Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/518/938
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 10:08:51+00:00

Document:
On Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Eastern District.
On Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Middle District.
In Labron, No. 95-1691, police observed respondent Labron and others engaging in a series of drug transactions on a street in Philadelphia. The police arrested the suspects, searched the trunk of a car from which the drugs had been produced, and found bags containing cocaine. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed with the trial court (but not with the intermediate court of appeals, 428 Pa. Super. 616, 626 A. 2d 646 (1993), whose judgment it reversed) that this evidence should be suppressed. ___ Pa. ___, 669 A. 2d 917 (1995). After surveying our precedents on the automobile exception as well as some of its own decisions, the court "concluded that this Commonwealth's jurisprudence of the automobile exception has long required both the existence of probable cause and the presence of exigent circumstances to justify a warrantless search." Id., at ___, 669 A.2d, at 924. Satisfied the police had time to secure a warrant, id., at 924-925, the court held that "the warrantless search of this stationary vehicle violated constitutional guarantees," id., ___, 669 A.2d, at 924.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held the rule permitting warrantless searches of automobiles is limited to cases where "`unforeseen circumstances involving the search of an automobile are coupled with the presence of probable cause.'" (emphasis deleted) ___ Pa., at ___, 669 A. 2d, at 924, quoting Commonwealth v. White, ___ Pa. ___, ___, 669 A. 2d 896, 901 (1995). This was incorrect. Our first cases establishing the automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement were based on the automobile's "ready mobility," an exigency sufficient to excuse failure to obtain a search warrant once probable cause to conduct the search is clear. California v. Carney, 471 U. S. 386, 390-391 (1985) (tracing the history of the exception); Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132 (1925). More recent cases provide a further justification: the individual's reduced expectation of privacy in an automobile, owing to its pervasive regulation. Carney, supra, at 391-392. If a car is readily mobile and probable cause exists to believe it contains contraband, the Fourth Amendment thus permits police to search the vehicle without more. Carney, supra, at 393. As the state courts found, there was probable cause in both of these cases: Police had seen respondent Labron put drugs in the trunk of the car they searched, and had seen respondent Kilgore act in ways that suggested he had drugs in his truck. We conclude the searches of the automobiles in these cases did not violate the Fourth Amendment.
Respondent Labron claims we have no jurisdiction to review the judgment in his case because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's opinion rests on an adequate and independent state ground, viz., "this Commonwealth's jurisprudence of the automobile exception." ___ Pa., at ___, 669 A. 2d, at 924. We disagree. The language we have quoted is not a "plain statement" sufficient to tell us "the federal cases were being used only for the purpose of guidance, and did not themselves compel the result that the court had reached." Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032, 1041 (1983). The Pennsylvania Supreme Court did discuss several of its own decisions; as it noted, however, some of those cases relied on an analysis of our cases on the automobile exception, see, e. g., ___ Pa., at ___, 669 A. 2d, at 921 (observing Commonwealth v. Holzer, 480 Pa. 93, 103, 389 A. 2d 101, 106 (1978), cited Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443 (1971)); ___ Pa., at ___, 669 A. 2d, at 924 (stating Commonwealth v. White, supra, rested in part upon the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's analysis of Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S. 42 (1970)). The law of the Commonwealth thus appears to us "interwoven with the federal law, and . . . the adequacy and independence of any possible state law ground is not clear from the face of the opinion." Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S., at 1040-1041. Our jurisdiction in Labron's case is secure. Ibid. The opinion in respondent Kilgore's case, meanwhile, rests on an explicit conclusion that the officers' conduct violated the Fourth Amendment; we have jurisdiction to review this judgment as well.
In its per curiam decision, this Court concludes that because the decision in Labron cited state decisions which in turn referred to two 25-year-old cases of this Court, any reference to state law is " `interwoven with the federal law.'" Ante, at 4 (citing Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032, 1040 (1983)). These references, however, seem to me a rather short thread with which to weave-let alone upon which to hang-our jurisdiction.
The decision begins with the proposition, not at issue here, that "the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section(s) 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution generally require that searches be predicated upon a warrant issued by a neutral and detached magistrate." ___ Pa. ___, ___, 669 A. 2d 917, 920 (1995) (citations omitted). It then reviews the history of the so-called "automobile exception" to the warrant requirement by quoting several passages from our decision in Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132 (1925), which first established the exception, and then quotes a passage from Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S. 42, 52 (1970), 3 which appears to support the proposition under Federal law that the Court emphasizes here today (that the existence of probable cause is sufficient in and of itself to justify a search of a vehicle). ___ Pa., at ___-___, 669 A. 2d, at 920-921.
Rather than follow the developments of federal law, however, the decision then specifically and immediately notes that "when reviewing warrantless automobile searches in this Commonwealth, we have constantly held that `there is no "automobile exception" as such and that the constitutional protections are applicable to searches and seizures of a person's car.' Commonwealth v. Holzer, 480 Pa. 93, 103, 389 A. 2d 101, 106 (1978) (citing Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443 (1971))." ___ Pa., at ___, 669 A. 2d, at 921 (emphasis added). From that point onward, the only reference to federal law in the decision's remaining 30 citations is a recognition that White, the sole decision of this trio of "exigent circumstance" cases that is not before our Court, was "based upon" that Court's analysis of Chambers. Id., at ___, 669 A. 2d, at 923-924. Every other citation in Labron is to Pennsylvania law.
Having reviewed the range of the Pennsylvania courts' statements regarding the source of the "exigent circumstances" rule, it is worthwhile to review this Court's understanding of when a state decision is based on adequate and independent state grounds. In Michigan v. Long, the Court adopted a "plain statement" rule for determining whether a state decision rested on "independent and adequate" state-law grounds. "Because of our respect for state courts, and a desire to avoid advisory opinions, . . . we did not wish to continue to decide issues of state law that go beyond the opinion that we review, or to require state courts to reconsider cases to clarify the grounds of their decisions." 463 U. S., at 1040. When "a state court decision fairly appears to rest primarily on federal law, or to be interwoven with the federal law, and when the adequacy and independence of any possible state law ground is not clear from the face of the opinion," we held, we would conclude that the State decided as it did because federal law required it to do so. Id., at 1040-1041.
On many prior occasions, I have noted the unfortunate effects of the rule of Michigan v. Long. See, e.g., Harris v. Reed, 489 U. S. 255, 266-267 (1989) (Stevens, J., concurring); Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U. S. 673, 689-708 (1986) (Stevens, J., dissenting); Montana v. Hall, 481 U. S. 400, 411 (1987) (Stevens, J., dissenting); Ponte v. Real, 471 U. S. 491, 501-503 (1985) (Stevens, J., concurring in part); see also Arizona v. Evans, 514 U. S. ___, ___-___ (1995) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). Because the state-law ground supporting these judgments is so much clearer than has been true on most prior occasions, see n. 5, supra, these decisions exacerbate those effects to a nearly intolerable degree. Particularly in light of my understanding of this Court's primary role-"to protect the rights of the individual that are embodied in the Federal Constitution," Harris, 489 U. S., at 267-the decision to summarily reverse state decisions resting tenuously at best on federal grounds is imprudent and entirely inconsistent "with the sound administration of this Court's discretionary docket." Ponte, 471 U. S., at 502-503.
The Pennsylvania Court has in this and other cases expressly indicated its intent to extend the protections of its constitution beyond those available under the Federal Constitution, see, e.g., Commonwealth v. Edmunds, 526 Pa. 374, 586 A. 2d 887 (1991) (setting forth test for establishing rights under Pennsylvania Constitution); Commonwealth v. Rosenfelt, 443 Pa. Super. 616, 634-637, 662 A. 2d 1131, 1140-1141 (1995) (reviewing state cases extending greater protections under the Pennsylvania Constitution). The per curiam decision that the Court issues today merely makes that task harder by requiring the Commonwealth to purge its decisions of any reliance on the latter, despite the value of the insights that our decisions can provide on related issues of law. By "unceremoniously reversing its judgment," Van Arsdall, 475 U. S., at 701 (Stevens, J., dissenting), we also demonstrate a lack of respect for the Pennsylvania court and the sophistication of its state search and seizure law. See id., at 699.
These harms are particularly unnecessary given the likely result on remand. To reinvigorate the privacy protections extended to Pennsylvania citizens under Labron, Kilgore, and White, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court need only set forth the appropriate talismanic language and state, even more clearly than it already has, that the "Commonwealth's jurisprudence of the automobile exception requires both the existence of probable cause and the presence of exigent circumstances to justify a warrantless search." Labron, ___ Pa., at ___, 669 A.2d, at 924 (emphasis added). 8 While the result will be identical, resources and respect will have been unnecessarily lost.
Each decision was issued by a different division of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Even if, as the Court concludes, ante, at 3-4, some element of residual doubt suggests that Pennsylvania's Supreme Court drew inspiration from our interpretations of the Federal Constitution, I do not think that reliance sufficient to justify expending this Court's time-or that of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court-simply to scour the state decisions of all references to the Federal Constitution. See infra, at 6-11.
As the Pennsylvania Supreme Court noted, in Chambers we held that "`[f]or constitutional purposes, [there is] no difference between on the one hand seizing and holding a car before presenting the probable cause issue to a magistrate and on the other hand carrying out an immediate search without a warrant.'" ___ Pa. ___, ___, 669 A.2d 917, 921 (1995) (quoting Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S. 42, 52 (1970)).
Although the court's main opinion in Commonwealth v. White, 669 A. 2d 896 (1995), also asked whether the search would have been permissible as a search incident to an arrest, the dissent later noted that the only question presented in the appeal was whether "exigent circumstances" were necessary to permit a warrantless search of a car based on probable cause. See Id., at ___, 669 A. 2d, at 910.
Justice Castille also specifically noted that the Belton decision was not raised by the parties, and that the majority's discussion of it was dicta, further emphasizing that his emphasis on Pennsylvania law was related to the sole issue that he believed presented: Whether a warrantless search of an automobile requires both probable cause and an exigent circumstance.
Indeed, the author of Labron noted in White that "the history of Article I, Section 8 and case-law interpreting it reveal a history of according a limited expectation of privacy in an automobile independently under the Pennsylvania Constitution. Therefore, the question before us today is not whether we wish to extend additional privacy protections to the Appellant but whether we wish to follow the United States Supreme Court and sharply curtail a privacy interest long recognized by this Court." Commonwealth v. White, ___ Pa., at ___, 669 A. 2d, at 905.
On the many subsequent occasions in which this Court has taken jurisdiction over state decisions over which there was some dispute about the nature of the relationship between federal and state law, the state opinions were far more "interwoven" with federal law than is true in this case. See, e.g., Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U. S. 177, 182 (1990) (decision below did not "rely on (or even mention) any specific provision" of State Constitution); Pennsylvania v. Muniz, 496 U. S. 582, 588, n. 4 (1990) (state constitutional provision construed to provide protections identical to Federal Constitution); Florida v. Riley, 488 U. S. 445, 448, n. 1 (1989) (decision below mentioned State Constitution only twice, but "focused exclusively on federal cases dealing with the Fourth Amendment"); Michigan v. Chesternut, 486 U. S. 567, 571, n. 3 (1988) (decision below "said nothing to suggest that the Michigan Constitution's seizure provision provided an independent source of relief, and the court's entire analysis rested expressly on the Fourth Amendment and federal cases"); Kentucky v. Stincer, 482 U. S. 730, 735, n. 7 (1987) (decision below "consistently referred to respondent's rights under the . . . Federal Constitution as supporting its ruling"); Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U. S. 79, 83-84 (1987) (State Constitution construed in pari materia with Federal Constitution).
State courts have, of course, done this on many occasions in the past. See, e.g., Ponte v. Real, 471 U. S. 491, 503, n. 4 (1985) (Stevens, J., concurring in part) (listing various cases in which reversals by this Court were followed by state court decisions affirming the original holding on state-law grounds); Montana v. Hall, 481 U. S. 400, 411 (1987) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (same).

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