# State v. Brown

> Supreme Court of Missouri · April 15, 1986 · 708 S.W.2d 140

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9684147

## Case

- **Full name:** STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Richard Duane BROWN, Appellant
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Missouri
- **Decided:** April 15, 1986
- **Citations:** 708 S.W.2d 140; 1986 Mo. LEXIS 280
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Donnelly
- **Judges:** Rendlen, Manford, Blackmar, Billings, Higgins, Black-Mar, Welliver, Donnelly, Robertson
- **Cited by:** 17 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9684147

## Opinion text

DONNELLY, Judge,
dissenting.
Article I, § 15 of the Constitution of Missouri provides “[t]hat the people shall be secure in their persons, papers, home and effects from unreasonable searches and seizures....”
In Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616 , 6 S.Ct. 524 , 29 L.Ed. 746 (1886), and Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 34 S.Ct. 341 , 58 L.Ed. 652 (1914), the United States Supreme Court articulated The Exclusionary Rule (which holds that evidence obtained by illegal search is not admissible at trial when timely objection is made).
In State v. Owens, 302 Mo. 348 , 259 S.W. 100 (banc 1924), a case which did not involve the United States Constitution, The Exclusionary Rule was adopted as Missouri law.
Today, the principal opinion confirms that the Owens rule was “implicitly modified” in a footnote in Sweeney.
This may be the most cavalier treatment ever given by this Court to a question of such importance.
In such circumstance, I make two tentative observations:
(1) that a search is unreasonable only when it is pretextual; and
(2) that we should overrule Owens and wash our hands of The Exclusionary Rule except as it may implicate the provision “[t]hat no person shall be compelled to *149 testify against himself in a criminal cause-” Mo. Const, art. I, § 19.
I dissent.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9684147. Public record. Not legal advice.