Source: https://m.openjurist.org/331/us/145/harris-v-united-states
Timestamp: 2019-11-14 14:12:47
Document Index: 520292956

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 311', '§ 311', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 338', '§ 338', '§ 413', '§ 413', '§ 9', '§ 8', '§ 9', '§ 19', '§ 7', '§ 8', '§ 6', '§ 7', '§ 18', '§ 17', '§ 7', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 14', '§ 9', 'Art. 108', '§ 5', '§ 8', '§ 10', '§ 9', '§ 13', '§ 7', '§ 7', '§ 18', '§ 6', '§ 10', '§ 18', '§ 5', '§ 30', '§ 9', '§ 6', '§ 22', '§ 11', '§ 7', '§ 7', '§ 14', '§ 10', '§ 7', '§ 3', '§ 11', '§ 4']

331 US 145 Harris v. United States | OpenJurist
331 U.S. 145 - Harris v. United States
The only exceptions to the safeguard of a warrant issued by a magistrate are those which the common law recognized as inherent limitations of the policy which found expression in the Fourth Amendment—where circumstances preclude the obtaining of a warrant (as in the case of movable vehicles), and where the warrant for the arrest of a person carries with it authority to seize all that is on the person, or is in such open and immediate physical relation to him as to be, in a fair sense, a projection of his person. That is the teaching of both the Go-Bart and the Lefkowitz cases, which effectually retract whatever may have been the loose consideration of the problem in Marron v. United States, 275 U.S. 192, 48 S.Ct. 74, 72 L.Ed. 231. Thus, the Go-Bart case emphasized that the things seized in the Marron case were 'visible and accessible and in the offender's immediate custody.' 282 U.S. 344, 358, 51 S.Ct. 153, 158, 75 L.Ed. 374. By 'immediate custody' was not meant that figurative possession which for some legal purposes puts one in 'possession' of everything in a house. The sentence following that just quoted excludes precisely the kind of thing that was done here. 'There was no threat of force or general search or rummaging of the place.' Ibid.
To say that the Go-Bart and the Lefkowitz cases—both of them unanimous decisions of the Court—are authority for the conduct of the arresting agents in this case is to find that situations decisively different are the same.
It greatly underrates the quality of the American people and of the civilized standards to which they can be summoned to suggest that we must conduct our criminal justice on a lower level than does England, and that our police must be given a head which British courts deny theirs. A striking and characteristic example of the solicitous care of English courts concerning the 'liberty of the subject' may be found in the recent judgments in Christie v. Leachinsky. In that case the House of Lords unanimously ruled that if a policeman arrests without warrant, although entertaining a reasonable suspicion of felony which ould justify arrest, but does not inform the person of the nature of the charge, the police are liable for false imprisonment for such arrest. These judgments bear mightily upon the central problem of this case, namely, the appropriate balancing, in the words of Lord Simonds, of 'the liberty of the subject and the convenience of the police.' Christie v. Leachinsky, (1947) 1 All E.R. 567, 576.7
Stooping to questionable methods neither enhances that respect for law which is the most potent element in law enforcement, nor, in the long run, do such methods promote successful prosecution. In this country police testimony is often rejected by juries precisely because of a widely entertained belief that illegal methods are used to secure testimony. Thus, dubious police methods defeat the very ends of justice by which such methods are justified. No such cloud rests on police testimony in England. Respect for law by law officers promotes respect generally, just as lawlessness by law officers sets a contagious and competitive example to others. See IV Reports of the National Commission on Law Enforcement and Observance ('Lawlessness in Law Enforcement') passim, especially pp. 190—192. Moreover, by compelling police officers to abstain from improper methods for securing evidence, pressure is exerted upon them to bring the resources of intelligence and imagination into play in the detection and prosecution of crime.
No doubt the Fourth Amendment limits the freedom of the police in bringing criminals to justice. But to allow them the freedom which the Fourth Amendment was designed to curb was deemed too costly by the Founders. As Mr. Justice Holmes said in the Olmstead case, 'we must consider the two objects of desire both of which we cannot have, and make up our minds which to choose.' 277 U.S. at page 470, 48 S.Ct. at page 575, 72 L.Ed. 944, 66 A.L.R. 376. Of course arresting officers generally feel irked by what to them are technical legal restrictions. But they must not be allowed to be unmindful of the fact that such restrictions are essential safeguards of a free people. To sanction conduct such as this case reveals is to encourage police intrusions upon privacy, without legal warrant, in situations that go even beyond the facts of the present case. If it be said that an attempt to extend the present case may be curbed in subsequent litigation, it is important to remember that police conduct is not often subjected to judicial scrutiny. Day by day mischief may be done and precedents built up in practice long before the judiciary has an opportunity to intervene. It is for this reason—the dangerous tendency of allowing encroachments on the rights of privacy—that this Court in the Boyd case gave to the Fourth Amendment its wide protective scope.
It is vital, no doubt, that criminals should be detected, and that all relevant evidence should be secured and used. On the other hand, it cannot be said too often that what is involved far transcends the fate of some sordid offender. Nothing less is involved that that which makes for an atmosphere of freedom as against a feeling of fear and repression for society as a whole. The dangers are not fanciful. We too readily forget them. Recollection may be refreshed as to the happenings after the first World War by the 'Report upon the Illegal Practices of the United States Department of Justice', which aroused the public concern of Chief Justice Hughes8 (then at the bar), and by the little book entitled 'The Deportations Delirium of Nineteen-Twenty' by Louis F. Post, who spoke with the authoritative knowledge of an Assistant Secretary of Labor.
S. 385, 40 S.Ct. 182. documents required
S. 313, 41 S.Ct. 266. of tax; sale of
2. Possession of 2. Information
S. 310, 48 S.Ct. 137. officers (state
S. 452, 52 S.Ct. 420. including use of
S. 1, 52 S.Ct. 466. uncovered during
S. 41, 54 S.Ct. 11. payment of import
7. Articles seized
JJ., dissenting.)
C.C.A. after
C. C. A., affirmed
It is significant that the crime which was thus unexpectedly discovered—namely, the illegal possession of the draft certificates and notices—could not have been brought to light in this case through the use of ordinary constitutional processes. There was no prima facie evidence to support the issuance of a warrant for petitioner's arrest for the crime of possessing these items. Not was there any probable cause or any basis for an oath or affirmation which could justify a valid search warrant for these items. Their presence in petitioner's apartment could be discovered only by making an unlimited search for anything and everything that might be found, a search of the type that characterizes a general search warrant or writ of assistance. And it was precisely that type of search that took place in this case.
The holding that the search in this case was proper and reasonable thus expands the narrow limitations on searches incident to valid arrests beyond all recognition. What has heretofore been a carefully circumscribed exception to the prohibition against searches without warrants has now been inflated into a comprehensive principle of freedom from all the requirements of the Fourth Amendment. The result is that a warrant for arrest is the equivalent of a general search warrant or writ of assistance; as an 'incident' to the arrest, the arresting officers can search the surrounding premises without limitation for the fruits, instrumentalities and anything else connected with the crime charged or with any other possible crime. They may disregard with impunity all the historic principles underlying the Fourth Amendment relative to indiscriminate searches of a man's home when he is placed under arrest. See Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 624—632, 6 S.Ct. 524, 528-533, 29 L.Ed. 746; Weeks v. United States, supra; Byars v. United States, 273 U.S. 28, 47 S.Ct. 248, 71 L.Ed. 520. They may disregard the fact that the Fourth Amendment was designed in part, indeed perhaps primarily, to outlaw such general warrants, that there is no exception in favor of general searches in the course of executing a lawful warrant for arrest. As to those placed under arrest, the restrictions of the Fourth Amendment on searches are now words without meaning or effect.
The difficulty with this problem for me is that once the search is allowed to go beyond the person arrested and the objects upon him or in his immediate physical control, I see no practical limit short of that set in the opinion of the Chief Justice—and that means to me no limit at all.
54 Stat. 885, 894, 895, 50 U.S.C.App. § 311, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 311. Section 623.61—2 of the Selective Service Regulations states that 'It shall be a violation of these regulations for any person to have in his possession' a Notice of Classification not regularly issued to him or to alter or forge any Notice of Classification. Section 11 of the Act makes criminal the failure to perform any duty required by the Regulations punishable by imprisonment for not more than five years or a fine of not more than $10,000 or both.
35 Stat. 1098, 18 U.S.C. § 101, 18 U.S.C.A. § 101. Insofar as pertinent, the section provides: 'Whoever shall receive, conceal, or aid in concealing, or shall have or retain in his possession with intent to convert to his own use or gain, any * * * property of the United States, which has theretofore been embezzled, stolen, or purloined by any other person, knowing the same to have been so embezzled, stolen, or purloined, shall be fined not more than $5,000, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both; * * *'.
35 Stat. 1130, 1131, 18 U.S.C. § 338, 18 U.S.C.A. § 338.
53 Stat. 1178, 1179, 18 U.S.C. § 413 et seq., 18 U.S.C.A. § 413 et seq.
Entick v. Carrington, 19 How.St.Tr., 1030, 1073—1074.
For reports of Otis' famous argument, see 2 Adams, Works pp. 523—525; Tudor, Life of James Otis, c. VI; Quincy's Massachusetts Reports p. 471 et seq. (see also pp. 51—55); American History Leaflets, No. 33. And see the tribute of John Adams to Otis, Samuel Adams, and Hancock in 8 Old South Leaflets p. 57 (No. 179).
Compare the answers to certified questions given by this Court in Gouled v. United States, 255 U.S. 298, 41 S.Ct. 261, 65 L.Ed. 647, with the forecast made by a student of the subject, of known partiality in favor of civil liberties. Fraenkel, Concerning Searches and Seizures, 34 Harv.L.Rev. 361, 385—387. As pointed out by Professor Zechariah Chafee, Jr., in each instance where the Gouled case differs from Mr. Fraenkel's forecast, 'the court gave increased force to the constitutional guarantee.' Chafee, The Progress of the Law 1919—1922, 35 Harv.L.Rev. 673, 699.
It is not without interest to note the first appearance of provisions dealing with search and seizure in State constitutions: Alabama: art. I, § 9 (1819); Arizona: art. II, § 8 (1910); Arkansas: art. II, § 9 (1836); California: art. I, § 19 (1849); Colorado: art. II, § 7 (1876); Connecticut: art. I, § 8 (1818); Delaware: art. I, § 6 (1792); Florida: art. I, § 7 (1838); Georgia: art. I, § 18 (1865); Idaho: art. I, § 17 (1889); Illinois: art. VIII, § 7 (1818); Indiana: art. I, § 8 (1816); Iowa: art. I, § 8 (1846); Kansas: art. I, § 14 (1855); Kentucky: art. XII, § 9 (1972); Louisiana: Title VII, Art. 108 (1864); Maine: art. I, § 5 (1819); Maryland: Decl. of Rights, par. XXIII (1776); Massachusetts: Part I, Art. XIV (1780); Michigan: art. I, § 8 (1835); Minnesota: art. I, § 10 (1857); Mississippi: art. I, § 9 (1817); Missouri: art. XIII, § 13 (1820); Montana: art. III, § 7 (1889); Nebraska: art. I, § 7 (1875); Nevada: art. I, § 18 (1864); New Hampshire: Part I, art. XIX (1784); New Jersey: art. I, § 6 (1844); New Mexico: art. II, § 10 (1910); North Carolina: Decl. of Rights, par. XI (1776); North Dakota: art. I, § 18 (1889); Ohio: art. VIII, § 5 (1802); Oklahoma: art. II § 30 (1907); Oregon: art. I, § 9 (1857); Pennsylvania: Decl. of Rights, par. X (1776); Rhode Island: art. I, § 6 (1842); South Carolina: art. I, § 22 (1868); South Dakota: art. VI, § 11 (1889); Tennessee: art. XI, § 7 (1796); Texas: Decl. of Rights, par. 5 (1836), art. I, § 7 (1845); Utah: art. I, § 14 (1895); Vermont: chapter I, par. XI (1777); Virginia: Bill of Rights, § 10 (1776); Washington: art. I, § 7 (1889); West Virginia: art. II, § 3 (1861—63); Wisconsin: art. I, § 11 (1848); Wyoming: art. I, § 4 (1889).
The extent to which such subordination of the police to law finds support in informed English opinion is reflected by the comments of the Solicitors' Journal. After nothing that, in the view of Lord Simon, 'Any other general rule would be contrary to our conception of individual liberty, though it might be tolerated in the time of the Lettres de Cachet in the eighteenth century in France or under the Gestapo,' the Journal observes: 'The importance of the reaffirmation of this principle cannot be exaggerated. The powers of private persons to arrest where a felony has been committed and there is reasonable ground for thinking that the person detained has committed it are important now that crimes of violence are more numerous, and the statutory powers of arrest without warrant under, e.g., the Malicious Damage Act, 1861, the Larceny Act, 1916, the Curtis Act of 1876, and many other Acts are more used than is generally appreciated. Of no less importance in such times as these is the assertion of our individual liberties to counteract any tendency which may appear for police powers to be exceeded.' 91 Solicitors' Journal 184—185 (April 12, 1947).