BOEHM, J.
David Shotts was arrested in Indiana by local law enforcement officers who had been advised of an outstanding Alabama warrant for his arrest. In the course of the arrest, Shotts was found in possession of an unlicensed handgun, which resulted in charges of violations of Indiana law. We hold that the Indiana arrest in reliance on information from Alabama law enforcement officers and the National Crime Information Computer did not violate either the Fourth Amendment or the Indiana Constitution. The evidence of his possession of a handgun is therefore admissible in this Indiana prosecution.
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Shotts relies primarily on Kinnaird v. State, 251 Ind. 506, 242 N.E.2d 500 (1968). He argues, and the Court of Appeals agreed, that “like the affiant in Kinnaird, the Alabama affiant merely alleged that Shotts had committed a crime” and failed to provide facts that would allow the magistrate to make a probable cause determination. Shotts, 907 N.E.2d at 137. The Court of Appeals found that a Fourth Amendment violation occurred “prior to the information being submitted to NCIC and the executing [Indiana] officers.” Id. at 138. In other words, both Shotts’s principal argument and the analysis of the Court of Appeals assess the Alabama magistrate’s determination of probable cause under federal and Indiana precedent, and not the actions of the Indiana arresting officers.
At the outset, it is important to bear in mind what the issue in this case is and what it is not. We are addressing whether we are to suppress the evidence of Shotts’s possession of a weapon in this Indiana prosecution charging violation of Indiana‘s gun laws. We are not addressing whether this evidence may be admitted in any prosecution in Alabama for the charges that gave rise to the Alabama warrant. The first issue, therefore, is whether only the reasonableness of the Indiana officers’ conduct is required for a valid arrest, or is the Alabama probable cause determination also subject to challenge. It is well settled that in extradition proceedings the receiving state is not to review the probable cause determination of the demanding state. See, e.g., Bailey v. Cox, 260 Ind. 448, 452, 296 N.E.2d 422, 425 (1973) (discussing the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act, currently codified at I.C. § 35-33-10-3, and concluding that any challenge to the arrest warrant must be resolved in the demanding state). We find little direct authority addressing whether the same reasoning applies to evaluation of an arrest in a receiving state—in this case Indiana—based on a warrant issued by another state—in this case Alabama. For the reasons explained below, we conclude that it does.
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The trial court found that the Indiana officers acted in good-faith reliance on a warrant they reasonably presumed to be valid. This finding is fully supported in the record and disposes of Shotts’s claim under the Fourth Amendment. We think this conclusion follows inexorably from the Supreme Court’s ruling in Herring. There, one of the arresting officers—who knew the defendant as “no stranger to law enforcement”—inquired of his county and a neighboring one whether there were any outstanding warrants for the defendant‘s arrest. Herring, 129 S. Ct. at 698. The warrant clerk in the neighboring county responded that her database included an active arrest warrant for the defendant. Id. When the clerk tried to retrieve the actual warrant, however, she learned that the warrant had been recalled and was no longer valid. Id. The clerk tried to report her error to the arresting officers, but they had already arrested the defendant and found contraband in his possession. Id. The Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment violation did not merit exclusion of the seized contraband because the violative conduct was not “sufficiently deliberate that exclusion can meaningfully deter it,” nor was it “sufficiently culpable that such deterrence is worth the price paid by the justice system.” Id. at 702. Reviewing its own precedent, the Supreme Court found that exclusion was proper when the police engage in “intentional conduct that was patently unconstitutional,” such as searching without a warrant in Weeks or with a “false warrant” in Mapp, but improper when the error results from “nonrecurring and attenuated negligence.” Id. (discussing Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383 (1914) and Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961)). We think this case presents a much less compelling case for applying the exclusionary rule than the unsuccessful defendant presented in Herring itself. In Herring, the error was attributable to a failed communication between two counties in the same state. In that circumstance, at least both jurisdictions are chargeable with familiarity with the applicable procedure and law of the state. In the case before us today, as in Herring, the Indiana officers arrested Shotts based on an electronic record of a warrant and before physically retrieving that warrant. Id. at 698. But in Shott’s case, any flaw in the warrant was not attributable to Indiana at all. There is therefore even less reason to suppress the evidence in this case than the Supreme Court found insufficient in Herring.
Shotts cites no authority that either the Indiana officers’ failure to procure a physical copy of the Alabama warrant prior to the arrest or their contact with the Madison County Sheriff’s Department instead of the Huntsville Police Department was a “sufficiently culpable” act to require exclusion. It is undisputed that Detective Kaps received a call from a law enforcement officer in a sister state reporting an arrest warrant for Shotts and that Shotts may be armed and dangerous. Kaps checked the NCIC to verify the existence of the warrant before instructing officers Wisniewski and Robinson to establish surveillance at Shotts’s residence according to BMV records. Wisniewski and Robinson also checked with the NCIC to verify the existence of the warrant. Having done so, it was reasonable for Wisniewski and Robinson to presume the warrant was valid and supported by probable cause. Shotts points to no evidence suggesting that the Indiana officers willfully delayed reviewing the Alabama warrant or its affidavit or avoided contacting the Huntsville Police Department in an attempt to violate his constitutional rights. In sum, Shotts does not identify anything that the Indiana officers did as culpable at all, much less rising to the level of culpable behavior the exclusionary rule seeks to deter. Indeed, letting an armed fugitive remain at large while they attempted to take other steps to review the Alabama proceedings is objectively unreasonable.
There are also practical difficulties in Shotts’s claim that officers enforcing a warrant from another state should be required to do more than the Indiana officers did in this case. Even if they had obtained a physical copy of the warrant, as Shotts argues they should have done, these officers were in no position to determine the constitutionality of the Alabama warrant without knowledge of Alabama warrant procedures. Specifically, some jurisdictions allow both oral and written evidence to provide the basis for a warrant, and impose different degrees of formality of communication. e.g., Ala. Code §§ 15-5-3, -4 (2008) (allowing oral testimony but requiring that the witness be deposed); I.C. § 35-33-5-8 (allowing oral testimony by telephone or radio or written testimony by FAX). See generally, 2 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment §4.3 (4th ed. 2004) (describing the different procedures in various jurisdictions).
Whether the Alabama officer knew or should have known that his testimony was insufficient to support a probable cause determination is for the Alabama courts to resolve. Exclusion by an Indiana court in a proceeding under Indiana law would not deter the Alabama officer who applied for the Alabama warrant. Moreover, the Alabama officer cannot be expected to know of and comply with Indiana case law, any more than the Indiana officers should be required to be conversant with procedures in other states. Herring reaffirmed that an officer cannot “obtain a warrant on the basis of a ‘bare bones’ affidavit and then rely on colleagues who are ignorant of the circumstances under which the warrant was obtained to conduct the search.” Herring, 129 S. Ct. at 703–04 (quoting Leon, 468 U.S. at 923 n.24). But Shotts has not demonstrated that the Alabama officer engaged in this sort of culpable behavior, and if he did the consequence should be exclusion in the Alabama proceeding, not exclusion in an Indiana prosecution where the Indiana authorities behaved reasonably and responsibly. Accordingly, the good-faith exception applies and Shotts fails in his Federal Fourth Amendment claim.
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Under the totality of the circumstances, the Indiana officers’ actions were reasonable considering the governmental interests and the steps they took in investigating and arresting Shotts. Accordingly, the Indiana officers acted reasonably and Shotts cannot prevail under the Indiana Constitution.
Shepard, C.J., and Dickson and Rucker, JJ., concur.
SULLIVAN, J., concurs in result with separate opinion:
I agree with the Court that Shotts’s arrest was valid both as a matter of federal and state constitutional law irrespective of whether the Alabama warrant was valid. This is because the Indiana authorities behaved reasonably and responsibly upon receiving the call from police in Alabama reporting an arrest warrant—three different Indiana police officers each checked the NCIC to verify the existence of a warrant and there is no evidence that the Indiana officers acted improperly in any way. The reasonableness of their conduct was sufficient to meet the constitutional requirements for a valid arrest.
I vote to affirm Shotts’s conviction without resorting to the recent United States Supreme Court exclusionary rule decision, Herring v. United States, 129 S. Ct. 695 (2009). In my view, the Court‘s lengthy discussion of Herring is unnecessary. Herring assumed that the defendant had been the victim of an unconstitutional arrest. Id. at 699. The question in Herring was whether the evidence seized during an unconstitutional arrest needed to be suppressed. Id. In contrast, the question here is whether Shotts’s arrest was constitutional. Because the Court concludes that the arrest was valid, the handgun was validly seized without implicating the exclusionary rule.