Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/413/433/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 13:59:53+00:00

Document:
Respondent had a one-car accident near a small Wisconsin town, while driving a rented Ford. The police had the car towed to a garage seven miles from the police station, where it was left unguarded outside. Respondent was arrested for drunken driving. Early the next day, an officer, looking for a service revolver which respondent (who had identified himself as a Chicago policeman) was thought to possess, made a warrantless search of the car and found in the trunk several items, some bloodied, which he removed. Later, on receipt of additional information emanating from respondent, a blood-stained body was located on respondent's brother's farm in a nearby county. Thereafter, through the windows of a disabled Dodge which respondent had left on the farm before renting the Ford, an officer observed other bloodied items. Following issuance of a search warrant, materials were taken from the Dodge, two of which (a sock and floor mat) were not listed in the return on the warrant among the items seized. Respondent's trial for murder, at which items seized from the cars were introduced in evidence, resulted in conviction which was upheld on appeal. In this habeas corpus action, the Court of Appeals reversed the District Court and held that certain evidence at the trial had been unconstitutionally seized.
1. The warrantless search of the Ford did not violate the Fourth Amendment as made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth. The search was not unreasonable, since the police had exercised a form of custody of the car, which constituted a hazard on the highway, and the disposition of which by respondent was precluded by his intoxicated and later comatose condition; and the revolver search was standard police procedure to protect the public from a weapon's possibly falling into improper hands. Preston v. United States, 376 U. S. 364, distinguished; Harris v. United States, 390 U. S. 234, followed. Pp. 413 U. S. 439-448.
warrant's return, which (contrary to the assumption of the Court of Appeals) was not filed prior to the search, and the warrant was thus validly outstanding at the time the articles were discovered. Pp. 413 U. S. 448-450.
REHNQUIST, J., wrote the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C.J., and WHITE, BLACKMUN, and POWELL, JJ., joined. BRENNAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which DOUGLAS, STEWART, and MARSHALL, JJ., joined, post, p. 413 U. S. 450.
for unrelated reasons. 471 F.2d 280 (1972). We granted certiorari, 409 U.S. 1059 (1972).
On September 9, 1969, respondent was a member of the Chicago, Illinois, police force and either owned or possessed a 1960 Dodge automobile. That day, he drove from Chicago to West Bend, Wisconsin, the county seat of Washington County, located some hundred-odd miles northwest of Chicago. He was identified as having been in two taverns in the small town of Kewaskum, Wisconsin, seven miles north of West Bend, during the late evening of September 9 and the early morning of September 10. At some time before noon on the 10th, respondent's automobile became disabled, and he had it towed to a farm owned by his brother in Fond du Lac County, which adjoins Washington County on the north. He then drove back to Chicago early that, afternoon with his brother in the latter's car.
Just before midnight of the same day, respondent rented a maroon 1967 Ford Thunderbird at O'Hare Field outside of Chicago, and apparently drove back to Wisconsin early the next morning. A tenant on his brother's farm saw a car answering the description of the rented car pull alongside the disabled 1960 Dodge at approximately 4 a.m. At approximately 9:30 a.m. on September 11, respondent purchased two towels, one light brown and the other blue, from a department store in Kewaskum.
bridge abutment. A passing motorist drove him into Kewaskum, and, after being let off in Kewaskum, respondent telephoned the police. Two police officers picked him up at a tavern and drove to the scene of the accident. On the way, the officers noticed that respondent appeared to be drunk; he offered three conflicting versions of how the accident occurred.
2 a.m. on the 12th to the garage to which the 1967 Thunderbird had been towed after the accident.
The purpose of going to the Thunderbird, as developed on the motion to suppress, was to look for respondent's service revolver. Weiss testified that respondent did not have a revolver when he was arrested, and that the West Bend authorities were under the impression that Chicago police officers were required to carry their service revolvers at all times. He stated that the effort to find the revolver was "standard procedure in our department."
Weiss opened the door of the Thunderbird and found, on the floor of the car, a book of Chicago police regulations and, between the two front seats, a flashlight which appeared to have "a few spots of blood on it." He then opened the trunk of the car, which had been locked, and saw various items covered with what was later determined to be type O blood. These included a pair of police uniform trousers, a pair of gray trousers, a nightstick with the name "Dombrowski" stamped on it, a raincoat, a portion of a car floor mat, and a towel. The blood on the car mat was moist. The officer removed these items to the police station.
When, later that day, respondent was confronted with the condition of the items discovered in the trunk, he requested the presence of counsel before making any statement. After conferring with respondent, a lawyer told the police that respondent "authorized me to state he believed there was a body lying near the family picnic area at the north end of his brother's farm."
not far from where the body was found, and saw a pillowcase, back seat, and-briefcase covered with blood. Police officials obtained, on the evening of the 12th, returnable within 48 hours, warrants to search the 1960 Dodge and the 1967 Thunderbird, as well as orders to impound both automobiles. The 1960 Dodge was examined at the farm on the 12th and then towed to the police garage, where it was held as evidence. On the 13th, criminologists came from the Wisconsin Crime Laboratory in Madison and searched the Dodge; they seized the back and front seats, a white sock covered with blood, a part of a bloody rear floor mat, a briefcase, and a front floor mat. A return of the search warrant was filed in the county court on the 14th, but it did not recite that the sock and floor mat had been seized. At a hearing held on the 14th, the sheriff who executed the warrant did not specifically state that these two items had been seized.
found in the 1960 Dodge, with testimony that it was identical in composition and stitching to that found near the body of the deceased.
"even though the evidence that led to his conviction was circumstantial, we have seldom seen a stronger collection of such evidence assembled and presented by the prosecution."
State v. Dombrowski, 44 Wis.2d at 507, 171 N.W.2d at 360.
Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523, 387 U. S. 528-529 (1967). See Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443, 403 U. S. 454-455 (1971). One class of cases which constitutes at least a partial exception to this general rule is automobile searches. Although vehicles are "effects" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, "for the purposes of the Fourth Amendment, there is a constitutional difference between houses and cars." Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S. 42, 399 U. S. 52 (1970). See Carroll v.
"We made it clear in Preston [v. United States] that whether a search and seizure is unreasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment depends upon the facts and circumstances of each case, and pointed out, in particular, that searches of cars that are constantly movable may make the search of a car without a warrant a reasonable one although the result might be the opposite in a search of a home, a store, or other fixed piece of property. 376 U.S. at 376 U. S. 366-367."
statute stopped and searched a vehicle when they had probable cause to believe that the operator was violating that statute.
or evidence in it destroyed were remote, if not nonexistent. See Harris v. United States, 390 U. S. 234 (1968) (District of Columbia police), Cooper v. California, supra. The constitutional difference between searches of and seizures from houses and similar structures and from vehicles stems both from the ambulatory character of the latter and from the fact that extensive, and often noncriminal contact with automobiles will bring local officials in "plain view" of evidence, fruits, or instrumentalities of a crime, or contraband. Cf. United States v. Biswell, 406 U. S. 311 (1972).
a form of custody or control over the 1967 Thunderbird. Respondent's vehicle was disabled as a result of the accident, and constituted a nuisance along the highway. Respondent, being intoxicated (and later comatose), could not make arrangements to have the vehicle towed and stored. At the direction of the police, and for elemental reasons of safety, the automobile was towed to a private garage. Second, both the state courts and the District Court found as a fact that the search of the trunk to retrieve the revolver was "standard procedure in [that police] department," to protect the public from the possibility that a revolver would fall into untrained or perhaps malicious hands. Although the trunk was locked, the car was left outside, in a lot seven miles from the police station to which respondent had been taken, and no guard was posted over it. For reasons not apparent from the opinion of the Court of Appeals, that court concluded that, as "no further evidence was needed to sustain" the drunk driving charge, "[t]he search must therefore have been for incriminating evidence of other offenses." 471 F.2d at 283. While that court was obligated to exercise its independent judgment on the underlying constitutional issue presented by the facts of this case, it was not free on this record to disregard these findings of fact. Particularly in nonmetropolitan jurisdictions such as those involved here, enforcement of the traffic laws and supervision of vehicle traffic may be a large part of a police officer's job. We believe that the Court of Appeals should have accepted, as did the state courts and the District Court, the findings with respect to Officer Weiss' specific motivation and the fact that the procedure he followed was "standard."
"But these justifications are absent where a search is remote in time or place from the arrest. Once an accused is under arrest and in custody, then a search made at another place, without a warrant is simply not incident to the arrest."
that may be extrapolated from Harris v. United States, supra, and Cooper v. California, supra.
"The admissibility of evidence found as a result of a search under the police regulation is not presented by this case. The precise and detailed findings of the District Court, accepted by the Court of Appeals, were to the effect that the discovery of the card was not the result of a search of the car, but of a measure taken to protect the car while it was in police custody. Nothing in the Fourth Amendment requires the police to obtain a warrant in these narrow circumstances."
"Once the door had lawfully been opened, the registration card . . . was plainly visible. It has long been settled that objects falling in the plain view of an officer who has a right to be in the position to have that view are subject to seizure and may be introduced in evidence."
390 U.S. at 390 U. S. 236.
"This case is not Preston, nor is it controlled by it. Here, the officers seized petitioner's car because they were required to do so by state law. They seized it because of the crime for which they arrested petitioner. They seized it to impound it, and they had to keep it until forfeiture proceedings were concluded. Their subsequent search of the car -- whether the State had 'legal title' to it or not -- was closely related to the reason petitioner was arrested, the reason his car had been impounded, and the reason it was being retained. The forfeiture of petitioner's car did not take place until over four months after it was lawfully seized. It would be unreasonable to hold that the police, having to retain the car in their custody for such a length of time, had no right, even for their own protection, to search it."
386 U.S. at 386 U. S. 61-62.
to the dwelling place of the owner, as in Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443 (1971), nor simply momentarily unoccupied on a street. Rather, like an obviously abandoned vehicle, it represented a nuisance, and there is no suggestion in the record that the officers' action in exercising control over it by having it towed away was unwarranted either in terms of state law or sound police procedure.
In Harris, the justification for the initial intrusion into the vehicle was to safeguard the owner's property, and in Cooper, it was to guarantee the safety of the custodians. Here, the justification, while different, was as immediate and constitutionally reasonable as those in Harris and Cooper: concern for the safety of the general public who might be endangered if an intruder removed a revolver from the trunk of the vehicle. The record contains uncontradicted testimony to support the findings of the state courts and District Court. Furthermore, although there is no record basis for discrediting such testimony, it was corroborated by the circumstantial fact that, at the time the search was conducted, Officer Weiss was ignorant of the fact that a murder, or any other crime, had been committed. While perhaps, in a metropolitan area, the responsibility to the general public might have been discharged by the posting of a police guard during the night, what might be normal police procedure in such an area may be neither normal nor possible in Kewaskum, Wisconsin. The fact that the protection of the public might, in the abstract, have been accomplished by "less intrusive" means does not, by itself, render the search unreasonable. Cf. Chambers v. Maroney, supra.
the premises of its owner, and that had been placed where it was by virtue of lawful police action, was not unreasonable solely because a warrant had not been obtained. The Framers of the Fourth Amendment have given us only the general standard of "unreasonableness" as a guide in determining whether searches and seizures meet the standard of that Amendment in those cases where a warrant is not required. Very little that has been said in our previous decisions, see Cooper v. California, supra, Harris v. United States, supra, Chambers v. Maroney, supra, and very little that we might say here can usefully refine the language of the Amendment itself in order to evolve some detailed formula for judging cases such as this. Where, as here, the trunk of an automobile, which the officer reasonably believed to contain a gun, was vulnerable to intrusion by vandals, we hold that the search was not "unreasonable" within the meaning of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the sock and the portion of the floor mat were validly seized from the 1960 Dodge. The Fond du Lac county officer who looked through the window of the Dodge after McKinney's body had been found saw the bloody seat and briefcase, but not the sock or floor mat. Consequently, these two items were not listed in the application for the warrant, but the Dodge was the item "particularly described" to be searched in the warrant. The warrant was validly issued, and the police were authorized to search the car. The reasoning of the Wisconsin Supreme Court was that, although these items were not listed to be seized in the warrant, the warrant was valid and, in executing it, the officers discovered the sock and mat in plain view, and therefore could constitutionally seize them without a warrant.
"There was no continuing authority under the warrant issued the previous night [the 12th]. First, these items were not described in the warrant, and presumably were not observed that night [the 12th]. Second, when the warrant was returned -- before Mauer came on the scene -- it was functus officio. A 'new ball game,' so to speak, began when Mauer made his 'inspection.'"
The record is so indisputably clear that the return of the warrant was filed on the 14th, not sometime prior to Mauer's search on the 13th, that we are somewhat at a loss to understand how the Court of Appeals arrived at its factual conclusion. The warrant to search the Dodge was issued on the 12th, and, although a return of the warrant was prepared by a Fond du Lac County officer at some time on the 13th (whether before or after Mauer's search is impossible to determine), it was not filed in the state court until the 14th, at which time a hearing was held. The seizures of the sock and the floor mat occurred while a valid warrant was outstanding, and thus could not be considered unconstitutional under the theory advanced below. As these items were constitutionally seized, we do not deem it constitutionally significant that they were not listed in the return of the warrant. The ramification of that "defect," if such it was, is purely a question of state law.
* Petitioner argued before this Court that unlocking the trunk of the Ford did not constitute a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The thesis is that only an intrusion into an area in which an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy, with the specific intent of discovering evidence of a crime, constitutes a search. Compare Haerr v. United States, 240 F.2d 533 (CA5 1957), with District of Columbia v. Little, 85 U.S.App.D.C. 242, 178 F.2d 13 (1949), aff'd on other grounds, 339 U. S. 1 (1950). But see Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523 (1967). Arguing that the officer's conduct constituted an "inspection," rather than a "search," petitioner relies on our decision in Harris v. United States, 390 U. S. 234 (1968), to validate the initial intrusion into the trunk, and then the plain view doctrine to justify the warrantless seizure of the items.
MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, MR. JUSTICE STEWART, and MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL join, dissenting.
In upholding the warrantless search of respondent's rented Thunderbird, the Court purports merely to rely on our prior decisions dealing with automobile searches. It is clear to me, however, that nothing in our prior decisions supports either the reasoning or the result of the Court's decision today. I therefore dissent, and would hold the search of the Thunderbird unconstitutional under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.
ultimately contributed to respondent's conviction for murder.
Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 267 U. S. 153 (1925). See also Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443 (1971); Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S. 42 (1970); Dyke v. Taylor Implement Mfg. Co., 391 U. S. 216 (1968). But the search of the Thunderbird plainly cannot be sustained under the "automobile exception," for our prior decisions make it clear that, where, as in this case, there is no reasonable likelihood that the automobile would or could be moved, the "automobile exception" is simply irrelevant. Coolidge v. New Hampshire, supra, at 403 U. S. 461; Carroll v. United States, supra, at 267 U. S. 156.
an arrest for drunken driving, it is clear that, under Preston v. United States, 376 U. S. 364, 376 U. S. 368 (1964), "the search was too remote in time or place to have been made as incidental to the arrest."
"[w]hat the 'plain view' cases have in common is that the police officer in each of them had a prior justification for an intrusion in the course of which he came inadvertently across a piece of evidence incriminating the accused."
In Harris, the prior justification for the intrusion by the police was to roll up the windows and lock the doors "to protect the car while it was in police custody." 390 U.S. at 390 U. S. 236. "[T]he discovery of the card was not the result of a search," we said, and, "in these narrow circumstances," the "plain view" exception to the warrant requirement was fully applicable. In the present case, however, the sole purpose for the initial intrusion into the vehicle was to search for the gun. Thus, the seizure of the evidence from the trunk of the car can be sustained under the "plain view" doctrine only if the search for the gun was itself constitutional. Reliance on the "plain view" doctrine in this case is therefore misplaced, since the antecedent search cannot be sustained.
vehicle used to facilitate the possession or transportation of narcotics. There, however, the police were authorized to treat the car in their custody as if it were their own, and the search was sustainable as an integral part of their right of retention. This case, of course, is poles away from Cooper. The Thunderbird was not subject to forfeiture proceedings. On the contrary, ownership of the car remained exclusively in respondent's lessor, and the sole reason that the police took even temporary possession of the car was to remove it from the highway until respondent could claim it.
"[i]t is surely anomalous to say that the individual and his private property are fully protected by the Fourth Amendment only when the individual is suspected of criminal behavior,"
"[t]he basic purpose of [the Fourth] Amendment, as recognized in countless decisions of this Court, is to safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary invasions by governmental officials."
does not of itself eliminate the necessity for compliance with the warrant requirement. Although a valid public interest may establish probable cause to search, Camara, supra, and See v. City of Seattle, 387 U. S. 541 (1967), make clear that, absent exigent circumstances, the search must be conducted pursuant to a "suitably restricted search warrant." Camara, supra, at 387 U. S. 539. See also Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, supra. And certainly there were no exigent circumstances to justify the warrantless search made of the Thunderbird. For even assuming that the officer had reason to believe that respondent's service revolver was in the Thunderbird, the police had left the car in the custody of a private garage and did not return to look for the gun until two and one-half hours later. Moreover, although the arresting officers were at all times aware that respondent was an off-duty Chicago policeman, the officers never once inquired of respondent as to whether he was carrying a gun and, if so, where it was located. I can only conclude, therefore, that what the Court does today in the name of an investigative automobile search is in fact, a serious departure from established Fourth Amendment principles. And since, in my view, that departure is totally unjustified, I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals invalidating the search of the Thunderbird and remand the case to the District Court for determination whether the evidence seized during the search of the Dodge and the farm was the fruit of the unlawful search of the Thunderbird. See Alderman v. United States, 394 U. S. 165 (1969); Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471 (1963).

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