Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/333/10.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 10:54:03+00:00

Document:
Mr. James Skelly Wright, for petitioner.
Mr. Robert Erdahl, of Washington, D.C., for respondent.
The defendant challenged the search of her home as a violation of the rights secured to her in common with others, by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. [333 U.S. 10 , 13] The Government defends the search as legally justifiable, more particularly as incident to what it urges was a lawful arrest of the person.
Entry to defendant's living quarters, which was the beginning of the search, was demanded under color of office. It was granted in submission to authority rather than as an understanding and intentional waiver of a constitutional right. Cf. Amos v. United States, 255 U.S. 313 .
At the time entry was demanded the officers were possessed of evidence which a magistrate might have found to be probable cause for issuing a search warrant. We cannot sustain defendant's contention, erroneously made, on the strength of Taylor v. United States, 286 U.S. 1 , that odors cannot be evidence sufficient to constitute probable grounds for any search. That decision held only that odors alone do not authorize a search without warrant. If h e presence of odors is testified to before a magistrate and he finds the affiant qualified to know the odor, and it is one sufficiently distinctive to identify a forbidden substance, this Court has never held such a basis insufficient to justify issuance of a search warrant. Indeed it might very well be found to be evidence of most persuasive character.
The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law en- [333 U.S. 10 , 14] forcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime. 3 Any assumption that evidence sufficient to support a magistrate's disinterested determination to issue a search warrant will justify the officers in making a search without a warrant would reduce the Amendment to a nullity and leave the people's homes secure only in the discretion of police officers. 4 Crime, even in the privacy of one's own quarters, is, of course, of grave concern to society, and the law allows such crime to be reached on proper showing. The right of officers to thrust themselves into a home is also a grave concern, not only to the individual but to a society which chooses to dwell in reasonable security and freedom from surveillance. When the right of privacy must reasonably yield to the right of search is, as a rule, to be decided by a judicial officer, not by a policeman or Government enforcement agent.
There are exceptional circumstances in which, on balancing the need for effective law enforcement against the [333 U.S. 10 , 15] right of privacy, it may be contended that a magistrate's warrant for search may be dispensed with. But this is not such a case. No reason is offered for not obtaining a search warrant except the inconvenience to the officers and some slight delay necessary to prepare papers and present the evidence to a magistrate. These are never very convincing reasons and, in these circumstances, certainly are not enough to bypass the constitutional requirement. No suspect was fleeing or likely to take flight. The search was of permanent premises, not of a movable vehicle. No evidence or contraband was threatened with removal or destruction, except perhaps the fumes which we suppose in time will disappear. But they were not capable at any time of being reduced to possession for presentation to court. The evidence of their existence before the search was adequate and the testimony of the officers to that effect would not perish from the delay of getting a warrant.
If the officers in this case were excused from the constitutional duty of presenting their evidence to a magistrate, it is difficult to think of a case in which it should be required.
Thus the Government is obliged to justify the arrest by the search and at the same time to justify the search by [333 U.S. 10 , 17] the arrest. This will not do. An officer gaining access to private living quarters under color of his office and of the law which he personifies must then have some valid basis in law for the intrusion. Any other rule would undermine 'the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects,'8 and would obliterate one of the most fundamental distinctions between our form of government, where officers are under the law, and the police-state where they are the law.
The CHIEF JUSTICE, Mr. Justice BLACK, Mr. Justice REED and Mr. Justice BURTON dissent.
[ Footnote 1 ] Two counts charged violation of 2553(a) of the Internal Revenue Code, 26 U.S.C. 2553(a), 26 U.S.C.A. Int.Rev.Code, 2553(a), and two counts charged violation of the Narcotic Drugs Import and Export Act, as amended, 21 U.S.C. 174, 21 U.S.C.A. 174.
[ Footnote 2 ] 9 Cir., 162 F.2d 562.
[ Footnote 4 ] 'Belief, however well founded, that an article sought is concealed in a dwelling house, furnishes no justification for a search of that place without a warrant. And such searches are held unlawful notwithstanding facts unquestionably showing probable cause.' Agnello v. United States, 269 U.S. 20, 33 , 6, 51 A.L.R. 409.
[ Footnote 5 ] This is the Washington law. State v. Symes, 20 Wash. 484, 55 P. 626; State v. Lindsey, 192 Wash. 356, 73 P.2d 738; State v. Krantz, 24 Wash.2d 350, 164 P.2d 453; State v. Robbins, 25 Wash.2d 110, 169 P.2d 246. State law determines the validity of arrests without warrant. United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581 .
[ Footnote 7 ] The Government also suggests that 'In a sense, the arrest was made in 'hot pursuit'. * * *' However, we find no element of 'hot pursuit' in the arrest of one who was not in flight, was completely surrounded by agents before she knew of their presence, who claims without denial that she was in bed at the time, and who made no attempt to escape. Nor would these facts seem to meet the requirements of the 'Washington Uniform Law on Fresh Pursuit.' Session Laws 1943, ch. 261.

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