Source: https://casetext.com/case/jones-v-united-states-4
Timestamp: 2018-11-21 08:55:29
Document Index: 111312552

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3109', '§ 4704', '§ 174', '§ 4704', '§ 3109', '§ 3109', '§ 3109', '§ 3109']

Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257 | Casetext
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Overruled or overruled in part by U.S. in 1980United States v. Salvucci448 U.S. 83 (1980)
U.S. Supreme CourtMar 28, 1960
362 U.S. 257•80 S. Ct. 725•
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Argued January 21, 1960. Decided March 28, 1960.
1. While petitioner was in an apartment which he testified later was not his but that of a friend who permitted him to use it, the apartment was searched by federal officers armed with a search warrant, narcotics were found and seized, and petitioner was arrested and charged with violating the narcotics laws. He moved to suppress the evidence so seized on the ground that the search was illegal. Held: Petitioner was a "person aggrieved" within the meaning of Rule 41(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and he had standing to make the motion under that Rule. Pp. 260-267.
3. Without having done so in the District Court, petitioner attacked in the Court of Appeals the legality of the search, on the ground that the warrant was not executed in conformity with 18 U.S.C. § 3109. The Court of Appeals fully considered the claim and rejected it. The Government did not contend that the issue was not properly before this Court. Held: The question is open to decision by this Court; but it cannot be resolved satisfactorily on the record. Therefore, the judgment of the Court of Appeals sustaining petitioner's conviction is vacated, and the case is remanded to the District Court to consider this issue. Pp. 272-273.
104 U.S.App.D.C. 345, 262 F.2d 234, judgment vacated and case remanded.
This is a prosecution for violation of federal narcotics laws. In the first count of a two-count indictment petitioner was charged with having "purchased, sold, dispensed and distributed" narcotics in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 4704 (a), that is, not in or from the "original stamped package." In the second count petitioner was charged under 21 U.S.C. § 174 with having "facilitated the concealment and sale of" the same narcotics, knowing them to have been imported illegally into the United States. Petitioner was found guilty on both counts and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. The Court of Appeals, one judge dissenting, affirmed the conviction. 104 U.S.App.D.C. 345, 262 F.2d 234. Since the case presented important questions in the administration of criminal justice, more particularly a defendant's standing to challenge the legality of a search in the circumstances of this case, as well as the legality of the particular search should standing be established, we granted certiorari. 359 U.S. 988.
Both statutory provisions under which petitioner was prosecuted permit conviction upon proof of the defendant's possession of narcotics, and in the case of 26 U.S.C. § 4704 (a) of the absence of the appropriate stamps. Possession was the basis of the Government's case against petitioner. The evidence against him may be briefly summarized. He was arrested in an apartment in the District of Columbia by federal narcotics officers, who were executing a warrant to search for narcotics. Those officers found narcotics, without appropriate stamps, and narcotics paraphernalia in a bird's nest in an awning just outside a window in the apartment. Another officer, stationed outside the building, had a short time before seen petitioner put his hand on the awning. Upon the discovery of the narcotics and the paraphernalia petitioner had admitted to the officers that some of these were his and that he was living in the apartment.
The issue of petitioner's standing is to be decided with reference to Rule 41(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. This is a statutory direction governing the suppression of evidence acquired in violation of the conditions validating a search. It is desirable to set forth the Rule.
"A person aggrieved by an unlawful search and seizure may move the district court for the district in which the property was seized for the return of the property and to suppress for use as evidence anything so obtained on the ground that (1) the property was illegally seized without warrant, or (2) the warrant is insufficient on its face, or (3) the property seized is not that described in the warrant, or (4) there was not probable cause for believing the existence of the grounds on which the warrant was issued, or (5) the warrant was illegally executed. The judge shall receive evidence on any issue of fact necessary to the decision of the motion. If the motion is granted the property shall be restored unless otherwise subject to lawful detention and it shall not be admissible in evidence at any hearing or trial. The motion to suppress evidence may also be made in the district where the trial is to be had. The motion shall be made before trial or hearing unless opportunity therefor did not exist or the defendant was not aware of the grounds for the motion, but the court in its discretion may entertain the motion at the trial or hearing."
In order to qualify as a "person aggrieved by an unlawful search and seizure" one must have been a victim of a search or seizure, one against whom the search was directed, as distinguished from one who claims prejudice only through the use of evidence gathered as a consequence of a search or seizure directed at someone else. Rule 41(e) applies the general principle that a party will not be heard to claim a constitutional protection unless he "belongs to the class for whose sake the constitutional protection is given." Hatch v. Reardon, 204 U.S. 152, 160. The restrictions upon searches and seizures were obviously designed for protection against official invasion of privacy and the security of property. They are not exclusionary provisions against the admission of kinds of evidence deemed inherently unreliable or prejudicial. The exclusion in federal trials of evidence otherwise competent but gathered by federal officials in violation of the Fourth Amendment is a means for making effective the protection of privacy.
Ordinarily, then, it is entirely proper to require of one who seeks to challenge the legality of a search as the basis for suppressing relevant evidence that he allege, and if the allegation be disputed that he establish, that he himself was the victim of an invasion of privacy. But prosecutions like this one have presented a special problem. To establish "standing," Courts of Appeals have generally required that the movant claim either to have owned or possessed the seized property or to have had a substantial possessory interest in the premises searched. Since narcotics charges like those in the present indictment may be established through proof solely of possession of narcotics, a defendant seeking to comply with what has been the conventional standing requirement has been forced to allege facts the proof of which would tend, if indeed not be sufficient, to convict him. At the least, such a defendant has been placed in the criminally tendentious position of explaining his possession of the premises. He has been faced, not only with the chance that the allegations made on the motion to suppress may be used against him at the trial, although that they may is by no means an inevitable holding, but also with the encouragement that he perjure himself if he seeks to establish "standing" while maintaining a defense to the charge of possession.
Following this holding, several Courts of Appeals have pinioned a defendant within this dilemma. See, e. g., Scoggins v. United States, 92 U.S.App.D.C. 29-30, 202 F.2d 211, 212; United States v. Eversole, 209 F.2d 766, 768; Accardo v. United States, 101 U.S.App.D.C. 162, 163-164, 247 F.2d 568, 569-570; Grainger v. United States, 158 F.2d 236. A District Court has held otherwise. United States v. Dean, 50 F.2d 905, 906 (D.C. Mass.). The Government urges us to follow the body of Court of Appeals' decisions and to rule that the lower courts, including the courts below, have been right in barring a defendant in a case like this from challenging a search because of his failure, when making his motion to suppress, to allege either that he owned or possessed the property seized or that he had a possessory interest in the premises searched greater than the interest of an "invitee or guest."
The Government's argument to the contrary essentially invokes elegantia juris. In the interest of normal procedural orderliness, a motion to suppress, under Rule 41(e), must be made prior to trial, if the defendant then has knowledge of the grounds on which to base the motion. The Government argues that the defendant therefore must establish his standing to suppress the evidence at that time through affirmative allegations and may not wait to rest standing upon the Government's case at the trial. This provision of Rule 41(e), requiring the motion to suppress to be made before trial, is a crystallization of decisions of this Court requiring that procedure, and is designed to eliminate from the trial disputes over police conduct not immediately relevant to the question of guilt. See Nardone v. United States, 308 U.S. 338, 341-342; Segurola v. United States, 275 U.S. 106, 111-112; Agnello v. United States, 269 U.S. 20, 34; Adams v. New York, 192 U.S. 585. As codified, the rule is not a rigid one, for under Rule 41(e) "the court in its discretion may entertain the motion [to suppress] at the trial or hearing." This qualification proves that we are dealing with carrying out an important social policy and not a narrow, finicky procedural requirement. This underlying policy likewise precludes application of the Rule so as to compel the injustice of an internally inconsistent conviction. In cases where the indictment itself charges possession, the defendant in a very real sense is revealed as a "person aggrieved by an unlawful search and seizure" upon a motion to suppress evidence prior to trial. Rule 41(e) should not be applied to allow the Government to deprive the defendant of standing to bring a motion to suppress by framing the indictment in general terms, while prosecuting for possession.
While this Court has never passed upon the interest in the searched premises necessary to maintain a motion to suppress, the Government's argument closely follows the prevailing view in the lower courts. They have denied standing to "guests" and "invitees" ( e. g., Gaskins v. United States, 95 U.S.App.D.C. 34, 35, 218 F.2d 47, 48; Gibson v. United States, 80 U.S.App.D.C. 81, 84, 149 F.2d 381, 384; In re Nassetta, 125 F.2d 924; Jones v. United States, 104 U.S.App.D.C. 345, 262 F.2d 234), and employees, who though in "control" or "occupancy" lacked "possession" ( e. g., Connolly v. Medalie, 58 F.2d 629, 630; United States v. Conoscente, 63 F.2d 811). The necessary quantum of interest has been distinguished as being, variously, "ownership in or right to possession of the premises" ( e. g., Jeffers v. United States, 88 U.S.App.D.C. 58, 61, 187 F.2d 498, 501, affirmed, Jeffers v. United States, 342 U.S. 48), the interest of a "lessee or licensee" ( United States v. De Bousi, 32 F.2d 902), or of one with "dominion" ( McMillan v. United States, 26 F.2d 58, 60; Steeber v. United States, 198 F.2d 615, 617). We do not lightly depart from this course of decisions by the lower courts. We are persuaded, however, that it is unnecessary and ill-advised to import into the law surrounding the constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures subtle distinctions, developed and refined by the common law in evolving the body of private property law which, more than almost any other branch of law, has been shaped by distinctions whose validity is largely historical. Even in the area from which they derive, due consideration has led to the discarding of these distinctions in the homeland of the common law. See Occupiers' Liability Act, 1957, 5 and 6 Eliz. 2, c. 31, carrying out Law Reform Committee, Third Report, Cmd. 9305. Distinctions such as those between "lessee," "licensee," "invitee" and "guest," often only of gossamer strength, ought not to be determinative in fashioning procedures ultimately referable to constitutional safeguards.
We rejected such distinctions as inappropriate to the law of maritime torts in Kermarec v. Compagnie Generale, 358 U.S. 625, 630-632. We found there to be a duty of ordinary care to one rightfully on the ship, regardless of whether he was a "licensee" rather than an "invitee." "For the admiralty law at this late date to import such conceptual distinctions would be foreign to its traditions of simplicity and practicality." 358 U.S., at 631. A fortiori we ought not to bow to them in the fair administration of the criminal law. To do so would not comport with our justly proud claim of the procedural protections accorded to those charged with crime. No just interest of the Government in the effective and rigorous enforcement of the criminal law will be hampered by recognizing that anyone legitimately on premises where a search occurs may challenge its legality by way of a motion to suppress, when its fruits are proposed to be used against him. This would of course not avail those who, by virtue of their wrongful presence, cannot invoke the privacy of the premises searched. As petitioner's testimony established Evans' consent to his presence in the apartment, he was entitled to have the merits of his motion to suppress adjudicated.
The affidavit is set out in the margin. Didone was a member of the Narcotic Squad in the District of Columbia. His affidavit claimed no direct knowledge of the presence of narcotics in the apartment. He swore that on the day before making the affidavit he had been given information, by one unnamed, that petitioner and another "were involved in the illicit narcotic traffic" and "kept a ready supply of heroin on hand" in the apartment. He swore that his informant claimed to have purchased narcotics at the apartment from petitioner and another "on many occasions," the last of which had been the day before the warrant was applied for. Didone swore that his informant "has given information to the undersigned on previous occasion and which was correct," that "[t]his same information" regarding petitioner had been given the narcotic squad by "other sources of information" and that the petitioner and the other implicated by the informant had admitted being users of narcotics. On this basis Didone founded his oath that he believed "that there is now illicit narcotic drugs being secreated [ sic] in the above apartment by Cecil Jones."
"Affidavit in Support of a U.S. Commissioners Search Warrant for Premises 1436 Meridian Place, N.W., Washington, D.C., apartment 36, including window spaces of said apartment. Occupied by Cecil Jones and Earline Richardson. "In the late afternoon of Tuesday, August 20, 1957, I, Detective Thomas Didone, Jr. received information that Cecil Jones and Earline Page 268 Richardson were involved in the illicit narcotic traffic and that they kept a ready supply of heroin on hand in the above mentioned apartment. The source of information also relates that the two aforementioned persons kept these same narcotics either on their person, under a pillow, on a dresser or on a window ledge in said apartment. The source of information goes on to relate that on many occasions the source of information has gone to said apartment and purchased narcotic drugs from the above mentioned persons and that the narcotics were secreated [ sic] in the above mentioned places. The last time being August 20, 1957. "Both the aforementioned persons are familiar to the undersigned and other members of the Narcotic Squad. Both have admitted to the use of narcotic drugs and display needle marks as evidence of same. "This same information, regarding the illicit narcotic traffic, conducted by Cecil Jones and Earline Richardson, has been given to the undersigned and to other officers of the narcotic squad by other sources of information. "Because the source of information mentioned in the opening paragraph has given information to the undersigned on previous occasion and which was correct, and because this same information is given by other sources does believe that there is now illicit narcotic drugs being secreated [ sic] in the above apartment by Cecil Jones and Earline Richardson. "Det. Thomas Didone, Jr., Narcotic Squad, MPDC. "Subscribed and sworn to before me this 21 day of August, 1957. "James F. Splain, U.S. Commissioner, D.C."
In testing the sufficiency of probable cause for an officer's action even without a warrant, we have held that he may rely upon information received through an informant, rather than upon his direct observations, so long as the informant's statement is reasonably corroborated by other matters within the officer's knowledge. Draper v. United States, 358 U.S. 307. We there upheld an arrest without a warrant solely upon an informant's statement that the defendant was peddling narcotics, as corroborated by the fact that the informant's description of the defendant's appearance, and of where he would be on a given morning (matters in themselves totally innocuous) agreed with the officer's observations. We rejected the contention that an officer may act without a warrant only when his basis for acting would be competent evidence upon a trial to prove defendant's guilt. Quoting from Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 172, we said that such a contention "goes much too far in confusing and disregarding the difference between what is required to prove guilt in a criminal case and what is required to show probable cause for arrest or search. . . . There is a large difference between the two things to be proved [guilt and probable cause] . . . and therefore a like difference in the quanta and modes of proof required to establish them." 358 U.S., at 311-312. The dictum to the contrary in Grau v. United States, 287 U.S. 124, 128, was expressly rejected in Draper. 358 U.S., at 312, n. 4. See also Judge Learned Hand in United States v. Heitner, 149 F.2d 105, 106.
What we have ruled in the case of an officer who acts without a warrant governs our decision here. If an officer may act upon probable cause without a warrant when the only incriminating evidence in his possession is hearsay, it would be incongruous to hold that such evidence presented in an affidavit is insufficient basis for a warrant. If evidence of a more judicially competent or persuasive character than would have justified an officer in acting on his own without a warrant must be presented when a warrant is sought, warrants could seldom legitimatize police conduct, and resort to them would ultimately be discouraged. Due regard for the safeguards governing arrests and searches counsels the contrary. In a doubtful case, when the officer does not have clearly convincing evidence of the immediate need to search, it is most important that resort be had to a warrant, so that the evidence in the possession of the police may be weighed by an independent judicial officer, whose decision, not that of the police, may govern whether liberty or privacy is to be invaded.
In the Court of Appeals petitioner presented an additional attack upon the legality of the search, namely, that the warrant was not executed in conformity with 18 U.S.C. § 3109. Since petitioner did not, with ample opportunity to do so, make this claim in the District Court, we should not ordinarily consider it here had the Court of Appeals refused for that reason to entertain it. The Court of Appeals, however, fully considered the claim and rejected it; nor does the Government contend that it is not properly before us. In these circumstances we hold that the question of the legality of the execution of the search warrant under 18 U.S.C. § 3109 is open for our decision.
Unlike the claim of lack of probable cause, this contention is not one which can satisfactorily be resolved upon the record before us. As Miller v. United States, 357 U.S. 301, demonstrated, a claim under 18 U.S.C. § 3109 depends upon the particular circumstances surrounding the execution of the warrant. The trial revealed a direct conflict in testimony on this matter. We cannot yield to the Government's suggestion that we ignore that conflict and consider the question on the version of the warrant's execution given at the trial most favorable to the prosecution. We therefore vacate the decision of the Court of Appeals and remand the case to the District Court to consider petitioner's contention under 18 U.S.C. § 3109, in light of our decision that petitioner had standing to make it.