A Millville, New Jersey police officer stopped a group of people for unlawfully riding bicycles on the sidewalk. One of the riders identified himself as Germaine Handy of Millville, New Jersey, birth date March 18, 1974. The dispatcher informed Officer Carlo Drogo that there was a ten-year-old outstanding warrant for Handy. Handy was found to be in possession of cocaine and was subsequently charged with a drug offense.
It was later learned that the outstanding warrant was for Jermaine Handy of Los Angeles, California, birth date March 14, 1972. Handy moved to suppress the drugs as the fruit of an unlawful arrest. The trial court determined the dispatcher had been aware of the discrepancies between the Germaine's information and that contained in the warrant.
But does the dispatcher's mistake require suppression of the drugs? The New Jersey Supreme Court yesterday answered yes.
It was later learned that the outstanding warrant was for Jermaine Handy of Los Angeles, California, birth date March 14, 1972. Handy moved to suppress the drugs as the fruit of an unlawful arrest. The trial court determined the dispatcher had been aware of the discrepancies between the Germaine's information and that contained in the warrant.
But does the dispatcher's mistake require suppression of the drugs? The New Jersey Supreme Court yesterday answered yes.
Although we cannot quarrel in any way with Officer Drogo's behavior, the dispatcher's actions were plainly unreasonable. . . . Indeed, there were two reasonable paths for her: one was to tell Officer Drogo about the information on the warrant she had before her so that he could probe the issue further with Handy, the other was to say that there was no warrant matching the information she had been given. She chose neither course . . .The majority distinguished Herring v. United States, which held the exclusionary rule does not apply to suppress evidence obtained by negligent conduct by police personnel, given the little deterrence the rule would achieve under the circumstances.
[S]uppressing the evidence garnered from this illegal search would have important deterrent value, would underscore the need for training of officers and dispatchers to focus on detail, and would serve to assure that our own constitutional guarantees are given full effect.
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Two justices dissented:Here, the dispatcher's slipshod conduct, which clearly would not have been tolerated had the officer committed it, was objectively unreasonable and thus failed to satisfy the Fourth Amendment or the New Jersey Constitution.
[T]roubling is the majority's extension of the Fourth Amendment remedy of exclusion, which would appropriately apply had the police officer himself acted unreasonably, to the dispatcher's conduct.* * *The exclusionary rule is a powerful and important tool designed to deter police misconduct. It is a remedy best reserved for circumstances in which there has been police misconduct or for behaviors, or patterns of behavior, that bespeak a deliberate, routine, or systemic violation of constitutional rights rather than, as here, a mistaken decision with which this Court, with the benefit of the pristine vision that hindsight provides, disagrees.
Jim Cook Jr. of NJ.com has this story.
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