Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/99832/ohio-ex-rel-eaton-vs-price
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 00:26:09+00:00

Document:
But it was not. Taylor and his wife each received through the mail a registered letter from the city prosecutor, notifying them to appear at his office to answer a complaint against them. They did not appear; whereupon the police came to Taylor's home, and finally served him with a warrant -- a warrant to appear in court to answer criminal charges brought against him for failing to admit the inspectors to his home. He appeared in court and was held for trial, and, not being then able to make bond of $1,000, he was committed to jail to await trial on the charges, which could have resulted in a fine of $200 and an incarceration of 30 days for each day's recalcitrance. One Eaton, an attorney, filed a petition for habeas corpus on Taylor's behalf in the State Common Pleas Court. [ Footnote 3 ] The Common Pleas Court found the ordinance unconstitutional and discharged Taylor from custody, but the Court of Appeals reversed, 105 Ohio App. 376, 152 N.E.2d 776, and its judgment was upheld by the Ohio Supreme Court. 168 Ohio St. 123, 151 N.E.2d 523. We noted probable jurisdiction. 360 U. S. 360 U.S. 246.
Much argument is made of the need of the authorities to perform inspections on a "spot check" or on an area-by-area basis. The judgment below cannot be said to present this problem, because there was no evidence that this in fact was what was being done; that the inspectors in fact were proceeding according to a reasonable plan of one sort or another. For all that appears here, the inspectors could have been acting in accordance with no particular plan of spot checks or area-by-area searches which could be justified as "reasonable," and which would give probable cause for entry; [ Footnote 5 ] their action could have been based on caprice or on personal or political spite. It hardly contradicts experience to suggest that the practical administration of local government in this country can be infected with such motives. Building inspection ordinances can lend themselves readily to such abuse. We do not at all say this to be the case here, and Taylor has made no proof of it, to be sure; but that simply points up the issue. The inspectors have not been required to make any justification for their entry. The judgment below upholds the charges as sufficient, based on a demand for entry without any such justification.
It is now clear that part of the majority of the Court in the Frank case does not subscribe to the clear import of that statement. Elkins v. United States, ante, p. 364 U. S. 206 , 364 U. S. 237 -240 (dissenting opinion). But the Wolf statement continues to be the ruling doctrine in this Court. Elkins v. United States, post, p. 364 U. S. 206 . The guarantees are of the same dimension, matters of enforcement, such as the exclusionary rule, aside.
Expressions of views, despite equal divisions, have been made before where there was a question whether one fact situation was to be distinguished from a related one on which a majority of the Court had rendered an opinion. Raley v. Ohio, 360 U. S. 423 , 360 U. S. 440 -442, 360 U. S. 442 -445. The question whether this case is to be distinguished from Frank presents an analogy to this.
Evidently habeas corpus lies in Ohio to test the constitutionality of the ordinance under which one is being held through charges pending in a court of inferior jurisdiction, as all the state courts proceeded to pass on the merits of the claims of the relator Eaton, appellant here, that the ordinance under which the charges were brought infringed Taylor's constitutional rights. Accordingly we may now review that determination on the merits, the habeas corpus proceeding, independent of the criminal prosecution itself, having proceeded to a final judgment. New York ex rel. Bryant v. Zimmerman, 278 U. S. 63 , 278 U. S. 70 .
See Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383 .
302 U.S. at 302 U. S. 326 -327.
Contrast the statement in Palko, 302 U.S. at 302 U. S. 324 . For the latest of many reiterations of the settled doctrine that the First Amendment's guarantees obtain against the States, see Smith v. California, 361 U. S. 147 , 361 U. S. 149 -150; Bates v. Little Rock, 361 U. S. 516 , 361 U. S. 522 -523. See Staub v. Baxley, 355 U. S. 313 , 355 U. S. 321 . For a collection of many of the cases to this effect, see Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513 , 357 U. S. 530 (concurring opinion).

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