Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/97918/davis-vs-united-states
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 04:17:10+00:00

Document:
Held: The conviction is affirmed, because this Court cannot say as a matter of law that the District Court's finding of fact was erroneous. Pp. 328 U. S. 593 -594.
2. The gasoline ration coupons never became the private property of the holder, but remained at all times the property of the Government, and subject to inspection and recall by it. P. 328 U. S. 588 .
3. In the law of searches and seizures, a distinction is made between private papers or documents and public property in the custody of a citizen. Wilson v. United States, 221 U. S. 361 . Pp. 328 U. S. 589 -591.
4. Whatever may be the limits of inspection under the regulations, law enforcement is not so impotent as to require officers who have the right to inspect a place of business to stand mute when clear evidence of criminal activity is known to them. Amos v. United States, 255 U. S. 313 , distinguished. Pp. 328 U. S. 592 -593.
5. Where officers seek to inspect public documents at the place of business where they are required to be kept, permissible limits of persuasion are not so narrow as where private papers are sought, since the demand is one of right. P. 328 U. S. 593 .
Petitioner was convicted of unlawful possession of gasoline ration coupons in violation of § 2(a) of the Act of June 28, 1940, as amended by the Act of May 31, 1941, and by § 301 of the Second War Powers Act of March 27, 1942. The Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. 151 F.2d 140. This Court granted certiorari. 326 U.S. 711. Affirmed, p. 328 U. S. 594 .
violation of the rule of Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383 ; United States v. Lefkowitz, 285 U. S. 452 ; and related cases. The case is here on a petition for a writ of certiorari which we granted because of the importance of the question presented.
The law of searches and seizures as revealed in the decisions of this Court is the product of the interplay of these two constitutional provisions. Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616 . It reflects a dual purpose -- protection of the privacy of the individual, his right to be let alone; protection of the individual against compulsory production of evidence to be used against him. Boyd v. United States, supra; Weeks v. United States, supra. And see Oklahoma Press Pub. Co. v. Walling, 327 U. S. 186 .
The distinction is between property to which the government is entitled to possession and the property to which it is not. [ Footnote 11 ] See 8 Wigmore on Evidence, 3d Ed., § 2259c.
They appeared on the premises during business hours. They had ocular evidence that a misdemeanor had been committed, a crime to which petitioner was an aider or abetter, [ Footnote 12 ] since, according to the attendant, she made the illegal sales pursuant to petitioner's instructions. Since sales were being made without receipt of coupons from customers, it was fair to assume (unless, as was at no time suggested, the business was being liquidated) that petitioner somewhere had a supply of coupons adequate to replenish his storage tanks. The inspection which was made was an inspection of the tanks attached to the pumps. And the search was of the office adjacent to the pumps -- the place where petitioner transacted his business. Moreover, the officers demanded the coupons on the basis that they were property of the government, and that petitioner was merely the custodian of them. And there was no general, exploratory search. Only the contraband coupons were demanded; only coupons were taken.
"No person shall have in his possession any gasoline deposit certificate, folder, or any coupon book, inventory or other coupon (whether or not such book was issued as a ration book and whether or not such coupon was issued as a ration or as a part of a ration book) or other evidence, or any identifying folder, except the person, or the agent of the person, to whom such book, coupon, certificate or folder was issued or by whom it was acquired in accordance with the provisions of Ration Book [ sic ] No. 5C."
Gouled v. United States, 255 U. S. 298 , 255 U. S. 310 .
to the premises in order to make a search there was, as a matter of law, "implied coercion." Inasmuch "as conduct under duress involves a choice," the Fourth Amendment is hardly to be nullified by finding every submission short of overpowering force "voluntary." See Union Pac. R. Co. v. Public Serv. Comm'n, 248 U. S. 67 , 248 U. S. 70 .
Of course, there is an important difference in the constitutional protection afforded their possessors between papers exclusively private and documents having public aspects. Cf. Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383 , 232 U. S. 393 -394; Gouled v. United States, 255 U. S. 298 , 255 U. S. 308 -309. But the essence of the difference is that, under appropriate circumstances, wholly private papers are not even subject to testimonial compulsion, whereas other papers, once they have been legally obtained, are available as evidence. Had the coupons in controversy been secured by a proper search, they could be used against the defendant at the trial. But their character does not eliminate the restrictions of the Fourth Amendment and subject the person in possession of such documents, against his protest, to searches and seizures otherwise unwarranted.
The Court's opinion has only its own reasoning to support it. Nothing that this Court has ever decided or sanctioned gives it strength. Wilson v. United States, 221 U. S. 361 , invoked by the Court, was a very different story. That case was concerned with the difference between the amenability of a corporation to testimonial compulsion and the immunity of an individual, under relevant circumstances, to be free from the duty to give testimony. The core of the Government's claim here is the right to seize documents in the absence of judicial process. The difference between demanding documents without legal process and seizing them on the basis of such process is the difference between the protection of civil liberties and their invasion. The difference is the essence of the Fourth Amendment.
10 Adams, Works, 247-248; for a description of Otis' speech in Paxton's Case, see 2 id. 523. So basic to liberty is the protection against governmental search and seizure that every State in the Union [ Footnote 2/3 ] has this as a constitutional safeguard.
In the course of its decisions, with a deviation promptly retraced, this Court has likewise reflected the broad purpose of the Fourth Amendment. The historic reach of the Amendment and the duty to observe it was expounded for the Court by Mr. Justice Bradley in Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616 , "a case that will be remembered as long as civil liberty lives in the United States."
Brandeis, J., in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438 , 277 U. S. 471 , at 277 U. S. 474 . The Amendment has not been read in a niggardly spirit, or with the outlook of a narrow-minded lawyer.
"Time and again, this Court, in giving effect to the principle underlying the Fourth Amendment, has refused to place an unduly literal construction upon it. This was notably illustrated in the Boyd case itself. Taking language in its ordinary meaning, there is no 'search' or 'seizure' when a defendant is required to produce a document in the orderly process of a court's procedure. 'The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures' would not be violated, under any ordinary construction of language, by compelling obedience to a subpoena. But this court holds the evidence inadmissible simply because the information leading to the issue of the subpoena has been unlawfully secured. Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U. S. 385 . Literally, there is no 'search' or 'seizure' when a friendly visitor abstracts papers from an office; yet we held in Gouled v. United States, 255 U. S. 298 , that evidence so obtained could not be used. No court which looked at the words of the amendment, rather than at its underlying purpose, would hold, as this Court did in Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S. 727 , 96 U. S. 733 , that its protection extended to letters in the mails. The provision against self-incrimination in the Fifth Amendment has been given an equally broad construction.
The language is: 'No person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.' Yet we have held not only that the protection of the amendment extends to a witness before a grand jury, although he has not been charged with crime ( Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U. S. 547 , 142 U. S. 562 , 142 U. S. 586 ), but that:"
" Counselman v. Hitchcock, supra, p. 142 U. S. 562 ."
Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438 , 277 U. S. 471 , at 277 U. S. 476 -478.
And so we are finally brought to the question whether the seizure of documents which could not possibly have been justified as the result of a search under a warrant, since no such warrant could have been authorized by law, can be justified as a search and seizure without a warrant. Such justification must have some historic foundation, otherwise it is clearly out of the bounds of the Fourth Amendment. The court below evidently struggled in reaching its conclusion because of some decisions here which it naturally found "not entirely harmonious." Its chief reliance was language in Marron v. United States, 275 U. S. 192 . A short answer would be that the sting of the Marron case was taken by two later cases. Go-Bart Importing Co. v. United States, 282 U. S. 344 , 282 U. S. 358 , and United States v. Lefkowitz, 285 U. S. 452 , 285 U. S. 465 . But a closer analysis is called for.
arrest was early settled in our law. [ Footnote 2/4 ] 1 Bishop, New Criminal Procedure, 4th Ed., 1895, §§ 210 et seq.
the arrest takes place. Another factor enters. This language is sometimes used in cases involving the seizure of items properly subject to seizure because in open view at the time of arrest. [ Footnote 2/8 ] But this last confusion is due to a failure to distinguish between the appropriate scope of a search on arrest and the very different problem as to the right of seizure where no search is in question."
It is important to keep clear the distinction between prohibited searches, on the one hand, and improper seizures, on the other. See Mr. Justice Miller in Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616 , 116 U. S. 638 , 116 U. S. 641 . Thus, it is unconstitutional to seize a person's private papers, though the search in which they were recovered was perfectly proper, e.g., Gouled v. United States, 255 U. S. 298 . It is unconstitutional to make an improper search even for articles that are appropriately subject to seizure, e.g., Amos v. United States, 255 U. S. 313 ; Byars v. United States, 273 U. S. 28 ; Taylor v. United States, 286 U. S. 1 . And a search may be improper because of the object it seeks to uncover, e.g., Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383 , 232 U. S. 393 -394, or because its scope extends beyond the constitutional bounds, e.g., Agnello v. United States, 269 U. S. 20 .
In view of the jealousy with which this Court has applied the protection of the Fourth Amendment even where the search purported to take place under a proper warrant and there was the safeguard of judicial process in addition to the expressed judgment of the enforcement officials, see e.g., Grau v. United States, 287 U. S. 124 ; Sgro v. United States, 287 U. S. 206 , it was not to be expected that this Court should sanction searches on arrest that can be justified as reasonable only if securing evidence for purposes of the trial is the test of reasonableness for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. Such a view presupposes that the Fourth Amendment is absolute, and makes of the particularity of requirement for search warrants a mocking redundancy.
A few words only need be said about the cases on which the Government relies. Most of them deal with the amenability of documents to production upon legal process. Wilson v. United States, 221 U. S. 361 ; Bowles v. Insel, 148 F.2d 91; Cudmore v. Bowles, 79 U.S.App.D.C. 255, 145 F.2d 697; Rodgers v. United States, 138 F.2d 992; Fleming v. Montgomery Ward & Co., 114 F.2d 384. In the others, consent was given to inspect the papers in accordance with the provisions of the governing statute. Bowles v. Beatrice Creamery Co., 146 F.2d 774; Bowles v. Glick Bros. Lumber Co., 146 F.2d 566; In re Sana Laboratories, 115 F.2d 717 (subsequent to the inspection, there was a wrongful taking; the court admitted the evidence procured as a result of the inspection, but barred the documents from evidence); C. M. Spring Drug Co. v. United States, 12 F.2d 852; United States v. Kempe, 59 F.Supp. 905; Bowles v. Stitzinger, 59 F.Supp. 94; Bowles v. Curtiss Candy Co., 55 F.Supp. 527; United States v. Sherry, 294 F. 684 (here, the documents were taken with the consent of the custodian). In A. Guckenheimer & Bros. Co. v. United States, 3 F.2d 786, however, the situation bears some resemblance to the present case. There, the Circuit Court of Appeals attributed the consent of the custodian, following continual refusal, to the command of the statute. While there was no indication, as evidenced by the opinion, that the documents were secured through fear of force, the inspection afforded was probably not voluntary. Insofar as there is support in that case for a search that transgressed the Fourth Amendment, the observations are mere dicta, since no timely objection was filed.
62 L.Q.Rev. at 4. It is to be noted that Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132 , 267 U. S. 157 , assumes the federal law of arrest to be the same as that of the English.
on scope); Act of June 15, 1935, 49 Stat. 378, 381 (no limitation on scope); Act of August 27, 1935, 49 Stat. 872, 874, 875 ( see Act of June 15, 1917, supra ); Act of April 5, 1938, 52 Stat. 198, 199 (any place in District of Columbia); Act of February 10, 1939, 53 Stat. 1, 436 (no limitation on scope); Act of June 28, 1940, 54 Stat. 670, 671 (no limitation on scope); Act of July 1, 1943, 57 Stat. 301, 304 (no limitation on scope); Act of February 26, 1944, 58 Stat. 100, 102 (any person, vessel, or place).
fraud on revenue committed or being committed); Act of June 28, 1940, 54 Stat. 670, 671 ( see Act of June 15, 1917, supra ); Act of July 1, 1943, 57 Stat. 301, 304 (proper oath or affirmation, showing probable cause of violation of Alaskan game laws, before U.S. judge or commissioner); Act of February 26, 1944, 58 Stat. 100, 102 (oath or affirmation before U.S. judge or commissioner, showing probable cause of violation of statute).
* Congress has passed numerous statutes authorizing inspection of defined premises and seizures without warrants. These are all very particularized acts, relating mostly to the inspection of vessels and vehicles and the seizure of various types of contraband goods. Most of this legislation comes within the exceptions historically recognized at the time of the adoption of the Fourth Amendment as to recapture of stolen goods and search of vehicles and vessels because of their fugitive nature. In such a mass of legislation, it would not be surprising if some of the specific acts fell afoul of the considerations which invalidated the legislation in the Boyd case, 116 U. S. 616 . What is significant about this legislation is the recognition by Congress of the necessity for specific Congressional authorization even for the search of vessels and other moving vehicles and the seizures of goods technically contraband.

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