Source: http://nooganomics.com/2014/12/the-rise-of-policing-despite-constitution-or-how-cops-became-legally-superior-apart/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 04:39:26+00:00

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Police work is often lionized by jurists and scholars who claim to employ “textualist” and “originalist” methods of constitutional interpretation. Yet professional police were unknown to the United States in 1789, and first appeared in America almost a half-century after the Constitution’s ratification. The Framers contemplated law enforcement as the duty of mostly private citizens, along with a few constables and sheriffs who could be called upon when necessary. This article marshals extensive historical and legal evidence to show that modern policing is in many ways inconsistent with the original intent of America’s founding documents. The author argues that the growth of modern policing has substantially empowered the state in a way the Framers would regard as abhorrent to their foremost principles.
Uniformed police officers are the most visible element of America’s criminal justice system. Their numbers have grown exponentially over the past century and now stand at hundreds of thousands nationwide.1 Police expenses account for the largest segment of most municipal budgets and generally dwarf expenses for fire, trash, and sewer services.2 Neither casual observers nor learned authorities regard the sight of hundreds of armed, uniformed state agents on America’s roads and street corners as anything peculiar — let alone invalid or unconstitutional.
Yet the dissident English colonists who framed the United States Constitution would have seen this modern ‘police state’ as alien to their foremost principles. Under the criminal justice model known to the Framers, professional police officers were unknown.3 The general public had broad law enforcement powers and only the executive functions of the law (e.g., the execution of writs, warrants and orders) were performed by constables or sheriffs (who might call upon members of the community for assistance).4 Initiation and investigation of criminal cases was the nearly exclusive province of private persons.
While this historical disconnect is widely known by criminal justice historians, rarely has it been juxtaposed against the Constitution and the Constitution’s imposed scheme of criminal justice.8 “Originalist” scholars of the Constitution have tended to be supportive, rather than critical of modern policing.9 This article will show, however, that modern policing violates the Framers’ most firmly held conceptions of criminal justice.
The modern police-driven model of law enforcement helps sustain a playing field that is fundamentally uneven for different players upon it. Modern police act as an army of assistants for state prosecutors and gather evidence solely with an eye toward the state’s interests. Police seal off crime scenes from the purview of defense investigators, act as witnesses of convenience for the state in courts of law, and instigate a substantial amount of criminal activity under the guise of crime fighting. Additionally, police enforce social class norms and act as tools of empowerment for favored interest groups to the disadvantage of others.10 Police are also a political force that constantly lobbies for increased state power and decreased constitutional liberty for American citizens.
Formal criminal justice institutions dealt only with the most severe crimes. Misdemeanor offenses had to be dealt with by the private citizen on the private citizen’s own terms. “The farther back the [crime rate] figures go,” according to historian Roger Lane, “the higher is the relative proportion of serious crimes.”52 In other words, before the advent of professional policing, fewer crimes — and only the most serious crimes — were brought to the attention of the courts.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, police forces took on a brave new role: crime-fighting. The goal of maintaining public order became secondary to chasing lawbreakers. The police cultivated a perception that they were public heroes who “fought crime” in the general, rather than individual sense.
The 1920s saw the rise of the profession’s second father — or perhaps its wicked stepfather — J. Edgar Hoover.62 Hoover’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) came to epitomize the police profession in its sleuth and intelligence-gathering role. FBI agents infiltrated mobster organizations, intercepted communications between suspected criminals, and gathered intelligence for both law enforcement and political purposes.
But the constitutions of the Founding Era gave no hint of any thin blue line. Nothing in their texts enunciated any governmental power to “fight crime” at all. “Crime-fighting” was intended as the domain of individuals touched by crime. The original design under the American legal order was to restore a semblance of private justice. The courts were a mere forum, or avenue, for private persons to attain justice from a malfeasor.67 The slow alteration of the criminal courts into a venue only for the government’s claims against private persons turned the very spirit of the Founders’ model on its head.
Americans today, for example, are far more vulnerable to invasive searches and seizures by the state than were the Americans of 1791.69 The Framers lived in an era in which much less of the world was in “plain view” of the government and a “stop and frisk” would have been rare indeed.70 The totality of modern policing also places pedestrian and vehicle travel at the mercy of the state, a development the Framers would have almost certainly never sanctioned. These infringements result not from a single aspect of modern policing, but from the whole of modern policing’s control over large domains of private life that were once “policed” by private citizens.
Source: Seton Hall Constitutional L.J. 2001, 685. Used by permission of author. Roger Isaac Roots, J.D., M.C.J., graduated from Roger Williams University School of Law in 1999, Roger Williams University School of Justice Studies in 2001, and Montana State University-Billings (B.S., Sociology) in 1995. He is a former federal prisoner and founder of the Prison Crisis Project, a not-for-profit law and policy think tank based in Providence, Rhode Island.
Mr. Roots’ full essay is available at Constitution.org.
As of June, 1996, there were more than 700,000 full- and part-time professional state-sworn police in the United States. SeeBUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS, CENSUS OF STATE AND LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES, 1996 (1998). Figures for earlier decades and centuries are difficult to obtain, but a few indicators suggest that the ratio of police per citizen has grown by at least four thousand percent. In 1816, the British Parliament reported that there was at that time one constable for every 18,187 persons in Great Britain. See Jerome Hall, Legal and Social Aspects of Arrest Without a Warrant, 49 HARVARD L. REV. 566, 582 (1936). Conventional wisdom would suggest that American ratios were, if anything, lower. Today there is approximately one officer for every 386 Americans.
2 The City of Los Angeles, for example, spends almost half (49.1%) of its annual discretionary budget on police but only 17.7% on fire and 14.8% on public works. See City of Los Angeles 1999-2000 Budget Summary (visited Dec. 2000). The City of Chicago spends over forty percent of its annual budget on police.See Chicago Budget 1999 (visited Dec. 2000) (pie chart). Seattle spends more than $150 million, or 41 percent of its annual budget, on police and police pensions. See City of Seattle 2000 Proposed Budget (visited Dec. 2000). The City of New York is one exception, due primarily to New York State’s unique system for funding education. Police and the administration of justice constitute the third largest segment, or twelve percent, of the City’s budget, after education and human resources. See THE CITY OF NEW YORK, EXECUTIVE BUDGET, FISCAL YEAR 2000 1 (2000) (pie chart).
3See Carol S. Steiker, Second Thoughts About First Principles, 107 HARV. L. REV. 820, 830 (1994) (saying twentieth century police and “our contemporary sense of ‘policing’ would be utterly foreign to our colonial forebears”).
6See CHARLES SILBERMAN, CRIMINAL VIOLENCE, CRIMINAL JUSTICE 314 (1978). The City of Boston, for example, enacted an ordinance requiring drafted citizens to walk the streets “to prevent any danger by fire, and to see that good order is kept.” Id.
7C.f. id. (mentioning that cops’ role of maintaining order predates their role of crime control).
8But see, e.g., Steiker, supra note 3, at 824 (saying the “invention … of armed quasi-military, professional police forces, whose form, function, and daily presence differ dramatically from that of the colonial constabulary, requires that modern-day judges and scholars rethink” Fourth Amendment remedies).
9See, e.g., ROBERT H. BORK, SLOUCHING TOWARDS GOMORRAH: MODERN LIBERALISM AND AMERICAN DECLINE 104 (1996) (criticizing Supreme Court rulings that have “steadily expanded” the rights of criminals and placed limitations upon police conduct).
10Cf. E.X. BOOZHIE, THE OUTLAW’S BIBLE 15 (1988) (stating the true mission of police is to protect the status quo for the benefit of the ruling class).
11 As a textual matter, the Constitution grants authority to the federal government to define and punish criminal activity in only five instances. Article I grants Congress power (1) “[t]o provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States,” art. I, § 8, cl. 6; (2) “[t]o define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations,” id, cl. 10; (3) “[t]o make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces,” id. at cl. 14; (4) “[t]o exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over” the District of Columbia and federal reservations. id. at cl. 17; see also Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. (6 Wheat.) 264, 426 (1821) (“Congress has a right to punish murder in a fort, or other place within its exclusive jurisdiction; but no general right to punish murder committed within any of the states”). Likewise, (5) Article III defines the crime of “Treason against the United States” and grants to Congress the “Power to declare [its] Punishment….” U.S. CONST. art. III, § 3.
12 Several early constitutions expressed a right of citizens “to be protected in the enjoyment of life, liberty and property,” and therefore purported to bind citizens to contribute their proportion toward expenses of such protection. See DELAWARE DEC. OF RIGHTS of Sept. 11, 1776, § 10; PA. CONST. of Sept. 28, 1776, Dec. of Rights, § VIII; VT. CONST. of July 8, 1777, Chap. 1, § IX. Other typical provisions required that the powers of government be exercised only by the consent of the people, see, e.g., N.C. CONST. of Dec. 18, 1776, § V, and that all persons invested with government power be accountable for their conduct. See MD. CONST. of Nov. 11, 1776, § IV.
13 The constitutions of several early states expressed the intent that citizens were obligated to carry out law enforcement duties. See, e.g., DELAWARE DEC. OF RIGHTS of Sept. 11, 1776, § 10 (providing every citizen shall yield his personal service when necessary, or an equivalent); N.H. CONST. of June 2, 1784, Part I, art. I, § XII (providing that every member of the community is bound to “yield his personal service when necessary, or an equivalent”); VT. CONST. of July 8, 1777, Chap. 1, § IX (providing every member of society is bound to contribute his proportion towards the expenses of his protection, “and to yield his personal service, when necessary”).
14 C.f. JAMES BOVARD, LOST RIGHTS: THE DESTRUCTION OF AMERICAN LIBERTY 51 (1st ed. 1994) (discussing Revolution-era perception that the law was a means to restrain government and to secure rights of citizens).
See ARTHUR TRAIN, THE PRISONER AT THE BAR 120 n. (1926). From these very early times, “grand” or “accusing” juries were formed to examine the accusations of private individuals. Id. at 121 n. Although the accusing jury frequently acted as a trial jury as well, it eventually evolved into a separate body that took on the role of accuser on behalf of aggrieved parties. It deliberated secretly, acting on its members’ own personal information and upon the application of injured parties. Id. at 124 n.
16 In the early decades of American criminal justice, criminal cases were hardly different from civil actions, and could easily be confused for one another if “the public not being joined in it.” Clark v. Turner, 1 Root 200 (Conn. 1790) (holding action for assault and battery was no more than a civil case because the public was not joined). It was apparently not unusual for trial judges themselves to be confused about whether a case was criminal or civil, and to make judicial errors regarding procedural differences between the two types of cases. See Meacham v. Austin, 5 Day 233 (Conn. 1811) (upholding lower court’s dismissal of criminal verdict because the case’s process had been consistent with civil procedure rather than criminal procedure).
17 See Respublica v. Griffiths, 2 Dall. 112 (Pa. 1790) (involving action by private individual seeking public sanction for his prosecution).
18 See, e.g., Smith v. State, 7 Tenn. 43 (1846) (using the term prosecutor to describe a private person); Plumer v. Smith, 5 N.H. 553 (1832) (same); Commonwealth v. Harkness, 4 Binn. 193 (Pa. 1811) (same).
19 See Harold J. Krent, Executive Control Over Criminal Law Enforcement: Some Lessons From History, 38 AM. U. L. REV. 275, 281-90 (1989) (saying that any claim that criminal law enforcement is a ‘core’ or exclusive executive power is historically inaccurate and therefore the Attorney General need not be vested with authority to oversee or trigger investigations by the independent counsel).
20 See Respublica v. Griffiths, 2 Dall. 112 (Pa. 1790) (holding the Attorney General must allow his name to be used by the prosecutor).
21 Private prosecutors generally had to pay the costs of their prosecutions, even though the state also had an interest. SeeDickinson v. Potter, 4 Day 340 (Conn. 1810). Government attorneys general took over the prosecutions of only especially worthy cases and pursued such cases at public expense. See Waldron v. Turtle, 4 N.H. 149, 151 (1827) (stating if a prosecution is not adopted and pursued by the attorney general, “it will not be pursued at the public expense, although in the name of the state”).
22 See State v. Bruce, 24 Me. 71, 73 (1844) (stating a threat by crime victim to prosecute a supposed thief is proper but extortion for pecuniary advantage is criminal).
23 See Plumer v. Smith, 5 N.H. 553 (1832) (holding promissory note invalid when tendered by a criminal defendant to his private prosecutor in exchange for promise not to prosecute).
25 See In re April 1956 Term Grand Jury, 239 F.2d 263 (7th Cir. 1956).
26 See Goodman v. United States, 108 F.2d 516 (9th Cir. 1939).
27 See Krent, supra note 19, at 293.
28 C.f. Ellen D. Larned, 1 History of Windham County, Connecticut 272-73 (1874) (recounting attempts by Windham County authorities in 1730 to arrest a large group of rioters who broke open the Hartford Jail and released a prisoner).
31 See Waterbury v. Lockwood, 4 Day 257, 259-60 (Conn. 1810) (citing English cases).
32 See Jerome Hall, Legal and Social Aspects of Arrest Without A Warrant, 49 HARV. L. REV. 566, 579 (1936).
34 See Eustis v. Kidder, 26 Me. 97, 99 (1846).
37 The Constitution is not without provisions for criminal procedure. Indeed, much of the Bill of Rights is an outline of basic criminal procedure. See LAWRENCE M. FRIEDMAN, A HISTORY OF AMERICAN LAW 118 (2d ed. 1985). But these provisions represent enshrinements of individual liberties rather than government power. The only constitutional provisions with regard to criminal justice represent barriers to governmental power, rather than provisions for that power. Indeed, the Founders’ intent to protect individual liberties was made clear by the language of the Ninth Amendment and its equivalent in state constitutions of the founding era. The Ninth Amendment, which declares that “[t]he enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people,” provides a clear indication that the Framers assumed that persons may do whatever is not justly prohibited by the Constitution rather than that the government may do whatever is not justly prohibited to it. See Randy E. Barnett, Introduction: James Madison’s Ninth Amendment, inTHE RIGHTS RETAINED BY THE PEOPLE 43 (Randy E. Barnett ed., 1989).
38 See JAMES S. CAMPBELL ET AL., LAW AND ORDER RECONSIDERED: REPORT OF THE TASK FORCE ON LAW AND LAW ENFORCEMENT TO THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON THE CAUSES AND PREVENTION OF VIOLENCE 450 (1970) (discussing survey by the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice).
39 The term “policing” originally meant promoting the public good or the community life rather than preserving security. SeeRogan Kersh et al., “More a Distinction of Words than Things”: The Evolution of Separated Powers in the American States, 4 ROGER WILLIAMS U. L. REV. 5, 21 (1998).
40 See, e.g., N.C. CONST. of Dec. 18, 1776, Dec. of Rights, § II (providing that people of the state have a right to regulate the internal government and “police thereof); PA. CONST. of Sept. 28, 1776, Dec. of Rights, art. III (stating that the people have a right of “governing and regulating the internal police of [the people]”).
41 See Police Jury v. Britton, 82 U.S. (15 Wall.) 566 (1872). The purpose of such juries was 1) to police slaves and runaways, (2) to repair roads, bridges, and other infrastructure, and (3) to lay taxes as necessary for such acts. Id. at 568. See alsoBLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY 801 (abridged 6th ed. 1991).
42 When Blackstone wrote of offenses against “the public police and economy” in 1769, he meant offenses against the “due regulation and domestic order of the kingdom” such as clandestine marriage, bigamy, rendering bridges inconvenient to pass, vagrancy, and operating gambling houses. 4 WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES 924-27 (George Chase ed., Baker, Voorhis& Co. 1938) (1769).
43 See, e.g., Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25,27-28 (1948) (proclaiming that “security of one’s privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police” is at the core of the Fourth Amendment (clearly a slight misstatement of the Founders’ original perception)).
44 See Roger Lane, Urbanization and Criminal Violence in the 19th Century: Massachusetts as a Test Case, in NATIONAL COMMISSION ON THE CAUSES AND PREVENTION OF VIOLENCE, VIOLENCE IN AMERICA: HISTORICAL AND COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES 445, 451 (Graham & Gurr dir., 1969) (saying citizens were traditionally supposed to take care of themselves, with help of family, friends, or servants “when available”).
45 See, e.g., Kennard v. Burton, 25 Me. 39 (1845) (involving collision between two wagons).
49 See id. at 96.
50 See Pauline Maier, Popular Uprisings and Civil Authority in Eighteenth-Century America, 27 WM. & MARY Q. 3-35 (1970).
55 See id. at 451.
56 See, e.g., Lamb v. Day, 8 Vt. 407 (1836) (involving suit against constable for improper execution of civil writ); Tomlinson v. Wheeler, 1 Aik. 194 (Vt. 1826) (involving sheriff’s neglect to execute civil judgment); Stoyel v. Edwards, 3 Day 1 (1807) (involving sheriffs execution of civil judgment).
57 If the modern police profession has a father, it is Sir Robert Peel, who founded the Metropolitan Police of London in 1829.See SUE TITUS REID, CRIMINAL JUSTICE: BLUEPRINTS 58 (5th ed. 1999) (attributing the founding of the first modern police force to Peel). Peel’s uniformed officers — nicknamed ‘Bobbies’ after the first name of their founder — operated under the direction of a central headquarters (Scotland Yard, named for the site once used by the Kings of Scotland as a residence), walking beats on a full-time basis to prevent crime. See id. Less than three decades later, Parliament enacted a statute requiring every borough and county to have a London-type police force. See id.
The ‘Bobbie’ model of policing caught on more slowly in the United States, but by the 1880s most major American cities had adopted some type of full-time paid police force. See id. at 59 (noting that the county sheriff system continued in rural areas).
58 See LAWRENCE M. FRIEDMAN, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN AMERICAN HISTORY 151-52 (1993) (citation omitted).
60 See id. at 152 (describing early police use of station houses as homeless shelters for the poor). This same type of public problem-solving still remains a large part of police work. Police are called upon to settle landlord-tenant disputes, deliver emergency care, manage traffic, regulate parking, and even to respond to alleged haunted houses. See id. at 151 (recounting 1894 alleged ghost incident in Oakland, California). Police continue to provide essential services to communities, especially at night and on weekends when they are the only social service agency. See SILBERMAN, supra note 6, at 321.
61 See GARRY WILLS, A NECESSARY EVIL: A HISTORY OF AMERICAN DISTRUST OF GOVERNMENT 248 (1999) (citation omitted).
63 See JEROME H. SKOLNICK & JAMES J. FYFE, ABOVE THE LAW: POLICE AND THE EXCESSIVE USE OF FORCE 129 (1993).
65 See id. at 130.
66 See E.X. BOOZHIE, THE OUTLAW’S BIBLE 15 (1988).
68 In the American constitutional scheme, the states have ‘general jurisdiction,’ meaning they may regulate for public health and welfare and enact whatever means to enforce such regulation as is necessary and constitutionally proper. See, e.g., Garcia v. San Antonio Metro. Transit Auth., 469 U.S. 528 (1985), National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833 (1976) (both standing for the general proposition that states have constitutional power to provide for protection, health, safety, and quality of life for their citizens). See also Lawrence Tribe, American Constitutional Law, §§ 6-3, 7-3 (2d ed. 1988). State and municipal police forces can therefore be viewed as constitutional to the extent they actually carry out the lawful enactments of the state.
69 See infra notes 285-398 and their accompanying text.
70 See Silas J. Wasserstrom, The Incredible Shrinking Fourth Amendment, 21 AM. CRIM. L. REV. 257, 347 (1984).
71 See Jerome Hall, Legal and Social Aspects of Arrest Without A Warrant, 49 HARV. L. REV. 566, 567 (1936).
73 See id. at 567-71 (discussing earliest scholarly references to the distinction). A 1936 Harvard Law Review article suggested the distinction is a false one owed to improper marshalling of scholarship. See id. (writing of “the general misinterpretation” resulting from a 1780 case in England).
74 See id. at 575 n.44 (citing the case of Beckwith v. Philby, 6 B. & C. 635 (K. B. 1827)).
75 See id. at 571-72. Although official right was apparently considered somewhat greater than that of private citizens during much of the 1700s, the case law enunciates no support for any such distinction until Rohan v. Sawin, 59 Mass. (5 Cush.) 281 (1850). It was apparently already the common practice of English constables to arrest upon information from the public in the 1780’s. See id. at 572. The “earlier requirement of a charge of a felony had already been entirely forgotten” in England by the early nineteenth century. Id. at 573. According to Hall, the only real distinction in practice in the early nineteenth century was that officers were privileged to draw their suspicions from statements of others, whereas private arrestors had to base their cause for arrest on their own reasonable beliefs. See id. at 569.
78 See 18 U.S.C. § 925 (a)(l) (2000) (exempting government officers from federal firearm disabilities).
79 See, e.g., CAL. PENAL CODE § 468 (West 1985) (releasing police from liability for possession of sniper scopes and infrared scopes).
80 See, e.g., FLA. STAT. CH. 338. 155 (1990).
81 See, e.g., FLA. STAT. CH. 320.025 (1990) (allowing confidential auto registration for police).
82 See ARK. CODE ANN. § 20-22-703 (Michie 2000).
83 See 18 U.S.C. § 1114 (amended 1994) (providing whoever murders a federal officer in first degree shall suffer death).
84 See CAL. PENAL CODE § 832.9 (West 1995).
85 See, e.g., CAL. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE §§ 199.95-199.99 (West 1990) (mandating HIV testing for persons charged with interfering with police officers whenever officers request).
86 See Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. 2511 (2000); United States v. Leon, 104 S. Ct. 3405 (1984).
87 See Williams v. Poulos, 11 F.3d 271 (lst Cir. 1993).
88 See, e.g., People v. Curtis, 450 P.2d 33, 35 (Cal. 1969) (speaking of the “[g]eneral acceptance” by courts of the elimination of the right to resist unlawful arrest).
89 See HERBERT J. STORING, WHAT THE ANTI-FEDERALISTS WERE FOR: THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF THE OPPONENTS OF THE CONSTITUTION 53 (1981). The statements of James Madison when introducing the proposed amendments to the Constitution before the House of Representatives, June 8, 1789, also support such a reading of the Bill of Rights. House of Representatives, June 8, 1789 Debates, reprinted in THE ORIGIN OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT: A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS 1787-1792 647, 657 (David E. Young, ed.) (2d ed. 1995) (stating “the great object in view is to limit and qualify the powers of Government”).
90 See STORING, supra note 89, at 48.
91 See, e.g., MD. CONST. of 1776, art. I (declaring that “all government of right originates from the people, is founded in compact only, and instituted solely for the good of the whole”); MASS. CONST. of 1780, art. I (“All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights”); N.H. CONST. of 1784, art. I (“All men are born equally free and independent”).

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