Evening star., 1925-07-26
CONSTITUTION HAMPERS
DRY AGENT In HIS WORK
Fourth and Fifth Amendments Are
Havens of Safe Refuge for Violators
of the Eighteenth.

"Ha, ha. sneers the bootlegger and
goes with Mr.. Cohen.
Later, after hearing the towns lead
ing lawyer, the court turns severely
on Mr. Cohen and lectures him. He
had no search warrant. He could have
made an arrest without a warrant for
reasonable cause. but in this case he
could act only upon evidence. IF
and now we quote from the decision
instead of arresting the plaintiff in
error the officer had presented all the
facts within his knowledge and all
the information at hand to a magis-
trate, no magistrate would issue a
warrant of arrest for the plaintiff in
error; no magistrate would hold the
plaintiff in error to answer for a crime
before another tribunal; no grand jury
would indict; no court would submit
the case to jury; and If the officer be
sued for false Imprisonment, no court
would instruct that the arrest was
justified, assuming all the foregoing
testimony were true. If we are cor
rect in these conclusions, and we see
no escape from them, the arrest was
without authority of law, and the
property wrongfully seized was not
admissible. in evidence"
Thereupon the bootlegger winked
slyly at Mr.. Cohen, shook hands with
his lawyer and added, as an after
thought: But what about my liquor?''
And while it is not known what was
done in the foregoing case, the United
States Supreme Court recently de-
clared that liquor unlawfully seized
as evidence may be returned.
Bottle i'm Coat Pocket.
Another recent case in a Federal
court established the right of an
American citizen to walk down the
street with the neck of a bottle con-
tanning whisky showing from his coat
pocket. An officer noticed such a
citizen and, having neglected to read
the fourth amendment to the Consti-
tuition that morning, arrested the
gentleman, pulled the cork, shifted
the contents of said bottle and took
the case into court. Whereupon the
court ruled, in the case of Snyder VS..
U. s., 285 Fed. 1 reversing 2T8 Fed.
650), IF, therefore, the arresting Of
ficer in this case had no other justifi-
cation for the arrest than the mere
suspicion that a bottle, only the neck
of which he could see protruding from
the pocket of defendants coat, con-
tained Intoxicating liquor, then 1t
would seem to follow without much
question that the arrest and search,
without first having secured a war
rant, were illegal. And that his only
justification was his suspicion is ad.
mitted by the evidence of the arrest.
ing officer himself. If the bottle had
been empty or If it had contained
any one of a dozen innocuous liquids
the act of the officer would, admitted
ly. have been an unlawful invasion of
the personal liberty of the defendant
That 1t happened In this instance to
! contain whisky, we think, neither
J justif1es the assault nor condemns
| the principle which makes such an
| act unlawful.
Common as the thing may be, II
| Is a serious thing to arrest a citizen
| and it is a more serious thing to
| search his person, and he who accom-
| plishes 1t must do so in conformity
with the law of the land. :"
The principle which has become
fundamental is that the legality OF
arrest, search or seizure. is to be de
| termined by the facts which precede
Gpatiausakan Ihix1 -RagaA -