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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983']

Paul v. Davis - 424 U.S. 693 (1976) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center
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Case	U.S. Supreme CourtPaul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693 (1976)Paul v. DavisNo. 74-891Argued November 4, 1975Decided March 23, 1976424 U.S. 693CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
2. Respondent's contention that petitioners' defamatory flyer deprived him of his constitutional right to privacy is without Page 424 U. S. 694 merit, being based not upon any challenge to the State's ability to restrict his freedom of action in a sphere contended to be "private," but on a claim that the State may not publicize a record of an official act like an arrest. Pp. 424 U. S. 712-713.
Petitioner Paul is the Chief of Police of the Louisville, Ky., Division of Police, while petitioner McDaniel occupies the same position in the Jefferson County, Ky., Division of Police. In late 1972, they agreed to combine their efforts for the purpose of alerting local area merchants to possible shoplifters who might be operating during Page 424 U. S. 695 the Christmas season. In early December, petitioners distributed to approximately 800 merchants in the Louisville metropolitan area a "flyer," which began as follows:
Respondent appeared on the flyer because, on June 14, 1971, he had been arrested in Louisville on a charge of shoplifting. He had been arraigned on this charge in September, 1971, and, upon his plea of not guilty, the Page 424 U. S. 696 charge had been "filed away with leave [to reinstate]," a disposition which left the charge outstanding. Thus, at the time petitioners caused the flyer to be prepared and circulated, respondent had been charged with shoplifting but his guilt or innocence of that offense had never been resolved. Shortly after circulation of the flyer, the charge against respondent was finally dismissed by a judge of the Louisville Police Court.
Respondent appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which recognized that, under our decisions, for respondent to establish a claim cognizable under § 1983, he had to show that petitioners had deprived Page 424 U. S. 697 him of a right secured by the Constitution [Footnote 1] of the United States, and that any such deprivation was achieved under color of law. [Footnote 2] Adickes v. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144, 398 U. S. 150 (1970). The Court of Appeals concluded that respondent had set forth a § 1983 claim "in that he has alleged facts that constitute a denial of due process of law." 505 F.2d 1180, 1182 (1974). In its view, our decision in Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U. S. 433 (1971), mandated reversal of the District Court.
Respondent brought his action, however, not in the state courts of Kentucky, but in a United States District Page 424 U. S. 698 Court for that State. He asserted not a claim for defamation under the laws of Kentucky, but a claim that he had been deprived of rights secured to him by the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Concededly, if the same allegations had been made about respondent by a private individual, he would have nothing more than a claim for defamation under state law. But, he contends, since petitioners are, respectively, an official of city and of county government, his action is thereby transmuted into one for deprivation by the State of rights secured under the Fourteenth Amendment.
It is hard to perceive any logical stopping place to such Page 424 U. S. 699 a line of reasoning. Respondent's construction would seem almost necessarily to result in every legally cognizable injury which may have been inflicted by a state official acting under "color of law" establishing a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. We think it would come as a great surprise to those who drafted and shepherded the adoption of that Amendment to learn that it worked such a result, and a study of our decisions convinces us they do not support the construction urged by respondent.
The first premise would be contrary to pronouncements in our cases on more than one occasion with respect to the scope of § 1983 and of the Fourteenth Amendment. In the leading case of Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91 (1945), the Court considered the proper application of the criminal counterpart of § 1983, likewise intended by Congress to enforce the guarantees of the Fourteenth Page 424 U. S. 700 Amendment. In his opinion for the Court plurality in that case, Mr. Justice Douglas observed:
This understanding of the limited effect of the Fourteenth Amendment was not lost in the Court's decision in Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167 (1961). There, the Court was careful to point out that the complaint stated a cause of action under the Fourteenth Amendment because it alleged an unreasonable search and seizure violative of the guarantee "contained in the Fourth Amendment [and] made applicable to the States by reason of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment." Id. at 365 U. S. 171. Respondent, however, has pointed to no specific constitutional guarantee safeguarding the interest he asserts has been invaded. Page 424 U. S. 701 Rather, he apparently believes that the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause should ex proprio vigore extend to him a right to be free of injury wherever the State may be characterized as the tortfeasor. But such a reading would make of the Fourteenth Amendment a font of tort law to be superimposed upon whatever systems may already be administered by the States. We have noted the "constitutional shoals" that confront any attempt to derive from congressional civil rights statutes a body of general federal tort law, Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U. S. 88, 403 U. S. 101-102 (1971); a fortiori, the procedural guarantees of the Due Process Clause cannot be the source for such law.
The second premise upon which the result reached by the Court of Appeals could be rested -- that the infliction by state officials of a "stigma" to one's reputation is somehow different in kind from infliction by a state official of harm to other interests protected by state law -- is equally untenable. The words "liberty" and "property," as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, do not, in terms, single out reputation as a candidate for special protection over and above other interests that may be protected by state law. While we have in a number of our prior cases pointed out the frequently drastic effect of the "stigma" which may result from defamation by the government in a variety of contexts, this line of cases does not establish the proposition that reputation alone, apart from some more tangible interests such as employment, is either "liberty" or "property" by itself sufficient to invoke the procedural protection of the Due Process Clause. As we have said, the Court of Appeals, in reaching a contrary conclusion, relied primarily upon Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U. S. 433 (1971). We think the correct import of that Page 424 U. S. 702 decision, however, must be derived from an examination of the precedents upon which it relied, as well as consideration of the other decisions by this Court, before and after Constantineau, which bear upon the relationship between governmental defamation and the guarantees of the Constitution. While not uniform in their treatment of the subject, we think that the weight of our decisions establishes no constitutional doctrine converting every defamation by a public official into a deprivation of liberty within the meaning of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth [Footnote 3] or Fourteenth Amendment.
Subsequently, in Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Comm. Page 424 U. S. 703 v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123 (1951), the Court examined the validity of the Attorney General's designation of certain organizations as "Communist" on a list which he furnished to the Civil Service Commission. There was no majority opinion in the case; Mr. Justice Burton, who announced the judgment of the Court, wrote an opinion which did not reach the petitioners' constitutional claim. Mr. Justice Frankfurter, who agreed with Mr. Justice Burton that the petitioners had stated a claim upon which relief could be granted, noted that
"I agree that mere designation as subversive deprives the organizations themselves of no legal right or immunity. By it, they are not dissolved, subjected to any legal prosecution, punished, penalized, or prohibited from carrying on any of their activities. Their claim of injury is that they cannot attract audiences, enlist members, or obtain contributions Page 424 U. S. 704 as readily as before. These, however, are sanctions applied by public disapproval, not by law."
Thus, at least six of the eight Justices who participated Page 424 U. S. 705 in that case viewed any "stigma" imposed by official action of the Attorney General of the United States, divorced from its effect on the legal status of an organization or a person, such as loss of tax exemption or loss of government employment, as an insufficient basis for invoking the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
"Finally, it is to be noted that this is not a case where government action has operated to bestow a badge of disloyalty or infamy, with an attendant foreclosure from other employment opportunity. See Page 424 U. S. 706 Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U. S. 183, 344 U. S. 190-191; Joint Anti-Fascist Comm. v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123, 341 U. S. 140-141. . . ."
Two things appear from the line of cases beginning with Lovett. The Court has recognized the serious damage that could be inflicted by branding a government employee as "disloyal," and thereby stigmatizing his good name. But the Court has never held that the mere defamation of an individual, whether by branding him disloyal or otherwise, was sufficient to invoke the guarantees of procedural due process absent an accompanying loss of government employment. [Footnote 4] Page 424 U. S. 707
"Yet certainly where the state attaches 'a badge of infamy' to the citizen, due process comes into play. Page 424 U. S. 708 Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U. S. 183, 344 U. S. 191."
We think that the italicized language in the last sentence quoted, "because of what the government is doing to him," referred to the fact that the governmental action taken in that case deprived the individual of a right previously held under state law -- the right to purchase or obtain liquor in common with the rest of the citizenry. "Posting," therefore, significantly altered her status as a matter of state law, and it was that alteration of legal status which, combined with the injury resulting Page 424 U. S. 709 from the defamation, justified the invocation of procedural safeguards. The "stigma" resulting from the defamatory character of the posting was doubtless an important factor in evaluating the extent of harm worked by that act, but we do not think that such defamation, standing alone, deprived Constantineau of any "liberty" protected by the procedural guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment.
"Similarly, there is no suggestion that the State, in declining to reemploy the respondent, imposed o Page 424 U. S. 710 him a stigma or other disability that foreclosed his freedom to take advantage of other employment opportunities."
It is apparent from our decisions that there exists a variety of interests which are difficult of definition, but are nevertheless comprehended within the meaning of either "liberty" or "property" as meant in the Due Process Clause. These interests attain this constitutional status by virtue of the fact that they have been initially recognized and protected by state law. [Footnote 5] and we Page 424 U. S. 711 have repeatedly ruled that the procedural guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment apply whenever the State seeks to remove or significantly alter that protected status. In Bell v. Burson, 402 U. S. 535 (1971), for example, the State, by issuing drivers' licenses, recognized in its citizens a right to operate a vehicle on the highways of the State. The Court held that the State could not withdraw this right without giving petitioner due process. In Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471 (1972), the State afforded parolees the right to remain at liberty as long as the conditions of their parole were not violated. Before the State could alter the status of a parolee because of alleged violations of these conditions, we held that the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of due process of law required certain procedural safeguards.
In each of these cases, as a result of the state action complained of, a right or status previously recognized by state law was distinctly altered or extinguished. It was this alteration, officially removing the interest from the recognition and protection previously afforded by the State, which we found sufficient to invoke the procedural guarantees contained in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. But the interest in reputation alone which respondent seeks to vindicate in this action in federal court is quite different from the "liberty" or "property" recognized in those decisions. Kentucky law does not extend to respondent any legal guarantee of present enjoyment of reputation which has been altered as a Page 424 U. S. 712 result of petitioners' actions. Rather, his interest in reputation is simply one of a number which the State may protect against injury by virtue of its tort law, providing a forum for vindication of those interests by means of damages actions. And any harm or injury to that interest, even where, as here, inflicted by an officer of the State, does not result in a deprivation of any "liberty" or "property" recognized by state or federal law, nor has it worked any change of respondent's status as theretofore recognized under the State's laws. For these reasons, we hold that the interest in reputation asserted in this case is neither "liberty" nor "property" guaranteed against state deprivation without due process of law.
While there is no "right of privacy" found in any specific guarantee of the Constitution, the Court has recognized that "zones of privacy" may be created by Page 424 U. S. 713 more specific constitutional guarantees, and thereby impose limits upon government power. See Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, 410 U. S. 152-153 (1973). Respondent's case, however, comes within none of these areas. He does not seek to suppress evidence seized in the course of an unreasonable search. See Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 389 U. S. 351 (1967); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 392 U. S. 8-9 (1968). And our other "right of privacy" cases, while defying categorical description, deal generally with substantive aspects of the Fourteenth Amendment. In Roe, the Court pointed out that the personal rights found in this guarantee of personal privacy must be limited to those which are "fundamental" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty" as described in Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 302 U. S. 325 (1937). The activities detailed as being within this definition were ones very different from that for which respondent claims constitutional protection -- matters relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, and childrearing and education. In these areas, it has been held that there are limitations on the States' power to substantively regulate conduct.
None of respondent's theories of recovery were based upon rights secured to him by the Fourteenth Amendment. Page 424 U. S. 714 Petitioners therefore were not liable to him under § 1983. The judgment of the Court of Appeals holding otherwise is
"Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within Page 424 U. S. 715 the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress."
Ante at 424 U. S. 698. The action complained of here is "state Page 424 U. S. 716 action" allegedly in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that Amendment, which is only designed to prohibit "state" action, clearly renders unconstitutional actions taken by state officials that would merely be criminal or tortious if engaged in by those acting in their private capacities. Of course, if a private citizen enters the home of another, manacles and threatens the owner, and searches the house in the course of a robbery, he would be criminally and civilly liable under state law, but no constitutional rights of the owner would be implicated. However, if state police officials engage in the same acts in the course of a narcotics investigation, the owner may maintain a damages action against the police under § 1983 for deprivation of constitutional rights "under color of" state law. Cf. Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388, 403 U. S. 390-392 (1971). See also, e.g., Monroe v. Pape, supra. In short, it is difficult to believe that the Court seriously suggests, see ante at 424 U. S. 697-698, that there is some anomaly in the distinction, for constitutional purposes, between tortious conduct committed by a private citizen and the same conduct committed by state officials under color of state law.
It may be that I misunderstand the thrust of 424 U. S. Perhaps the Court is not questioning the involvement of a constitutional "liberty" or "property" interest in this case, but rather whether the deprivation of those interests was accomplished "under color of" state law. The Court's expressed concern that, but for today's decision, negligent tortious behavior by state officials might constitute a § 1983 violation, see ante at 424 U. S. 698, suggests this reading. [Footnote 2/2] But that concern is Page 424 U. S. 717 groundless. An official's actions are not "under color of" law merely because he is an official; an off-duty policeman's discipline of his own children, for example, would not constitute conduct "under color of" law. The essential element of this type of § 1983 action [Footnote 2/3] is abuse of his official position.
United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299, 313 U. S. 326 (1941) (emphasis supplied). Moreover, whether or not mere negligent official conduct in the course of duty can ever constitute such abuse of power, the police officials here concede that their conduct was intentional, and was undertaken in their official capacities. Therefore, beyond peradventure, it is action taken under color of law, see ante at 424 U. S. 697, and n. 2, and it is disingenuous for the Court to argue, see ante at 424 U. S. 700-701, that respondent is seeking to convert § 1983 into a generalized font of tort law. The only issue properly presented by this case is whether petitioners' intentional conduct infringed any of respondent's "liberty" or "property" interests without due process of law, and that is the question to be addressed. I am Page 424 U. S. 718 persuaded that respondent has alleged a case of such infringement, and therefore of a violation of § 1983. The stark fact is that the police here have officially imposed on respondent the stigmatizing label "criminal" without the salutary and constitutionally mandated safeguards of a criminal trial. The Court concedes that this action will have deleterious consequences for respondent. For 15 years, the police had prepared and circulated similar lists, not with respect to shoplifting alone, but also for other offenses. App. 19, 27-28. Included in the five-page list in which respondent's name and "mug shot" appeared were numerous individuals who, like respondent, were never convicted of any criminal activity and whose only "offense" was having once been arrested. [Footnote 2/4] Page 424 U. S. 719 Indeed, respondent was arrested over 17 months before the flyer was distributed, [Footnote 2/5] not by state law enforcement authorities, but by a store's private security police, and nothing in the record appears to suggest the existence at that time of even constitutionally sufficient probable cause for that single arrest on a shoplifting charge. [Footnote 2/6] Nevertheless, petitioners had 1,000 flyers printed (800 were distributed widely throughout the Louisville business community) proclaiming that the individuals identified Page 424 U. S. 720 by name and picture were "subjects known to be active in this criminal field [shoplifting]," and trumpeting the "fact" that each page depicted "Active Shoplifters" (emphasis supplied). [Footnote 2/7]
It is important, to paraphrase the Court, that "[w]e, too, [should] pause to consider the result should [the Court's] interpretation of § 1983 and of the Fourteenth Amendment be accepted." Ante at 424 U. S. 698. There is no attempt by the Court to analyze the question as one of reconciliation of constitutionally protected personal rights and the exigencies of law enforcement. No effort is made to distinguish the "defamation" that occurs when a grand jury indicts an accused from the "defamation" that occurs when executive officials arbitrarily and without Page 424 U. S. 721 trial declare a person an "active criminal." [Footnote 2/8] Rather, the Court, by mere fiat and with no analysis, wholly excludes personal interest in reputation from the ambit of "life, liberty, or property" under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, thus rendering due process concerns never applicable to the official stigmatization, however arbitrary, of an individual. The logical and disturbing corollary of this holding is that no due process infirmities would inhere in a statute constituting a commission to conduct ex parte trials of individuals, so long as the only official judgment pronounced was limited to the public condemnation and branding of a person as a Communist, a traitor, an "active murderer," a homosexual, or any other mark that "merely" carries social opprobrium. The potential of today's decision is frightening for a free people. [Footnote 2/9] That decision surely finds no support in our relevant constitutional jurisprudence. Page 424 U. S. 722
Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, 262 U. S. 399 (1923). [Footnote 2/10] Certainly the enjoyment of Page 424 U. S. 723 one's good name and reputation has been recognized repeatedly in our case as being among the most cherished of rights enjoyed by a free people, and therefore as falling within the concept of personal "liberty."
Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323, 418 U. S. 341 (1974). [Footnote 2/11] Page 424 U. S. 724 We have consistently held that
"It is also important in our free society that every individual going about his ordinary affairs have confidence that his government cannot adjudge him guilty of a criminal offense without convincing Page 424 U. S. 725 a proper factfinder of his guilt with utmost certainty."
"[T]he personal and economic consequences alleged to flow from such actions are sufficient to meet the requirement that appellant prove a legally redressable injury. Those consequences would certainly be actionable if caused by a private party, and thus should be sufficient to accord appellant standing. See Greene v. McElroy, 360 U. S. 474, 360 U. S. 493, n. 22 Page 424 U. S. 726 (1959); Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, supra at 341 U. S. 140-141 (opinion of Burton, J.); id. at 341 U. S. 151-160 (Frankfurter, J., concurring). It is no answer that the Commission has not itself tried to impose any direct sanctions on appellant; it is enough that the Commission's alleged actions will have a substantial impact on him. . . . Appellant's allegations go beyond the normal publicity attending criminal prosecution; he alleges a concerted attempt publicly to brand him a criminal without a trial."
"[There is] a constitutionally significant distinction between two kinds of governmental bodies. The first is an agency whose sole or predominant function, without serving any other public interest, is to expose and publicize the names of persons it finds guilty of wrongdoing. To the extent that such a determination -- whether called a 'finding' or an 'adjudication' Page 424 U. S. 727 -- finally and directly affects the substantial personal interests, I do not doubt that the Due Process Clause may require that it be accompanied by many of the traditional adjudicatory procedural safeguards. Cf. Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123 (1951)."
The Court, however, relegates its discussion of Jenkins to a dissembling footnote. First, the Court ignores the fact that the Court in Jenkins clearly recognized a constitutional "liberty" or "property" interest in reputation sufficient to invoke the strictures of the Fourteenth Amendment. [Footnote 2/13] It baffles me how, in the face of that holding, the Court can come to today's conclusion by reliance on the fact that the conduct in question does not "come within the language" of the dissent in Jenkins, ante at 424 U. S. 706 n. 4. Second, and more important, the Court's footnote manifests the same confusion that pervades the remainder of its opinion: it simply fails to recognize the crucial difference between the question whether there is a personal interest in one's good name and reputation that is constitutionally cognizable as a "liberty" or "property" interest within the Fourteenth and Fifth Amendment Due Process Clauses, and the totally separate question whether particular government Page 424 U. S. 728 action with respect to that interest satisfies the mandates of due process. See, e.g., supra at 424 U. S. 720-721, and n. 8. Although the dissenters in Jenkins thought that the Commission's procedures complied with due process, they clearly believed that there was a personal interest that had to be weighed in reaching that conclusion. [Footnote 2/14] The dissenters in Jenkins, like the Court in Hannah v. Larche, supra, held the view that, in the context of a purely investigatory, factfinding agency, full trial safeguards are not required to comply with due process. But that question would never have been reached unless there were some constitutionally cognizable personal interest making the inquiry necessary -- the interest in reputation that is affected Page 424 U. S. 729 by public "exposure." The Court, by contrast, now implicitly repudiates a substantial body of case law and finds no such constitutionally cognizable interest in a person's reputation, thus foreclosing any inquiry into the procedural protections accorded that interest in a given situation.
Moreover, Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U. S. 433 (1971), which was relied on by the Court of Appeals in this case, did not rely at all on the fact asserted by the Page 424 U. S. 730 Court today as controlling -- namely, upon the fact that "posting" denied Ms. Constantineau the right to purchase alcohol for a year, ante at 424 U. S. 708-709. Rather, Constantineau stated:
Ibid., quoting Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Comm. v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123, 341 U. S. 168 (1951) (Frankfurter,J.,concurring) (emphasis supplied). There again, the fact that government stigmatization of an individual implicates constitutionally protected interests was made plain. [Footnote 2/15] Page 424 U. S. 731
Thus, Jenkins and Constantineau, and the decisions upon which they relied, are cogent authority that a person's interest in his good name and reputation falls Page 424 U. S. 732 within the broad term "liberty" and clearly require that the government afford procedural protections before infringing that name and reputation by branding a person as a criminal. The Court is reduced to discrediting the clear thrust of Constantineau and Jenkins by excluding the interest in reputation from all constitutional protection "if there is any other possible interpretation" by which to deny their force as precedent according constitutional protection for the interest in reputation. [Footnote 2/16] Ante at 424 U. S. 708. The Court's approach -- oblivious both to Mr. Chief Justice Marshall's admonition that "we must never forget, that it is a constitution we are expounding," M'Culloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 17 U. S. 407 (1819), and to the teaching of cases such as Roth and Meyer, which were attentive to the necessary breadth of constitutional "liberty" and "property" interests, see nn. 10, 15, supra -- is to water down our prior precedents by reinterpreting Page 424 U. S. 733 them as confined to injury to reputation that affects an individual's employment prospects or, as "a right or status previously recognized by state law [that the State] distinctly altered or extinguished." Ante at 424 U. S. 711. See also, e.g., ante at 424 U. S. 701, 424 U. S. 704-706, 424 U. S. 709-710, 424 U. S. 710-712. The obvious answer is that such references in those cases (when there even were such references) concerned the particular fact situations presented, and in nowise implied any limitation upon the application of the principles announced. E.g., ante at 424 U. S. 709-710, quoting Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. at 408 U. S. 573. See n. 15, supra. Discussions of impact upon future employment opportunities were nothing more than recognition of the logical and natural consequences flowing from the stigma condemned. E.g., ante at 424 U. S. 705-706, quoting Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, 367 U.S. at 367 U. S. 898. [Footnote 2/17] Page 424 U. S. 734
I have always thought that one of this Court's most important roles is to provide a formidable bulwark against governmental violation of the constitutional safeguards Page 424 U. S. 735 securing in our free society the legitimate expectations of every person to innate human dignity and sense of worth. It is a regrettable abdication of that role and a saddening denigration of our majestic Bill of Rights when the Court tolerates arbitrary and capricious official conduct branding an individual as a criminal without compliance with constitutional procedures designed to ensure the fair and impartial ascertainment of criminal culpability. Today's decision must surely be a short-lived aberration. [Footnote 2/18]
In light of my conviction that the State may not condemn an individual as a criminal without following the mandates of the trial process, I need not address the question whether there is an independent right of privacy which would yield the same result. Indeed, privacy notions appear to be inextricably interwoven with the considerations which require that a State not single an individual out for punishment outside the judicial process. Essentially, the core concept would be that a State cannot broadcast even such factual events as the occurrence of an arrest that does not culminate in a conviction when there are no legitimate law enforcement justifications for doing so, since the State is chargeable with the knowledge that many employers will treat an arrest the same as a conviction, and deny the individual employment or other opportunities on the basis of a fact that has no probative value with respect to actual criminal culpability. See, e.g., Michelson v. United States, 335 U. S. 469, 335 U. S. 482 (1948); Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, 353 U.S. at 353 U. S. 241. A host of state and federal courts, relying on both privacy notions and the presumption of innocence, have begun to develop a line of cases holding that there are substantive limits on the power of the government to disseminate unresolved arrest records outside the law enforcement system, see, e.g., Utz v. Cullinane, 172 U.S.App.D.C. 67, 520 F.2d 467 (1975); Tarlton v. Saxbe, 165 U.S.App.D.C. 293, 507 F.2d 1116 (1974); United States v. Dooley, 364 F.Supp. 75 (ED Pa.1973); Menard v. Mitchell, 328 F.Supp. 718, 725-726 (DC 1971), rev'd on other grounds, 162 U.S.App.D.C. 284, 498 F.2d 1017 (1974); United States v. Kalish, 271 F.Supp. 968 (PR 1967); Davidson v. Dill, 180 Colo. 123, 503 P.2d 157 (1972); Eddy v. Moore, 5 Wash.App. 334, 487 P.2d 211 (1971). I fear that, after Page 424 U. S. 736 today's decision, these nascent doctrines will never have the opportunity for full growth and analysis. Since the Court of Appeals did not address respondent's privacy claims, and since there has not been substantial briefing or oral argument on that point, the Court's pronouncements are certainly unnecessary. Of course, States that are more sensitive than is this Court to the privacy and other interests of individuals erroneously caught up in the criminal justice system are certainly free to adopt or adhere to higher standards under state law. See, e.g., Michigan v. Mosley, 423 U. S. 96, 423 U. S. 111, 423 U. S. 120-121 (1975) (BRENNAN, J., dissenting).