Raiti] was able to find out [they] had the warrants and [he] confirmed the information on the warrants .... So all the information was verified as good. And at that point, [he] placed [Berry] under arrest." (R. 13.) Lt. Raiti then searched Berry and found 15 Alprazolam pills in his right front pocket. Lt. Raiti continued into the motel room where he located the missing female in the bathroom. (R. 16.) Lt. Raiti then took Berry to the police station, booked him, processed him, and served copies of the active warrants on him. (R. 16.)
Based on these facts, Berry moved to dismiss his indictment and to suppress the drug evidence found by Lt. Raiti. (C. 33, 43.) According to Berry, his arrest was unlawful because he "was arrested for failure to pay municipal court fines without [the] officer's possession of an arrest warrant, and after a search incident to that unlawful arrest, [he] was charged here for Unlawful Possession of a Controlled Substance." (C. 33.)
At the hearing on Berry's motions, Lt. Raiti testified on direct examination to the events that unfolded when he encountered Berry. On cross-examination, Lt. Raiti was asked to explain what a capias warrant is, to which he responded:
Lt. Raiti was the only witness who testified at the hearing on Berry's motions. According to the record on appeal, Berry was not present at the hearing because he had voluntarily absented himself from the proceeding. (R. 9-10.)
"Capias warrants in essence are that the person has already been to--they've already been in front of a judge and have [pleaded] guilty or been found guilty and essentially they owe money to the Court or they could be not complying with conditions of their probation or whatever they've been given."(R. 18.) Lt. Raiti acknowledged that the active capias warrants were not for new offenses, that he did not physically see the warrants before he arrested Berry, and that he did not have the warrants in his hand when he arrested Berry. (R. 18-19.)
At the close of the hearing, Berry's counsel argued that, because Lt. Raiti did not have physical possession of the capias warrants and because "it's not a felony or misdemeanor that the defendant is being arrested for," Berry's arrest was unlawful and the search incident to that arrest was unlawful. (R. 21-22.) The State responded:
"Following his procedures and policy under these circumstances, [Lt. Raiti] runs the information on Mr. Berry, comes back from dispatch that there are two outstanding warrants for him, capias warrants from the municipal court, which I'll agree they appear to be for failing to comply with conditions of a sentence that had been imposed on him for possession of marijuana second degree and driving while his license was revoked.
"Acting on those warrants, he affected a lawful arrest and searched him incident to that lawful arrest where Lieutenant Raiti testified that he found the contraband that is the subject of these charges now that we have.
"Furthermore, Lieutenant Raiti testified as well that once Mr. Berry was taken into custody, taken to the police station, as the statute would require, 15-10-3, with respect to warrantless arrests, when
the officer has actual knowledge that a warrant for the person's arrest for the commission of a felony or misdemeanor has been issued, provided the warrant was issued for that chapter, and upon request, the officer shall show the warrant to the arrested person as soon as possible. And I believe that's exactly what he did.(R. 23-25.)
"He does not have to have the warrant in his possession at the time of the arrest, but shall inform a defendant of the offense charged and the fact that a warrant has been issued. I think every bit of that is very clear and exactly what Lieutenant Raiti testified to.
"The fact that these were not arrest warrants for new offenses is inconsequential. The punishment remains the same. He has failed to comply with the orders of the court. Conditions of his sentences being that he pay these fees and these fines. These are misdemeanor offenses for which he was charged and he could be subject to further incarceration for failing to comply with the orders of the municipal court of Troy.
"So any argument should fall woefully short of whether or not this was an actual legal and lawful arrest. And any search incident to that arrest comports specifically with the law."
After the hearing, the circuit court issued an order denying Berry's motion to dismiss and his motion to suppress, finding that the drugs found in Berry's possession were "seized during a search of [his] person pursuant to his lawful arrest, and therefore [there was] no violation of his Statutory (Alabama Code § 15-10-3) or Fourth Amendment Rights." (C. 45.) Thereafter, Berry pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a controlled substance and reserved his unlawful-arrest argument for appeal. (R. 32-35.)
On appeal, Berry argues, as he did in the circuit court, that his arrest on the capias warrants violated § 15-10-3(a)(6), Ala. Code 1975, and, thus, both his statutory and his Fourth Amendment rights were violated. Section 15-10-3(a)(6), Ala. Code 1975, states that
"[a]n officer may arrest a person without a warrant .... [w]hen the officer has actual knowledge that a warrant for the person's arrest for the commission of a felony or misdemeanor has been issued, provided the warrant was issued in accordance with this chapter. However, upon request the officer shall show the warrant to the arrested person as soon as possible. If the officer does not have the warrant in his or her possession at the time of the arrest the officer shall inform the defendant of the offense charged and of the fact that a warrant has been issued."To support his claim that he cannot be arrested for outstanding capias warrants that arose from his commission of misdemeanor offenses when a law-enforcement officer does not have the capias warrants "in hand," Berry cites two decisions from this Court--Johnson v. State, 675 So. 2d 512 (Ala. Crim. App. 1995), and Edwards v. State, 961 So. 2d 914 (Ala. Crim. App. 2006). The main opinion, relying on Johnson, agrees with Berry.
To be sure, both Johnson and Edwards hold that, "[a]ccording to § 15-10-3(a)(6), because the warrant for the appellant's arrest was not for the commission of a felony or a misdemeanor, the arresting officer could not legally arrest the appellant without personally possessing the arrest warrant." Johnson, 675 So. 2d at 513; see also Edwards, 961 So. 2d at 915-16. However, those cases, unlike this one, did not involve a validly issued capias warrant arising from the commission of misdemeanor offenses. Rather, both Johnson and Edwards involve arrests based on civil contempt citations for failure to pay child support. See Johnson, 675 So. 2d at 513; Edwards, 961 So. 2d at 915. Thus, neither Johnson nor Edwards compels a certain outcome in this case.
In fact, the word "capias" does not even appear in either Johnson or Edwards.
As the State points out in its brief, however, this Court in Webster v. State, 662 So. 2d 920 (Ala. Crim. App. 1995), handled a scenario similar to this one and, in that case, reached a different result than the one this Court reaches today. In Webster, police officers received a tip from an informant who told them that Webster would be selling drugs at a specific place and at a specific time. 662 So. 2d at 921. Before going to the location described by the informant, a detective "discovered that [Webster] was subject to three outstanding capias warrants for the misdemeanor offense of failure to pay municipal court fines." Id. "The municipal court confirmed this information and issued the warrants." Id. Although it appears that he was not in possession of the warrants, the detective went to the place where the informant said Webster would be and "immediately informed [Webster] that he was under arrest pursuant to the arrest warrants." Id. After placing him under arrest, the detective used a drug-detection dog to sniff Webster's automobile. The dog alerted to the presence of drugs. The officers on the scene then took Webster to the police station and took his vehicle to an impound lot to search it for drugs based on the alert from the drug-detection dog.
At the police station, the dog sniffed the interior of the vehicle but did not alert as to the presence of drugs. Thereafter, the officers, who were no longer searching for drugs, conducted an inventory of the vehicle pursuant to Webster's arrest on the capias warrants. In doing so, the officers found cocaine and, as a result, arrested Webster for unlawful possession of a controlled substance. Webster pleaded guilty to that offense.
On appeal, Webster argued that the circuit court erred when it denied his motion to suppress the drug evidence found in his car because, he said, it was the fruit of an illegal search. Webster's precise argument seemed to have been that the officer acted in bad faith in having the warrants issued to facilitate the investigation of the informant's tip. In addressing Webster's argument, this Court noted that, "'[o]nce the capias warrant was issued, the officers were authorized to take [Webster] into custody on that warrant,'" Webster, 662 So. 2d at 921 (quoting Fletcher v. State, 621 So. 2d 1010, 1023 (Ala. Crim. App. 1993)). This Court went on to hold that Webster "was subject to a lawful arrest pursuant to the capias warrants issued by the municipal court." 662 So. 2d at 922.
I acknowledge that Webster does not expressly address whether the officer in that case had physical possession of the capias warrants at the time that Webster was arrested. However, to read that case to say that the officer had possession of the warrants at the time of the arrest would be inconsistent with the plain language of that opinion. Indeed, when this Court discussed the issuance of the capias warrants in Webster it immediately cited § 15-10-3(a)(6), Ala. Code 1975--the statute that addresses when an arrest can be made without being in physical possession of the warrant. If the officer in Webster had been in possession of the capias warrants, then there would have been no need for this Court to discuss § 15-10-3(a)(6). Furthermore, the facts outlined in the Webster opinion indicate that the officer was "advised to .... 'go ahead and do a vehicle inventory search' while the paperwork on the arrest warrant was conducted." 662 So. 2d at 921. Again, indicating that the warrant was not in the officer's possession at the time of Webster's arrest and the subsequent search.
Here, just like in Webster, Berry had active capias warrants for his arrest for failure to pay fines stemming from municipal court convictions for misdemeanor offenses. (R. 12-13, 15.) Additionally, as in Webster, Lt. Raiti confirmed that those outstanding warrants were valid, told Berry that he was under arrest based on those capias warrants, and found drugs in his possession in a search incident to that arrest. (R. 13.) Although Lt. Raiti did not have physical possession of the capias warrants when he arrested Berry, Webster allows law-enforcement officers to make an arrest without physically possessing a capias warrant that has been issued for failing to pay municipal court fines. Moreover, Webster is not the only case in which this Court held as much.
Berry conceded in his motion to dismiss that the capias warrants had been issued for his "failure to pay municipal court fines." (C. 33.)
Indeed, in Scarbrough v. State, 621 So. 2d 996 (Ala. Crim. App. 1992), this Court also addressed an arrest based on "a misdemeanor warrant from municipal court for failing to pay a fine," which "had been issued by the Birmingham Municipal Court in 1988 on the charge of failure to pay a fine on a conviction in municipal court for driving without a driver's license." Scarbrough, 621 So. 2d at 997, 999. In a footnote, this Court rejected Scarbrough's argument that his arrest was invalid because the officer did not have physical possession of the warrant by citing § 15-10-3(a)(6) and noting that "[t]he officers in this case clearly had actual knowledge that the misdemeanor warrant had been issued." 621 So. 2d at 998 n.1 (emphasis added). See also Fletcher v. State, 621 So. 2d 1010, 1023 (Ala. Crim. App. 1993) (holding that "[o]nce the capias warrant was issued, the officers were authorized to take the appellant into custody on that warrant"). This Court classified the warrant in Scarbrough as a "misdemeanor warrant" even though it was clear that the warrant, as in Berry's case, was issued for Webster's failure to pay a fine on a misdemeanor charge.
Although the main opinion correctly notes that this Court has not allowed officers to make arrests on outstanding warrants for civil contempt citations when the officer is not in physical possession of those warrants, see Johnson, supra, and Edwards, supra, the main opinion does not acknowledge that this Court has allowed officers to make arrests on outstanding capias warrants for failing to pay municipal court fines when the officer is not in physical possession of those warrants, see Webster, supra, Scarbrough, supra. Because this case falls squarely in this latter category of cases, I would affirm the circuit court's decision to deny Berry's motions.
Moreover, even if I agreed with the main opinion's view that § 15-10-3(a)(6) authorizes an arrest without possession of a warrant only if the arrest is for the current commission of a felony or misdemeanor, not for a capias warrant for failure to make payments, I would still hold that the circuit court correctly denied Berry's motions. In fact, the Alabama Supreme Court's decision in Ex parte Morgan, 641 So. 2d 840 (Ala. 1994), compels such a result.
In Morgan, law-enforcement officers in Alabama were contacted by law-enforcement officers in Florida, who informed the Alabama officers that they had warrants for Morgan from the State of Florida and that they needed help locating him at his last known address in Alabama. 641 So. 2d at 841. At some point, an officer from Florida, who was in possession of the Florida warrants, came to Alabama and joined with officers from both an Alabama law-enforcement agency and various federal agencies to locate Morgan at his last known address in Alabama. When they arrived at the address, Morgan answered the door but did not consent to the officers entering the room. When the officers confronted him with the warrants from Florida, however, Morgan relented. At that point, an officer with an Alabama agency arrested Morgan for being a fugitive from justice from the State of Florida, based on the Florida warrants. When officers searched Morgan's room, they located various items that he later argued were "fruit of the poisonous tree." The day after they arrested Morgan, law-enforcement officers from Alabama obtained an Alabama fugitive-from-justice warrant for Morgan.
On appeal, Morgan argued that the items found in his room were "obtained upon an illegal warrantless arrest." 641 So. 2d at 842. The Alabama Supreme Court agreed that "the warrantless arrest was invalid" because "it did not meet the requirements of § 15-9-40 and § 15-9-41, [Ala. Code 1975,] because the police did not have a fugitive from justice warrant before making the arrest and did not know before the arrest that the crimes Morgan was charged with were punishable by life imprisonment." 641 So. 2d at 842. However, the Alabama Supreme Court did not end its analysis there. Rather, it applied the good-faith exception to the officer's warrantless arrest of Morgan and the search of Morgan's property and found that the exclusionary rule did not apply.
In so doing, the Alabama Supreme Court explained:
"The good faith exception provides that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment by officers acting in objectively reasonable reliance on a warrant issued by a neutral and detached magistrate need not be excluded from the State's case-in-chief even if the warrant is ultimately found to be invalid. United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S. Ct. 3405, 82 L. Ed. 2d 677 (1984). The officers' reliance on the magistrate's probable-cause determination and on the technical sufficiency of the warrant the magistrate issued must be objectively reasonable. Leon.
"'[]The exclusionary rule [of the Fourth Amendment] is neither intended nor able to "cure the invasion of the defendant's rights which he has already suffered,"' but rather 'operates as "a judicially created remedy designed to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights generally through its deterrent effect [of preventing subsequent police misconduct]."' Leon, 468 U.S. at 906, 104 S. Ct. at 3412. The deterrent effect must be balanced against the 'substantial social cost' the rule imposes. Leon, 468 U.S. at 907, 104 S. Ct. at 3412.
"'[W]hen law enforcement officers have acted in objective good faith or their transgressions have been minor, the magnitude of the benefit conferred [by the exclusionary rule] on such guilty defendants offends basic concepts of the criminal justice system.'
Morgan, 641 So. 2d at 843 (emphasis added).
"Leon, 468 U.S. at 908, 104 S. Ct. at 3412."
The Alabama Supreme Court concluded in Morgan that, although the Alabama officers did not comply with Alabama law when they did not have an Alabama fugitive-from-justice warrant, "an objective officer could have reasonably relied upon the two Florida warrants in the possession of a Florida law enforcement official present at the arrest scene to conduct the warrantless arrest." Morgan, 641 So. 2d at 843.
Although the main opinion purports to rely on Morgan to find the good-faith exception inapplicable here, it reaches an entirely different result from Morgan on nearly identical facts. Specifically, the main opinion states that the good-faith exception used in Morgan does not apply here because Lt. Raiti's mistake was "unreasonable," given that "it was Lt. Raiti's own mistake of law in failing to comply with § 15-10-3(a)(6)" and because "the language of § 15-10-3(a)(6) is straightforward and unambiguous." ___ So. 3d at ___. In other words, the main opinion holds that, when a law-enforcement officer makes a mistake of law by failing to properly interpret the scope of his or her arrest power under § 15-10-3(a)(6), then the arrest is invalid, the Fourth Amendment is violated, and the exclusionary rule bars the introduction of any evidence seized as a result of the invalid arrest. This holding is problematic for several reasons.
First, I question whether an arrest in violation of § 15-10-3(a)(6) also violates a federal constitutional right that would require the exclusion of any evidence obtained from that arrest. As the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has explained:
"The exclusionary rule is a judicially fashioned remedy aimed at deterring constitutional violations, the application of which is appropriate when the Constitution or a statute requires it. Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, ___ U.S. ___, 126 S. Ct. 2669, 2680, 165 L. Ed. 2d 557 (2006); United States v. Caceres, 440 U.S. 741, 754-55, 99 S. Ct. 1465, 59 L. Ed. 2d 733 (1979); United States v. Giordano, 416 U.S. 505, 524, 94 S. Ct. 1820, 40 L. Ed. 2d 341 (1974) (in the absence of Fourth Amendment violation, suppression remedy depends upon provisions of the statute); United States v. Ware, 161 F.3d 414, 424-25 (6th Cir. 1998). It is well-settled that '[s]uppression of evidence ... has always been our last resort, not our first impulse,' and the exclusionary rule is only applicable 'where its remedial objectives are thought most efficaciously served.' Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586, 126 S. Ct. 2159, 2163, 165 L. Ed. 2d 56 (2006) (citation omitted).
"Although exclusion is the proper remedy for some violations of the Fourth Amendment, there is no exclusionary rule generally applicable to statutory violations. Rather, the exclusionary rule is an appropriate sanction for a statutory violation only where the statute specifically provides for suppression as a remedy or the statutory violation implicates underlying constitutional rights such as the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. See Sanchez-Llamas, 126 S. Ct. at 2679-682 (finding that suppression is not an appropriate
remedy for violation of Article 36 of the Vienna Convention); United States v. Donovan, 429 U.S. 413, 432 n.22, 97 S. Ct. 658, 50 L. Ed. 2d 652 (1977) (denying exclusion for violation of wiretapping statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2518); Ware, 161 F.3d at 424 (6th Cir. 1998) ('statutory violations, absent underlying constitutional violations, are generally insufficient to justify imposition of the exclusionary rule'); United States v. Meriwether, 917 F.2d 955, 960 (6th Cir. 1990) (holding that government violations of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act do not warrant suppression of evidence)."United States v. Abdi, 463 F.3d 547, 555-56 (6th Cir. 2006) (emphasis added).
Even if the state statute at issue here was violated, that statutory violation is not tantamount to a Fourth Amendment violation. Indeed, this is not a case where a police officer arrested someone without a warrant having been issued. See, e.g., State v. Phillips, 517 So. 2d 648 (Ala. Crim. App. 1987) (finding that evidence should be suppressed when there was no warrant issued for Phillips's arrest for a misdemeanor offense and the misdemeanor was not committed in the presence of a police officer). This is also not a case where the warrants that were issued for Berry's arrest were in some way invalid. See, e.g., Anderson v. State, 445 So. 2d 974 (Ala. Crim. App. 1983) (holding that a warrant that was accompanied by an unsigned affidavit was invalid and that evidence seized as a result of that warrant was subject to exclusion). Nor is this even a case, like Morgan, where warrants were issued after the arrest. Rather, this is a case where there already existed validly issued warrants for Berry's arrest; the officer simply did not possess them when he arrested Berry.
Berry does not contend that the warrants issued in this case were invalid.
Put simply, a statutory violation occurring from an arrest made on an otherwise validly issued warrant is not a per se violation of the Fourth Amendment. At worst, Lt. Raiti was mistaken about the scope of his arrest power under § 15-10-3(a)(6) and violated a state statute that does not implicate any underlying constitutional right. A failure to strictly adhere to the terms of § 15-10-3(a)(6), Ala. Code 1975, in executing an arrest on a validly issued outstanding warrant without the warrant "in hand" does not automatically result in a constitutional violation. Thus, I would affirm the circuit court's denial of Berry's motion to suppress.
Second, even assuming that § 15-10-3(a)(6) prohibits Lt. Raiti's actions and implicates a constitutional right, Morgan compels this Court to affirm the circuit court's judgment because, as was the arrest in Morgan, Lt. Raiti's arrest of Berry was "objectively reasonable." In fact, Lt. Raiti's "mistake of law" in arresting Berry (if it truly is a mistake), is virtually identical to the officer's "mistake of law" in Morgan. As explained above, although the Alabama Supreme Court acknowledged that the Alabama officer was plainly required by statute to possess an Alabama fugitive-from-justice warrant to arrest Morgan, it held that "an objective officer could have reasonably relied upon the two Florida warrants in the possession of a Florida law enforcement official at the arrest scene to conduct the warrantless arrest." Morgan, 641 So. 2d at 843. Likewise, here, an objective officer could have reasonably relied upon his knowledge of the already issued, outstanding capias warrants, as Lt. Raiti did, when arresting Berry without being in physical possession of those warrants. Lt. Raiti's reliance on the outstanding capias warrants was especially reasonable given the fact that this Court unanimously held in Webster that an officer who, by all indications, does not physically possess a "capias warrant" may still make a valid arrest "once a capias warrant has issued."
In other words, if it was objectively reasonable for the officer in Morgan to make an arrest when he incorrectly interpreted a plain statute when no valid Alabama warrant existed, it was certainly objectively reasonable for Lt. Raiti to arrest Berry for validly issued capias warrants even though he did not have physical possession of those warrants when this Court in Webster and Scarbrough held that he was permitted do so. Holding otherwise results in the untenable effect of informing law-enforcement officers that they cannot reasonably rely on the opinions of this Court in the field. Cf. Michigan v. DeFillipo, 443 U.S. 31 (1979) (holding that an officer's assumption that a law was valid was reasonable even though the law was later declared unconstitutional and thus upholding the arrest and search incident to that arrest). Because this Court has at least twice held that an officer may validly arrest a person based solely on his knowledge of the existence of capias warrants, this Court should find that Lt. Raiti's arrest of Berry was objectively reasonable, even if it now believes that Lt. Raiti's actions were inconsistent with the statute. Indeed, "the sole purpose of the exclusionary rule is to deter misconduct by law enforcement." Davis v. United States, 564 U.S. 229 (2011). There has never been any allegation before the circuit court or on appeal that Lt. Raiti's warrantless arrest was anything other than "nonculpable, innocent police conduct." And, as the Supreme Court of the United States has noted, it has "'never applied' the exclusionary rule to suppress evidence obtained as a result of nonculpable, innocent police conduct." Id. at 240.
Finally, the main opinion attempts to support its rejection of the good-faith exception by citing Heien v. North Carolina, 574 U.S. 54, 135 S. Ct. 530 (2014). In so doing, the main opinion recasts the holding in Heien so as to limit objectively reasonable mistakes of law to only those situations where there is a statutory ambiguity. The Supreme Court of the United States, however, created no such limitation in Heien. Rather, the Supreme Court explained that "'the ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is "reasonableness."' Riley v. California, 573 U.S. [373, 381-82,] 134 S. Ct. 2473, 2482, 189 L. Ed. 2d 430 (2014) (some internal quotation marks omitted)." 574 U.S. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 536. Moreover, "reasonable men make mistakes" of both law and fact. Id. The Supreme Court then established this broad principle: "The Fourth Amendment tolerates only reasonable mistakes, and those mistakes--whether of fact or of law--must be objectively reasonable." 574 U.S. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 539.
To be sure, Justice Kagan wrote in her concurring opinion in Heien that an officer makes a reasonable mistake of law when "the statute is genuinely ambiguous, such that overturning the officer's judgment requires hard interpretive work." 574 U.S. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 542 (Kagan, J., concurring). The Heien Court, however, did not so limit its opinion. Rather, "the majority gave broad guidance as to how the lower courts should evaluate whether a mistake of law was 'reasonable.' Writing for the majority, the Chief Justice simply noted that the mistake must be 'objectively reasonable,' that the courts should not consider the subjective understanding of the officer, and that the Fourth Amendment inquiry was not as forgiving as the qualified immunity inquiry." Karen McDonald Henning, "Reasonable" Police Mistakes: Fourth Amendment Claims and the "Good Faith" Exception After Heien, 90 St. John's L. Rev. 271, 303 (2016).
Ultimately, in Heien, the Supreme Court had "little difficulty concluding that the officer's error of law was reasonable" because (1) the statute at issue was arguably ambiguous and (2) the statute "had never been previously construed by North Carolina's appellate courts." 574 U.S. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 540. If the officer's actions in Heien were reasonable because the statute had never been previously interpreted by the North Carolina courts, then Lt. Raiti's actions were certainly reasonable when he construed § 15-10-3(a)(6) in precisely the same way that the Alabama appellate courts have interpreted § 15-10-3(a)(6).
Because precedent from this Court, the Alabama Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court of the United States require this Court to hold that Lt. Raiti's arrest of Berry was, at best, permissible and, at worst, objectively reasonable, I respectfully dissent.
Minor, J., concurs.