{"id":4072,"date":"2010-05-18T23:01:59","date_gmt":"2010-04-17T13:45:05","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-17T13:45:05","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=4072","title":{"rendered":"NJ: Dispatcher’s unreasonable error as to existence of warrant for defendant required suppression although arresting officer’s actions were reasonable"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police dispatcher\u2019s unreasonable error as to whether there was a warrant for the defendant required suppression of the evidence, and Herring<\/a> does not apply. The month of the DOB was the same, but not the date or year, and the first name was a variant of spelling of defendant\u2019s first name. The officer acted reasonably in the field, but the dispatcher did not. This holding is consistent with Herring<\/a>, but decided under the state constitution. (New Jersey does not have a good faith exception anyway.) State v. Handy<\/a>, 412 N.J. Super. 492, 991 A.2d 281 (2010):<\/p>\n

The facts in the case before us are quite distinct from those in Herring<\/a>. Rather than a past clerical error, such as neglecting to remove a no-longer valid warrant, the police dispatcher in this case inaccurately reported to the police officer in the field that there was an active warrant for Handy when, in fact, there were significant discrepancies in the spelling of the first name and the date of birth that were not reported at the same time, thereby causing the arrest of the wrong person. Had the police dispatcher reported the discrepancies at the same time as the existence of the warrant, [Officer] Drogo would have attempted to verify that the warrant was for Handy before, rather than after, the arrest. Inasmuch as he was never able to verify that the warrant was for Handy, the arrest and the resulting search would not have taken place.<\/p>\n

The deterrent value of applying the exclusionary rule in this case is, in our view, quite significant, especially in contrast to the low value under the factual circumstances before the Supreme Court in Herring<\/a>. The police dispatcher is the crucial link between the officer in the field and police headquarters. The officer depends on receiving the correct information from the dispatcher, information such as whether there is or is not an outstanding arrest warrant for the person with whom the officer is then face to face. Misinformation either way has the potential to leave the officer either unaware that he or she is dealing with a dangerous criminal or arresting the wrong person.<\/p>\n

The need to avoid the former is obvious and clearly in the best interest of the police officer in the field, the need to avoid the latter finds its basis in the Fourth Amendment’s protection of “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” See also N.J. Const. art. I, P 7. The police officer in the field and the citizen on the street both benefit from a police dispatch system that is free of unreasonable conduct by dispatchers who fail to ensure that they are providing the available information about outstanding warrants as accurately and completely as possible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"pingsdone","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4072\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}