Logan v. Commonwealth – July 28, 2009
Posted by ron on August 4, 2009 · Leave a Comment
On remand from the SCV, the CAV reviewed “Logan’s challenge to the trial court’s determination that the police officer’s actions [in entering a common area of Logan's rooming house without a warrant] did not constitute bad faith.”
The March 2009 CAV opinion from which Logan now appeals lays out a complex procedural history. Logan appeals the trial court’s judgment admitting during a probation revocation hearing evidence that he possessed cocaine. The mandate to the CAV on remand was to determine whether the officer acted in bad faith in entering the common area, because “the exclusionary rule applies to probation violation hearings if the defendant proves ‘bad faith on the part of the police.’”
The CAV applied the United States Supreme Court’s exclusionary rule analysis in Herring v. United States. The CAV concluded the officer did not act in bad faith. Rather, it found the officer “merely guessed wrong” when he determined that Logan did not have a “reasonable expectation of privacy in a stairway within a common area of a multi-tenant rooming house,” the mistake of law to which Logan’s third assignment of error apparently refers.
Steve Emmert provided analysis of the:
CAV en banc decision reversing Logan’s cocaine possession conviction, the
CAV panel decision declining to apply the exclusionary rule to Logan’s probation revocation hearing, the
SCV decision remanding the probation revocation exclusionary rule issue to the CAV, and
the CAV panel decision on remand from the Supreme Court, which Logan now appeals.
From
The Court of Appeals of Virginia (published opinion)
Counsel
S. Jane Chittom (Office of the Appellate Defender) for appellant.
Donald E. Jeffrey, III (Office of the Attorney General) for appellee.
Assignments of Error
1. The Court of Appeals erred in failing to carry out the instruction of this Court on remand.
2. The Court of Appeals erred in holding that the exclusionary rule does not apply to a warrantless entry into a dwelling if the police officer who entered could have had a good faith belief that his entry was lawful.
3. The Court of Appeals erred in holding that Herring v. United States, 129 S. Ct. 695 (2009), applies to an officer’s mistake of law as well as to certain mistakes of fact.
Date Granted
7-24-2009