Source: https://openjurist.org/364/us/263
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 20:46:28+00:00

Document:
Messrs. Greene Chandler Furman and Elbert E. Blakely, Washington, D.C., and Mr. Frank W. Vanderhoof, Washington, D.C., Mr. Asher Bogin, Dayton, Ohio, and Mr. Stanley Robinson, Jr., Columbus, Ohio, of counsel, for appellant.
Mr. Charles S. Rhyne, Washington, D.C., and Mr. Joseph P. Duffy, Dayton, Ohio, for appellee.
RepliedTaylor, 'That don't show me that you got anything in there that you want for inspection, and, further, I don't have nothing in my house that has to be inspected.' The man said, 'Well, you know, according to this ordinance, that we got a right to go through your house and inspect your house.' 'No, I don't think you have, unless you got a search warrant,' answered Taylor. This has been his position ever since, and it is the issue that divides us.
The men went away, but later there was a second attempt to gain access to Taylor's house, and a telephone call to the same end. Taylor said, 'I don't see what right that you got coming into my house. Until you show me in writing, or some kind of facts, that you got a right to come into my house and inspect the house, I will not let you in.' The third time the men came, there were two of them. One had some sort of credential with a photograph on it. Neither had a warrant of any kind. One said the housing inspector wanted to inspect Taylor's house. Taylor said, 'What do you have in there that you want to inspect? I have nothing in my house for inspection.' He was told: 'We have a right to come in your house, go through your house, inspect the whole inside of your house.' Taylor's reaction to this was: 'You have nothing wrote down on paper. You don't have a thing to show me you are going to come in there to inspect anything, and as far as that goes you aren't coming in unless you have a search warrant to get in.' The men never came back with a search warrant, but as they left, one said, 'If you ain't going to let us in, we are entitled to get in, and if you don't let us in, I am going to leave it up to the Prosecutor.' Whereupon Taylor said: 'I don't care what you do. You aren't coming in.' Taylor later testified that then the man 'walked over and got in his car and that was the end of it.' 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.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. 246, 79 S.Ct. 978, 3 L.Ed.2d 1200.
The municipal ordinance in question provides numerous requirements for dwellings, deemed by the city to be appropriate in the interests of the public health, safety and comfort. Several of the requirements apply to private dwelling houses, such as the Taylors'. None of these requirements is at all questioned here. What is questioned is the ordinance provision, Code of General Ordinances § 806—30, authorizing the Housing Inspector to enter at any reasonable hour any dwelling whatsoever, and commanding the owner or occupant to give him free access at any reasonable hour for the purpose of his inspection. It was armed with the naked authority of this provision, and not with any warrant (the ordinance provides for none) that the inspectors approached Taylor's door, even after he had made clear to them his intent not to admit them on this basis. Neither before a magistrate empowered to issue warrants, nor in this proceeding, have the inspectors offered any justification for their entry. They have not shown any probable cause or grounds to believe that a proscribed condition existed within the cottage, or even that they had suspicion or complaint thereof. They have not shown that they desired to make the inspection in pursuance of a regular, routinized spot check of individual homes, or in pursuance of a planned blanket check of all the homes in a particular neighborhood, or the like.4 These might be said to be the usual reasons which would impel inspectors to seek to gain admittance to a private dwelling; but none of them is shown by the record to have been present. Most significantly, on the initial recalcitrance of Taylor, the inspectors were not required to, and did not, repair before any independent magistrate to demonstrate to him their reasons for wanting to gain access to Taylor's cottage, and to obtain his warrant for their entry—the authorization on which Taylor was insisting. The judgment below is, on this record, bottomed on the proposition that the inspectors have the right to enter a private dwelling, and the householder can be bound under criminal penalties to admit them, though there is demonstration neither of reason to believe there exists an improper condition within the dwelling, nor of the existence of any plan of inspection, apart from such a belief, which would include the inspection of the dwelling in question. We think that affirmance of this judgment would reduce the protection of the householder 'against unreasonable searches' to the vanishing point.
In this case we pass beyond the situation in Frank, where the inspector was looking for a specific violation, and where he had, and was able to demonstrate, considerable grounds to believe it existed in Frank's house. Here it would appear from Taylor's testimony that, even without a warrant, if a specific matter was cited to him by the inspector, he would have permitted the inspection in that regard. On the contrary, Frank's denial of access was described as based on 'a rarely voiced denial of any official justification for seeking to enter his home.' 359 U.S., at page 366, 79 S.Ct. at page 808. There then was a specific demand for inspection, met by a refusal on the broadest of grounds. Here we have the most general of demands, supported by no particularized justification, either directed at the conditions in Taylor's cottage, or in terms of some over-all systematic plan which would include it. This is met not by an attitude of defiance, but by a request by the householder that a specific authorization be furnished him. Not a search warrant, but a criminal complaint is the upshot. We would grossly tone down the protections afforded the householder by the Constitution were we to put an authoritative sanction on the judgment that condemns his refusal.
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;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.
But if we were to assume that the inspectors were proceeding according to a plan, and even if evidence of the plan were put in at the trial, we think that the result should be the same. The time to make such justification is not in the criminal proceeding, after the householder has acted at his peril in denying access. The time to make it is in advance of prosecution, and the place is before a magistrate empowered to issue warrants, which will put the seal of legitimacy—the seal the Constitution specifically provides for—on the demand of the inspector, if indeed it is a reasonable one. Such a warrant need not be sought except where the householder does not consent. This is precisely the procedure followed by England in this particular area, see Public Health Act, 1936, 26 Geo. 5, & 1 Edw. 8, c. 49, § 287(2);6 and no complaint is heard that this stultifies enforcement there of the regulation or the public health and safety. Certainly with this procedure available—the procedure of antecedent justification before a magistrate that is central to the Fourth Amendment, see McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451, 455—456, 69 S.Ct. 191, 193, 93 L.Ed. 153—there is no need to be satisfied with lesser standards in this area. Cf. Dean Milk Co. v. Madison, 340 U.S. 349, 71 S.Ct. 295, 95 L.Ed. 329. The public interest in the cleanliness and adequacy of the dwellings of the people is great. So too is the public interest that the tools of counterfeiting and the paraphernalia of the illicit narcotics traffic not remain active. On an adequate and appropriate showing in particular cases, the privacy of the home must bow before these interests of the public. But none of these interests provides an open sesame to those who enforce them. The Fourth Amendment's procedure establishes the way in which these general public interests are to be brought into specific focus to require the individual householder to open his door.
Apart from the very significant factual distinctions presented by this case from the Frank case, there is another reason why we would reverse the judgment here. It has now become clear that the Frank decision may have turned in substantial part on the positing of a distinction between the affirmative guaranty of privacy against official incursion raised by the Fourth Amendment against federal action, and that raised by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth against state action. The concurring opinion of one of the majority in that sharply divided decision indicates some concern in that respect. 359 U.S., at page 373, 79 S.Ct. at page 812. After the greatest consideration, this Court in Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 27—28, 69 S.Ct. 1359, 1361, 93 L.Ed. 1782, declared: 'The security of one's privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police—which is at the core of the Fourth Amendment—is basic to a free society. It is therefore implicit in 'the concept of ordered liberty' and as such enforceable against the States through the Due Process Clause.' 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, 364 U.S. 206, 237—240, 80 S.Ct. 1453, 1455—1457 (dissenting opinion). But the Wolf statement continues to be the ruling doctrine in this Court. Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 80 S.Ct. 1437. The guarantees are of the same dimension, matters of enforcement, such as the exclusionary rule, aside.
In Elkins today we have rejected such a view of the affirmative guarantees of the Fourth Amendment. The opinion of the Court in Frank is very likely a product of such a rejected approach. For that reason, even if it were on all fours with the present case, it should not be followed, and the judgment below should be reversed.
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, 440—442, 442—445, 79 S.Ct. 1257, 1267—1268, 1268—1270. The question whether this case is to be distinguished from Frank presents an analogy to this.
This command is backed by the penalty that 'Any person who shall violate any provision of this ordinance shall, upon conviction, be punished by a fine of not less than twenty dollars (20.00) nor more than two hundred dollars ($200) or by imprisonment of not less than two (2) days nor more than thirty (30) days, or both, and each day of failure to comply with any such provision shall constitute a separate violation.' § 806—83.
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, 70, 49 S.Ct. 61, 64, 73 L.Ed. 184.
Those desiring to make the inspection did not so testify; and such a planned blanket check, or its nature, is hardly inferable from Taylor's statement that 'they had been going up and down there, door-to-door, looking through everybody's houses'; his statement being the only thing resembling evidence on the point.
See Frank v. Maryland, supra, 359 U.S. at page 383, 79 S.Ct. at page 817 (dissenting opinion).
The procedure cited is that prescribed by statute in the case of health inspections under the Public Health Act. There are other statutes providing for other inspections, an English commentator points out, which do not contain this safeguard. See Waters, Rights of Entry in Administrative Officers, 27 U. of Chi.L.Rev. 79, 85. Accordingly, 'the private occupier is faced with a bewildering number of persons claiming a variety of rights.' Id., at 83. The author is in favor of the Public Health Act procedure, and regrets that 'the consistent application to good works is yet lacking.' 'The object should be the creation of warrant provisions in a statutory code of powers of entry, guaranteeing to the individual thereby the impartial, if rarely invoked, judgment by magistrates of the fairness and legality of any attempted entry.' Id., at 93.
See Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 34 S.Ct. 341, 58 L.Ed. 652.
'We reach a different plane of social and moral values when we pass to the privileges and immunities that have been taken over from the earlier articles of the Federal Bill of Rights and brought within the Fourteenth Amendment by a process of absorption. These in their origin were effective against the federal government alone. If the Fourteenth Amendment has absorbed them, the process of absorption has had its source in the belief that neither liberty nor justice would exist if they were sacrificed. * * * This is true, for illustration, of freedom of thought, and speech. Of that freedom one may say that it is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom * * *.' 302 U.S., at pages 326—327, 58 S.Ct. at page 152.
Contrast the statement in Palko, 302 U.S., at page 324, 58 S.Ct. at page 151. 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, 149 150, 80 S.Ct. 215, 216—217, 4 L.Ed.2d 205; Bates v. Little Rock, 361 U.S. 516, 522—523, 80 S.Ct. 412, 416, 4 L.Ed.2d 480. See Staub v. Baxley, 355 U.S. 313, 321, 78 S.Ct. 277, 281, 2 L.Ed.2d 302. For a collection of many of the cases to this effect, see Speiser v. Randall, 357 U.S. 513, 530, 78 S.Ct. 1332, 1352, 2 L.Ed.2d 1460 (concurring opinion).

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