Source: https://openjurist.org/412/us/218
Timestamp: 2017-10-18 09:58:20
Document Index: 575657197

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2255', '§ 2255', '§ 2254', '§ 2255', '§ 2254', '§ 2255', '§ 2254', '§ 2255', '§ 2255', '§ 2254', '§ 2254', '§ 7', '§ 826', '§ 826', '§ 1', '§ 1983', '§ 2184', '§ 2254']

412 US 218 Schneckloth v. Bustamonte | OpenJurist
412 U.S. 218 - Schneckloth v. Bustamonte
Merle R. SCHNECKLOTH, Superintendent, California Conservation Center, Petitioner,
Robert Clyde BUSTAMONTE.
It is also argued that the failure to require the Government to establish knowledge as a prerequisite to a valid consent, will relegate the Fourth Amendment to the special province of 'the sophisticated, v. knowledgeable and the privileged.' We cannot agree. The traditional definition of voluntariness we accept today has always taken into account evidence of minimal schooling, low intelligence, and the lack of any effective warnings to a person of his rights; and the voluntariness of any statement taken under those conditions has been carefully scrutinized to determine whether it was in fact voluntarily given.37
At the time Kaufman v. United States, 394 U.S. 217, 89 S.Ct. 1068, 22 L.Ed.2d 227 (1969), was decided, I, as a member of the Court of Appeals (but not of its panel) whose order was there reversed, found myself in agreement with the views expressed by Mr. Justice Harlan, writing for himself and my Brother Stewart in dissent. Id., at 242, 89 S.Ct., at 1082. My attitude has not changed in the four years that have passed since Kaufman was decided.
While I join the opinion of the Court, it does not address what seems to me the overriding issue briefed and argued in this case: the extent to which federal habeas corpus should be available to a state prisoner seeking to exclude evidence from an allegedly unlawful search and seizure. I would hold that federal collateral review of a state prisoner's Fourth Amendment claims claims which rarely bear on innocence—should be confined solely to the question of whether the petitioner was provided a fair opportunity to raise and have adjudicated the question in state courts. In view of the importance of this issue to our system of criminal justice, I think it appropriate to express my views.
* Although petitions for federal habeas corpus assert a wide variety of constitutional questions, we are concerned in this case only with a Fourth Amendment claim that an unlawful search occurred and that the state court erred in failing to exclude the evidence obtained therefrom. A divided court in Kaufman v. United States, 394 U.S. 217, 89 S.Ct. 1068, 22 L.Ed.2d 227 (1969), held that collateral review of search-and-seizure claims was appropriate on motions filed by federal prisoners under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. Until Kaufman, a substantial majority of the federal courts of appeals had considered that claims of unlawful search and seizure "are not proper matters to be presented by a motion to vacate sentence under § 2255 . . .." Id., at 220, 89 S.Ct., at 1070. The rationale of this view was fairly summarized by the Court:
'The denial of Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, the Government's argument runs, is of a different nature from denials of other constitutional rights which we have held subject to collateral attack by federal prisoners. For unlike a claim of denial of effective counsel or of violation of the privilege against self-incrimination, as examples, a claim of illegal search and seizure does not impugn the integrity of the fact-finding process or challenge evidence as inherently unreliable; rather, the exclusion of illegally seized evidence is simply a prophylatic device intended generally to deter Fourth Amendment violations by law enforcement officers.' Id., at 224, 89 S.Ct., at 1073.
In rejecting this rationale, the Court noted that under prior decisions 'the federal habeas remedy extends to state prisoners alleging that unconstitutionally obtained evidence was admitted against them at trial.'1 and concluded that there was no basis for restricting 'access by federal prisoners with illegal search-and-seizure claims to federal collateral remedies, while placing no similar restriction on access by state prisoners.' Id., at 225—226, 89 S.Ct., at 1073—1074. In short, on petition for habeas corpus or collateral review filed in a federal district court, whether by state prisoners under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 or federal prisoners under § 2255, the present rule is that Fourth Amendment claims may be asserted and the exclusionary rule must be applied in precisely the same manner as on direct review. Neither the history or purpose of habeas corpus, the desired prophylactic utility of the exclusionary rule as applied to Fourth Amendment claims, nor any sound reason relevant to the administration of criminal justice in our federal system justifies such a power.
The federal review involved in this Fourth Amendment case goes well beyond the traditional purpose of the writ of habeas corpus. Much of the present perception of habeas corpus stems from a revisionist view of the historic function that writ was meant to perform. The critical historical argument has focused on the nature of the writ at the time of its incorporation in our Constitution and at the time of the Habeas Corpus Act of 1867, the direct ancestor of contemporary habeas corpus statutes.2 In Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 426, 83 S.Ct. 822, 842, 9 L.Ed.2d 837 (1963), the Court interpreted the writ's historic position as follows:
'At the time the provilege of the writ was written into the Federal Constitution it was settled that the writ lay to test any restraint contrary to fundamental law, which in England stemmed ultimately from Magna Charta but in this country was embodied in the written Constitution. Congress in 1867 sought to provide a federal forum for state prisoners having constitutional defenses by extending the habeas corpus powers of the federal courts to their constitutional maximum. Obedient to this purpose, we have consistently held that federal court jurisdiction is conferred by the allegation of an unconstitutional restraint and is not defeated by anything that may occur in the state court proceedings.'
It has been established that both the Framers of the Constitution and the authors of the 1867 Act expected that the scope of habeas corpus would be determined with reference to the writ's historic, common-law development.3 Mr. Chief Justice Marshall early referred to the common-law conception of the writ in determining its constitutional and statutory scope, Ex parte Bollman, 4 Cranch 75, 93—94, 2 L.Ed. 554 (1807); Ex parte Watkins, 3 Pet. 193, 201—202, 7 L.Ed. 650 (1830), and Professor Oaks has noted that 'when the 1867 Congress provided that persons restrained of their liberty in violation of the Constitution could obtain a writ of habeas corpus from a federal court, it undoubtedly intended—except to the extent the legislation provided otherwise—to incorporate the common-law uses and functions of this remedy.'4
It thus becomes important to understand exactly what was the common-law scope of the writ both when embraced by our Constitution and incorporated into the Habeas Corpus Act of 1867. Two respected scholars have recently explored precisely these questions.5 Their efforts have been both meticulous and revealing. Their conclusions differ significantly from those of the Court in Fay v. Noia, that habeas corpus traditionally has been available 'to remedy any kind of governmental restraint contrary to fundamental law.' 372 U.S., at 405, 83 S.Ct., at 831.
The considerable evidence marshaled by these scholars need not be restated here. Professor Oaks makes a convincing case that under the common law of habeas corpus at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, 'once a person had been convicted by a superior court or general jurisdiction, a court disposing of a habeas corpus petition could not go behind the conviction for any purpose other than to verify the formal jurisdiction of the committing court.'6 Certainly that was what Mr. Chief Justice Marshall understood when he stated:
'This writ (habeas corpus) is, as has been said, in the nature of a writ of error which brings up the body of the prisoner with the cause of commitment. The court can undoubtedly inquire into the sufficiency of that cause; but if it be the judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction, especially a judgment withdrawn by law from the revision of this court, is not that judgment in itself sufficient cause? Can the court, upon this writ, look beyond the judgment, and re-examine the charges on which it was rendered. A judgment, in its nature, concludes the subject on which it is rendered, and pronounces the law of the case. The judgment of a court of record whose jurisdiction is final, is as conclusive on all the world as the judgment of this court would be. It is as conclusive on this court as it is on other courts. It puts an end to inequiry concerning the fact, by deciding it.' Ex parte Watkins, 3 Pet., at 202—203.
The respect shown under common law for the finality of the judgment of a committing court at the time of the Constitution and in the early 19th century did not, of course, explicitly contemplate the operation of habeas corpus in the context of federal-state relations. Federal habeas review for state prisoners was not available until passage of the Habeas Corpus Act of 1867. Yet there is no evidence that Congress intended that Act to jettison the respect theretofore shown by a reviewing court for prior judgments by a court of proper jurisdiction. The Act 'received only the most perfunctory attention and consideration in the Congress; indeed, there were complaints that its effects could not be understood at all.'7 In fact, as Professor Bator notes, it would require overwhelming evidence, which simply is not present, to conclude that the 1867 Congress intended 'to tear habeas corpus entirely out of the context of its historical meaning and scope and convert it into an ordinary writ of error with respect to all federal questions in all criminal cases.'8 Rather, the House Judiciary Committee when it reviewed the Act in 1884 understood that it was not 'contemplated by its framers or . . . properly . . . construed to authorize the overthrow of the final judgments of the State courts of general jurisdiction, by the inferior Federal judges. . . .'9
Much, of course, has transpired since that first Habeas Corpus Act. See Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S., at 449—463, 83 S.Ct., at 854—862 (Harlan, J., dissenting). The scope of federal habeas corpus for state prisoners has evolved from a quite limited inquiry into whether the committing state court had jurisdiction, Andrews v. Swartz, 156 U.S. 272, 15 S.Ct. 389, 39 L.Ed. 422 (1895); In re Moran, 203 U.S. 96, 27 S.Ct. 25, 51 L.Ed. 105 (1906), to whether the applicant had been given an adequate opportunity in state court to raise his constitutional claims, Frank v. Mangum, 237 U.S. 307, 35 S.Ct. 582, 59 L.Ed. 969 (1915); and finally to actual redetermination in federal court of state court rulings on a wide variety of constitutional contentions, Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 73 S.Ct. 397, 97 L.Ed. 469 (1953). No one would now suggest that this Court be imprisoned by every particular of habeas corpus as it existed in the late 18th and 19th centuries. But recognition of that reality does not liberate us from all historical restraint. The historical evidence demonstrates that the purposes of the writ, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, were tempered by a due regard for the finality of the judgment of the committing court. This regard was maintained substantially intact when Congress, in the Habeas Corpus Act of 1867, first extended federal habeas review to the delicate interrelations of our dual court systems.
Recent decisions, however, have tended to depreciate the importance of the finality of prior judgments in criminal cases. Kaufman, 394 U.S., at 228, 89 S.Ct., at 1075, 22 L.Ed.2d 227; Sanders v. United States, 373 U.S. 1, 8, 83 S.Ct. 1068, 1073, 10 L.Ed.2d 148 (1963); Fay, supra, 372 U.S., at 424, 83 S.Ct., at 841. This trend may be a justifiable evolution of the use of habeas corpus where the one in state custody raises a constitutional claim bearing on his innocence. But the justification for disregarding the historic scope and function of the writ is measurably less apparent in the typical Fourth Amendment claim asserted on collateral attack. In this latter case, a convicted defendant is most often asking society to redetermine a matter with no bearing at all on the basic justice of his incarceration.
Habeas corpus indeed should provide the added assurance for a free society that no innocent man suffers an unconstitutional loss of liberty. The Court in Fay described habeas corpus as a remedy for 'whatever society deems to be intolerable restraints,' and recognized that those to whom the writ should be granted 'are persons whom society has grievously wronged and for whom belated liberation is little enough compensation.' Id., at 401—402, 441, 83 S.Ct., at 829, 850. The Court there acknowledged that the central reason for the writ lay in remedying injustice to the individual. Recent commentators have recognized the same core concept, one noting that 'where personal liberty is involved, a democratic society . . . insists that it is less important to reach an unshakable decision than to do justice (emphasis added),'10 and another extolling the use of the writ in Leyra v. Denno, 347 U.S. 556, 74 S.Ct. 716, 98 L.Ed. 948 (1954), with the assertion that '(b)ut for federal habeas corpus, these two men would have gone to their deaths for crimes of which they were found not guilty.'11
Federal habeas review of search and seizure claims is rarely relevant to this reason. Prisoners raising Fourth Amendment claims collaterally usually are quite justly detained. The evidence obtained from searches and seizures is often 'the clearest proof of guilt' with a very high content of reliability.12 Rarely is there any contention that the search rendered the evidence unreliable or that its means cast doubt upon the prisoner's guilt. The words of Mr. Justice Black drive home the point:
'A claim of illegal search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment is crucially different from many other constitutional rights; ordinarily the evidence seized can in no way have been rendered untrustworthy by the means of its seizure and indeed often this evidence alone establishes beyond virtually any shadow of a doubt that the defendant is guilty.' Kaufman v. United States, 394 U.S., at 237, 89 S.Ct., at 1079 (1969) (dissenting opinion).
When raised on federal habeas, a claim generally has been considered by two or more tiers of state courts. It is the solemn duty of these courts, no less than federal ones, to safeguard personal liberties and consider federal claims in accord with federal law. The task which federal courts are asked to perform on habeas is thus most often one that has or should have been done before. The presumption that 'if a job can be well done once, it sould not be done twice' is sound and one calculated to utilize best 'the intellectual, moral, and political resources involved in the legal system.'13
The present scope of federal habeas corpus also have worked to defeat the interest of society in a rational point of termination for criminal litigation. Professor Amsterdam has identified some of the finality interests at stake in collateral proceedings:
'They involve (a) duplication of judicial effort; (b) delay in setting the criminal proceeding at rest; (c) inconvenience and possibly danger in transporting a prisoner to the sentencing court for hearing; (d) postponed litigation of fact, hence litigation which will often be less reliable in reproducing the facts (i) respecting the postconviction claim itself, and (ii) respecting the issue of a guilt if the collateral attack succeeds in a form which allows retrial. . . .'
'(I)n combination, these finality considerations amount to a more or less persuasive argument against the cognizability of any particular collateral claim, the strength of the argument depending upon the nature of the claim, the manner of its treatment (if any) in the conviction proceedings, and the circumstances under which collateral litigation must be had.'16
Nowhere should the merit of this view be more self-evident than in collateral attack on an allegedly unlawful search and seizure, where the petitioner often asks society to redetermine a claim with no relationship at all to the justness of his confinement. Professor Amsterdam has noted that 'for reasons which are common to all search and seizure claims,' he 'would hold even a slight finality interest sufficient to deny the collateral remedy.'18 But, in fact, a strong finality interest militates against allowing collateral review of search-and-seizure claims. Apart from the duplication of resources inherent in most habeas corpus proceedings, the validity of a search-and-seizure claim frequently hinges on a complex matrix of events which may be difficult indeed for the habeas court to disinter especially where, as often happens, the trial occurred years before the collateral attack and the state record is thinly sketched.19
Finally, the present scope of habeas corpus tends to undermine the values inherent in our federal system of government. To the extent that every state criminal judgment is to be subject indefinitely to broad and repetitive federal oversight, we render the actions of state courts a serious disrespect in derogation of the constitutional balance between the two systems.20 The present expansive scope of federal habeas review has prompted no small friction between state and federal judiciaries. Justice Paul C. Reardon of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and then President of the National Center for State Courts, in identifying problems between the two systems, noted bluntly that '(t)he first, without question, is the effect of Federal habeas corpus proceedings on State courts.' He spoke of the 'humiliation of review from the full bench of the highest State appellate court to a single United States District Court judge.' Such broad federal habeas powers encourage in his view the 'growing denigration of the State courts and their functions in the public mind.'21 In so speaking Justice Reardon echoed the words of Professor Bator:
'I could imagine nothing more subversive of a judge's sense of responsibility, of the inner subjective conscientiousness which is so essential a part of the difficult and subtle art of judging well, than an indiscriminate acceptance of the notion that all the shots will always be called by someone else.'22
'I would always require that the convicted defendant raise the kind of constitutional claim that casts some shadow of a doubt on his guilt.' Kaufman v. United States, 394 U.S., at 242, 89 S.Ct., at 1082 (dissenting opinion).
In a perceptive analysis, Judge Henry J. Friendly expressed a similar view. He would draw the line against habeas corpus review in the absence of a 'colorable claim of innocence':
'(W)ith a few important exceptions, convictions should be subject to collateral attack only when the prisoner supplements his constitutional plea with a colorable claim of innocence.'23
'It (Mr. Justice Black's view) brings into question the propriety of the exclusionary rule itself. The application of that rule is not made to turn on the existence of a possibility of innocence; rather, exclusion of illegally obtained evidence is deemed necessary to protect the right of all citizens, not merely the citizen on trial, to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures.' 394 U.S., at 229, 89 S.Ct., at 1075. (Emphasis added.)
The exclusionary rule has occasioned much criticism, largely on grounds that its application permits guilty defendants to go free and law-breaking officers to go unpunished.24 The oft-asserted reason for the rule is to deter illegal searches and seizures by the police, Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 217, 80 S.Ct. 1437, 1444, 4 L.Ed.2d 1669 (1960); Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 656, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 1692, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961); Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 636, 85 S.Ct. 1731, 1741, 14 L.Ed.2d 601 (1965); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 29, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1884, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968).25 The efficacy of this deterrent function, however, has been brought into serious question by recent empirical research. Whatever the rule's merits on an initial trial and appeal26—a question not in issue here—the case for collateral application of the rule is an anemic one. On collateral attack, the exclusionary rule retains its major liabilities while the asserted benefit of the rule dissolves. For whatever deterrent function the rule may serve when applied on trial and appeal becomes greatly attenuated when, months or years afterward, the claim surfaces for collateral review. The impermissible conduct has long since occurred, and the belated wrist slap of state police by federal courts harms no one but society on whom the convicted criminal is newly released.27
Searches and seizures are an opaque area of the law: flagrant Fourth Amendment abuses will rarely escape detection but there is a vast twilight zone with respect to which one Justice has stated that our own 'decisions . . . are hardly notable for their predictability,'28 and another had observed that this Court was "bifurcating elements too infinitesimal to be split."29 Serious Fourth Amendment infractions can be dealt with by state judges or by this Court on direct review. But the nonfrivolous Fourth Amendment claims that survive for collateral attack are most likely to be in this grey, twilight area, where the law is difficult for courts to apply, let alone for the policeman on the beat to understand. This is precisely the type of case where the deterrent function of the exclusionary rule is least efficacious, and where there is the least justification for freeing a duly convicted defendant.30
Our decisions have not encouraged the thought that what may be an appropriate constitutional policy in one context automatically becomes such for all times and all seasons. In Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S., at 629, 85 S.Ct., at 1738, the Court recognized the compelling practical considerations against retroactive application of the exclusionary rule. Rather than viewing the rule as having eternal constitutional verity, the Court decided to
'weigh the merits and demerits in each case by looking to the prior history of the rule in question, its purpose and effect, and whether retrospective operation will further or retard its operation. We believe that this approach is particularly correct with reference to the Fourth Amendment's prohibitions as to unreasonable searches and seizures.' Id., at 629, 85 S.Ct., at 1738.
'The misconduct of the police prior to Mapp has already occurred and will not be corrected by releasing the prisoners involved. . . . Finally, the ruptured privacy of the victims' homes and effects cannot be restored. Reparation comes too late.' Id., at 637, 85 S.Ct., at 1742.
See also Desist v. United States, 394 U.S. 244, 89 S.Ct. 1030, 22 L.Ed.2d 248 (1969).
The same practical, particularized analysis of the exclusionary rule's necessity also was evident in Walder v. United States, 347 U.S. 62, 74 S.Ct. 354, 98 L.Ed. 503 (1954), when the Court permitted the Government to utilize unlawfully seized evidence to impeach the credibility of a defendant who had first testified broadly in his own defense. The Court held, in effect, that the policies protected by the exclusionary rule were outweighed in this case by the need to prevent perjury and assure the integrity of proceedings at trial. The Court concluded that to apply the exclusionary rule in such circumstances 'would be a perversion of the Fourth Amendment.' Id., at 65, 74 S.Ct., at 356. The judgment in Walder revealed most pointedly that the policies behind the exclusionary rule are neither absolute nor all-encompassing, but rather must be weighed and balanced against a competing and more compelling policy, namely the need for effective determination of truth at trial.
'The Supreme Court, a Justice thereof, a circuit judge, or a district court shall entertain an application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court only on the ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.'
The trend in recent years has witnessed a proliferation of constitutional rights, 'a vast expansion of the claims of error in criminal cases for which a resourceful defense lawyer can find a constitutional basis.'31 Federal habeas jurisdiction has been extended far beyond anyone's expectation or intendment when the concept of 'custody in violation of the Constitution,' now in § 2254(a), first appeared in federal law over a century ago.32
Mr. Justice Black was clearly correct in noting that 'not every conviction based in part on a denial of a constitutional right is subject to attack by habeas corpus or § 2255 proceedings after a conviction has become final.' Kaufman, 394 U.S., at 232, 89 S.Ct., at 1077, 22 L.Ed.2d 227 (dissenting opinion). No evidence exists that Congress intended every allegation of a constitutional violation to afford an appropriate basis for collateral review: indeed, the latest revisions of the Federal Habeas Corpus statute in 196633 and the enactment of § 2254(a) came at the time a majority of the courts of appeals held that claims of unlawful search and seizure "are not proper matters to be presented by a motion to vacate sentence under § 2255 but can only be properly presented by appeal from the conviction." Id., at 220, 89 S.Ct., at 1070, quoting Warren v. United States, 311 F.2d 673, 675 (CA8 1963).34 Though the precise discussion in Kaufman concerned the claims of federal prisoners under § 2255, the then-existing principle of a distinction between review of search-and-seizure claims in direct and collateral proceedings clearly existed.
'Although only a small number of these (habeas) applications have been found meritorious, the applications in their totality have imposed a heavy burden on the Federal courts. . . . The bill seeks to alleviate the unnecessary burden by introducing a greater degree of finality of judgments in habeas corpus proceedings.' S.Rep.No. 1797, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1966) U.S. Code Cong. & Admin. News 1966, p. 3664.35
'While in only a small number of these applications have the petitioners been successful, they nevertheless have not only imposed an unnecessary burden on the work of the Federal courts but have also greatly interfered with the procedures and processes of the State courts by delaying, in many cases, the proper enforcement of their judgments.' H.R.Rep.No. 1892, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 5 (1966).
This most recent congressional expression on the scope of federal habeas corpus reflected the sentiment, shared alike by judges and legislators, that the writ has overrun its historical banks to inundate the dockets of federal courts and denigrate the role of state courts. Though Congress did not address the precise question at hand, nothing in § 2254(a), the state of the law at the time of its adoption, or the historical uses of the language 'custody in violation of the Constitution' from which § 2254(a) is derived,36 compels a holding that rulings of state courts on claims of unlawful search and seizure must be reviewed and redetermined in collateral proceedings.
Perhaps no single development of the criminal law has had consequences so profound as the escalating use, over the past two decades, of federal habeas corpus to reopen and readjudicate state criminal judgments. I have commented in Part IV above on the far-reaching consequences: the burden on the system,37 in terms of demands on the courts, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and other personnel and facilities; the absence of efficiency and finality in the criminal process, frustrating both the deterrent function of the law and the effectiveness of rehabilitation; the undue subordination of state courts, with the resulting exacerbation of state-federal relations; and the subtle erosion of the doctrine of federalism itself. Perhaps the single most disquieting consequence of open-ended habeas review is reflected in the prescience of Mr. Justice Jackson's warning that '(i)t must prejudice the occasional meritorious application to be buried in a flood of worthless ones.'38
If these consequences flowed from the safeguarding of constitutional claims of innocence they should, of course, be accepted as a tolerable price to pay for cherished standards of justice at the same time that efforts are pursued to find more rational procedures. Yet, as illustrated by the case before us today, the question on habeas corpus is too rerely whether the prisoner was innocent of the crime for which he was convicted39 and too frequently whether some evidence of undoubted probative value has been admitted in violation of an exclusionary rule ritualistically applied without due regard to whether it has the slightest likelihood of achieving its avowed prophylactic purpose.
It is this paradox of a system, which so often seems to subordinate substance to form, that increasingly provokes criticism and lack of confidence. Indeed, it is difficult to explain why a system of criminal justice deserves respect which allows repetitive reviews of convictions long since held to have been final at the end of the normal process of trial and appeared where the basis for re-examination is not even that the convicted defendant was innocent. There has been a halo about the 'Great Writ' that no one would wish to dim. Yet one must wonder whether the stretching of its use far beyond any justifiable purpose will not in the end weaken rather than strengthen the writ's vitality.
I agree with the Court of Appeals that 'verbal assent' to a search is not enough, that the fact that consent was given to the search does not imply that the suspect knew that the alternative of a refusal existed. 448 F.2d 699, 700. As that court stated:
'(U)nder many circumstances a reasonable person might read an officer's 'May I' as the courteous expression of a demand backed by force of law.' Id., at 701.
A considerable constitutional guarantee rides on this narrow issue. At the time of the search there was no probable cause to believe that the car contained contraband or other unlawful articles. The car was stopped only because a headlight and the license plate light were burned out. The car belonged to Alcala's brother, from whom it was borrowed, and Alcala had a driver's license. Traffic citations were appropriately issued. The car was searched, the present record showing that Alcala consented. But whether Alcala knew he had the right to refuse, we do not know. All the Court of Appeals did was to remand the case to the District Court for a finding—and if necessary, a hearing on that issue.
The Fourth Amendment specifically guarantees '(t)he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures . . ..' We have consistently held that governmental searches conducted pursuant to a validly obtained warrant or reasonably incident to a valid arrest do not violate this guarantee. Here, however, as the Court itself recognizes, no search warrant was obtained and the State does not even suggest 'that there was probable cause to search the vehicle or that the search was incident to a valid arrest of any of the occupants.' Ante, at 227—228. As a result, the search of the vehicle can be justified solely on the ground that the owner's brother gave his consent—that is, that he waived his Fourth Amendment right 'to be secure' against an otherwise 'unreasonable' search. The Court holds today that an individual can effectively waive this right even though he is totally ignorant of the fact that, in the absence of his consent, such invasions of his privacy would be constitutionally prohibited. It wholly escapes me how our citizens can meaningfully be said to have waived something as precious as a constitutional guarantee without ever being aware of its existence. In my view, the Court's conclusion is supported neither by 'linguistics,' nor by 'epistemology,' nor, indeed, by 'common sense.' I respectfully dissent.
Several years ago, Mr. Justice Stewart reminded us that '(t)he Constitution guarantees . . . a society of free choice. Such a society presupposes the capacity of its members to choose.' Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629, 649, 88 S.Ct. 1274, 1285, 20 L.Ed.2d 195 (1968) (concurring in result). I would have thought that the capacity to choose necessarily depends upon knowledge that there is a choice to be made. But today the Court reaches the curious result that one can choose to relinquish a constitutional right—the right to be free of unreasonable searches—without knowing that he has the alternative of refusing to accede to a police request to search.1 I cannot agree, and therefore dissent.
* I believe that the Court misstates the true issue in this case. That issue is not, as the Court suggests whether the police overbore Alcala's will in eliciting his consent, but rather, whether a simple statement of assent to search, without more,2 should be sufficient to permit the police to search and thus act as a relinquishment of Alcala's constitutional right to exclude the police.3 This Court has always scrutinized with great care claims that a person has forgone the opportunity to assert constitutional rights. See, e.g., Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67, 92 S.Ct. 1983, 32 L.Ed.2d 556 (1972); D. H. Overmyer Co., Inc. v. Frick Co., 405 U.S. 174, 92 S.Ct. 775, 31 L.Ed.2d 124 (1972); Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969); Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U.S. 506, 82 S.Ct. 884, 8 L.Ed.2d 70 (1962). I see no reason to give the claim that a person consented to a search any less rigorous scrutiny. Every case in this Court involving this kind of search has heretofore spoken of consent as a waiver.4 See, e.g., Amos v. United States, 255 U.S. 313, 317, 41 S.Ct. 266, 267, 65 L.Ed. 654 (1921); Zap v. United States, 328 U.S. 624, 628, 66 S.Ct. 1277, 1279, 90 L.Ed. 1477 (1946); Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13, 68 S.Ct. 367, 368, 92 L.Ed. 436 (1948).5 Perhaps one skilled in linguistics or opistemology can disregard those comments, but I find them hard to ignore.
The Fifth Amendment, in terms, provides that no person 'shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.' Nor is the interest protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment any different. The inquiry in a case where a confession is challenged as having been elicited in an unconstitutional manner is, therefore, whether the behavior of the police amounted to compulsion of the defendant.7 Because of the nature of the right to be free of compulsion, it would be pointless to ask whether a defendant knew of it before he made a statement; no sane person would knowingly relinquish a right to be free of compulsion. Thus, the questions of compulsion and of violation of the right itself are inextricably intertwined. The cases involving coerced confessions, therefore, pass over the question of knowledge of that right as irrelevant, and turn directly to the question of compulsion.
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), confirms this analysis. There the Court held that certain warnings must be given to suspects prior to their interrogation so that the inherently coercive nature of in-custody questioning would be diminished by the suspect's knowledge that he could remain silent. But, although those warnings, of course, convey information about various rights of the accused, the information is intended only to protect the suspect against acceding to the other coercive aspects of police interrogation. While we would not ordinarily think that a suspect could waive his right to be free of coercion, for example, we do permit suspects to waive the rights they are informed of by police warnings, on the belief that such information in itself sufficiently decreases the chance that a statement would be elicited by compulsion. Id., at 475—476, 86 S.Ct., at 1628—1629. Thus, nothing the defendant did in the cases involving coerced confessions was taken to operate as a relinquishment of his rights; certainly the fact that the defendant made a statement was never taken to be a relinquishment of the right to be free of coercion.8
In contrast, this case deals not with 'coercion,' but with 'consent,' a subtly different concept to which different standards have been applied in the past. Freedom from coercion is a substantive right, guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Consent, however, is a mechanism by which substantive requirements, otherwise applicable, are avoided. In the context of the Fourth Amendment, the relevant substantive requirements are that searches be conducted only after evidence justifying them has been submitted to an impartial magistrate for a determination of probable cause. There are, of course, exceptions to these requirements based on a variety of exigent circumstances that make it impractical to invalidate a search simply because the police failed to get a warrant.9 But none of the exceptions relating to the overriding needs of law enforcement are applicable when a search is justified solely by consent. On the contrary, the needs of law enforcement are significantly more attenuated, for probable cause to search may be lacking but a search permitted if the subject's consent has been obtained. Thus, consent searches are permitted, not because such an exception to the requirements of probable cause and warrant is essential to proper law enforcement, but because we permit our citizens to choose whether or not they wish to exercise their constitutional rights. Our prior decisions simply do not support the view that a meaningful choice has been made solely because no coercion was brought to bear on the subject.
For example, in Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U.S. 543, 88 S.Ct. 1788, 20 L.Ed.2d 797 (1968), four law enforcement officers went to the home of Bumper's grandmother. They announced that they had a search warrant, and she permitted them to enter. Subsequently, the prosecutor chose not to rely on the warrant, but attempted to justify the search by the woman's consent. We held that consent could not be established 'by showing no more than acquiescence to a claim of lawful authority,' id., at 548—549, 88 S.Ct., at 1792. We did not there inquire into all the circumstances, but focused on a single fact, the claim of authority, even though the grandmother testified that no threats were made. Id., at 547 n. 8, 88 S.Ct., at 1791. It may be that, on the facts of that case, her consent was under all the circumstances involuntary, but it is plain that we did not apply the test adopted by the Court today. And, whatever the posture of the case when it reached this Court, it could not be said that the police in Bumper acted in a threatening or coercive manner, for they did have the warrant they said they had; the decision not to rely on it was made long after the search, when the case came into court.10
My approach to the case is straight-forward and, to me, obviously required by the notion of consent as a relinquishment of Fourth Amendment rights. I am at a loss to understand why consent 'cannot be taken literally to mean a 'knowing' choice.' Ante, at 224. In fact, I have difficulty in comprehending how a decision made without knowledge of available alternatives can be treated as a choice at all.
If consent to search means that a person has chosen to forgo his right to exclude the police from the place they seek to search, it follows that his consent cannot be considered a meaningful choice unless he knew that he could in fact exclude the police. The Court appears, however, to reject even the modest proposition that, if the subject of a search convinces the trier of fact that he did not know of his right to refuse assent to a police request for permission to search, the search must be held unconstitutional. For it says only that 'knowledge of the right to refuse consent is one factor to be taken into account.' Ante, at 227. I find this incomprehensible. I can think of no other situation in which we would say that a person agreed to some course of action if he convinced us that he did not know that there was some other course he might have pursued. I would therefore hold, at a minimum, that the prosecution may not rely on a purported consent to search if the subject of the search did not know that he could refuse to give consent. That, I think, is the import of Bumper v. North Carolina, supra. Where the police claim authority to search yet in fact lack such authority, the subject does not know that he may permissibly refuse them entry, and it is this lack of knowledge that invalidates the consent.
I think that any fair allocation of the burden would require that it be placed on the prosecution. On this question, the Court indulges in what might be called the 'straw man' method of adjudication. The Court responds to this suggestion by overinflating the burden. And, when it is suggested that the prosecution's burden of proof could be easily satisfied if the police informed the subject of his rights, the Court responds by refusing to require the police to make a 'detailed' inquiry. Ante, at 245. If the Court candidly faced the real question of allocating the burden of proof, neither of these maneuvers would be available to it.
If the burden is placed on the defendant, all the subject can do is to testify that he did not know of his rights. And I doubt that many trial judges will find for the defendant simply on the basis of that testimony. Precisely because the evidence is very hard to come by, courts have traditionally been reluctant to require a party to prove negatives such as the lack of knowledge. See, e.g., 9 J. Wigmore, Evidence 274 (3d ed. 1940); F. James, Civil Procedure § 7.8 (1965); E. Morgan, Some Problems of Proof Under the Anglo-American System of Litigation 75—76 (1956).
The Court contends that if an officer paused to inform the subject of his rights, the informality of the exchange would be destroyed. I doubt that a simple statement by an officer of an individual's right to refuse consent would do much to alter the informality of the exchange, except to alert the subject to a fact that he surely is entitled to know. It is not without significance that for many years the agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation have routinely informed subjects of their right to refuse consent, when they request consent to search. Note, Consent Searches: A Reappraisal After Miranda v. Arizona, 67 Col.L.Rev. 130, 143 n. 75 (1967) (citing letter from J. Edgar Hoover). The reported cases in which the police have informed subjects of their right to refuse consent show, also, that the information can be given without disrupting the casual flow of events. See, e.g., United States v. Miller, 395 F.2d 116 (CA7 1968). What evidence there is, then, rather strongly suggests that nothing disastrous would happen if the police, before requesting consent, informed the subject that he had a right to refuse consent and that his refusal would be respected.12
I must conclude with some reluctance that when the Court speaks of practicality, what it really is talking of is the continued ability of the police to capitalize on the ignorance of citizens so as to accomplish by subterfuge what they could not achieve by relying only on the knowing relinquishment of constitutional rights. Of course it would be 'practical' for the police to ignore the commands of the Fourth Amendment, if by practicality we mean that more criminals will be apprehended, even though the constitutional rights of innocent people also go by the board. But such a practical advantage is achieved only at the cost of permitting the police to disregard the limitations that the Constitution places on their behavior, a cost that a constitutional democracy cannot long absorb.
I find nothing in the opinion of the Court to dispel my belief that, in such a case, as the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said, '(u)nder many circumstances a reasonable person might read an officer's 'May I' as the courteous expression of a demand backed by force of law.' 448 F.2d, at 701. Most cases, in my view, are akin to Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U.S. 543, 88 S.Ct. 1788, 20 L.Ed.2d 797 (1968): consent is ordinarily given as acquiescence in an implicit claim of authority to search. Permitting searches in such circumstances, without any assurance at all that the subject of the search knew that, by his consent, he was relinquishing his constitutional rights, is something that I cannot believe is sanctioned by the Constitution.
The proper resolution of this case turns, I believe, on a realistic assessment of the nature of the interchange between citizens and the police, and of the practical import of allocating the burden of proof in one way rather than another. The Court seeks to escape such assessments by escalating its rhetoric to unwarranted heights, but no matter how forceful the adjectives the Court uses, it cannot avoid being judged by how well its image of these interchanges accords with reality. Although the Court says without real elaboration that it 'cannot agree,' ante, at 248, the holding today confines the protection of the Fourth Amendment against searches conducted without probable cause to the sophisticated, the knowledgeable, and, I might add, the few.13 In the final analysis, the Court now sanctions a game of blindman's buff, in which the police always have the upper hand, for the sake of nothing more than the convenience of the police. But the guarantees of the Fourth Amendment were never intended to shrink before such an ephemeral and changeable interest. The Framers of the Fourth Amendment struck the balance against this sort of convenience and in favor of certain basic civil rights. It is not for this Court to restrike that balance because of its own views of the needs of law enforcement officers. I fear that that is the effect of the Court's decision today.
'One would expect a hard-headed system like the common law to recognize exceptions even to the most comprehensive principle for safeguarding liberty. This is true of the prohibition of all searches and seizures as unreasonable unless authorized by a judicial warrant appropriately supported.' Davis v. United States, 328 U.S. 582, 609, 66 S.Ct. 1256, 1269, 90 L.Ed. 1453 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).
See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 507, and n. 3, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1645, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (Harlan, J., dissenting); Spano v. New York, 360 U.S. 315, 321 n. 2, 79 S.Ct. 1202, 1206, 3 L.Ed.2d 1265 (citing 28 cases).
Similarly, when we recently considered the meaning of a 'voluntary' guilty plea, we returned to the standards of 'voluntariness' developed in the coerced—confession cases. See Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 749, 90 S.Ct. 1463, 1469, 25 L.Ed.2d 747. See also n. 25, infra.
Bator & Vorenberg, Arrest, Detention, Interrogation and the Right to Counsel: Basic Problems and Possible Legislative Solutions, 66 Col.L.Rev. 62, 72—73. See also 3 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 826 (J. Chadbourn rev. 1970): 'When, for example, threats are used, the situation is one of choice between alternatives, either one disagreeable, to be sure, but still subject to a choice. As between the rack and a confession, the latter would usually be considered the less disagreeable; but it is nonetheless a voluntary choice.'
See generally Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S., at 508, 86 S.Ct., at 1645 (Harlan, J., dissenting); 3 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 826 (J. Chadbourn rev. 1970); Note, Developments in the Law: Confessions, 79 Harv.L.Rev. 938, 954—984.
See Note, Consent Searches; A Reappraisal After Miranda v. Arizona, 67 Col.L.Rev. 130, 130—131.
If there had been probable cause for the search of the automobile, a search warrant would not have been necessary in this case. See Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 93 L.Ed. 1879; Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543.
United States v. Curiale, 414 F.2d 744, 747 (2 Cir.).
Cf. Rosenthall v. Henderson, 389 F.2d 514, 516 (6 Cir.).
See, e.g., Gorman v. United States, 380 F.2d 158, 164 (CA1); United States ex rel. Code v. Mancusi, 429 F.2d 61, 66 (CA2); United States ex rel. Harris v. Hendricks, 423 F.2d 1096, 1101 (CA3); United States v. Vickers, 387 F.2d 703, 707 (CA4); United States v. Goosbey, 419 F.2d 818 (CA6); United States v. Noa, 443 F.2d 144, 147 (CA9); Leeper v. United States, 446 F.2d 281, 284 (CA10). But see, United States v. Nikrasch, 367 F.2d 740, 744 (CA7); United States v. Moderacki, 280 F.Supp. 633 (D.Del); United States v. Blalock, 255 F.Supp. 268 (ED Pa.). While there is dictum in Nikrasch to the effect that warnings are necessary for an effective Fourth Amendment consent, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit subsequently recanted that position and termed it 'of dubious propriety.' Byrd v. Lane, 398 F.2d 750, 755. The Court of Appeals limited Nikrasch to its facts—a case where a suspect arrested on a disorderly conduct charge and incarcerated for eight hours 'consented' from his jail cell to a search of his car.
See, e.g., People v. Roberts, 246 Cal.App.2d 715, 55 Cal.Rptr. 62; People v. Dahlke, 257 Cal.App.2d 82, 64 Cal.Rptr. 599; State v. Custer, 251 So.2d 287 (Fla.App.); State v. Oldham, 92 Idaho 124, 438 P.2d 275; State v. McCarty, 199 Kan. 116, 427 P.2d 616, vacated in part on other grounds, 392 U.S. 308, 88 S.Ct. 2065, 20 L.Ed.2d 1115; Hohnke v. Commonwealth, 451 S.W.2d 162 (Ky.); State v. Andrus, 250 La. 765, 199 So.2d 867; Morgan v. State, 2 Md.App. 440, 234 A.2d 762; State v. Witherspoon, 460 S.W.2d 281 (Mo.); State v. Forney, 181 Neb. 757, 150 N.W.2d 915; State v. Douglas, 260 Or. 60, 488 P.2d 1366.
This view is bolstered by Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564. There the Court determined that a suspect's wife was not operating as an agent of the State when she handed over her husband's guns and clothing to the police. We found nothing constitutionally suspect in the subjective forces that impelled the spouse to cooperate with the police. 'Among these are the simple but often powerful convention of openness and honesty, the fear that secretive behavior will intensify suspicion, and uncertainty as to what course is most likely to be helpful to the absent spouse.' Id., at 488, 91 S.Ct., at 488. 'The test . . . is whether Mrs. Coolidge, in light of all the circumstances of the case, must be regarded as having acted as an 'instrument' or agent of the state when she produced her husband's belongings.' Id., at 487, 91 S.Ct., at 2049.
Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461, itself relied on three civil cases, but none of those cases established the proposition that a waiver, to be effective, must be knowing and intelligent. Hodges v. Easton, 106 U.S. 408, 1 S.Ct. 307, 27 L.Ed. 169, which concerned the waiver of a civil jury trial by the submission of a special verdict to the jury, indicates only that 'every reasonable presumption should be indulged against . . . waiver.' Id., at 412, 1 S.Ct., at 311. Aetna Ins. Co. v. Kennedy, 301 U.S. 389, 57 S.Ct. 809, 81 L.Ed. 1177, is to the same effect. Ohio Bell Tel. Co. v. Public Utilities Comm'n, 301 U.S. 292, 57 S.Ct. 724, 81 L.Ed. 1093, which involved the possible waiver of procedural due process rights, stands only for the proposition that: 'We do not presume acquiescence in the loss of fundamental rights.' Id., at 307, 57 S.Ct., at 731.
Cf. Parden v. Terminal R. Co., 377 U.S. 184, 84 S.Ct. 1207, 12 L.Ed.2d 233 (operation of common carrier railroad found to be waiver of State's sovereign immunity despite objection that there was no 'waiver' under Johnson); National Equipment Rental, Ltd. v. Szukhent, 375 U.S. 311, 84 S.Ct. 411, 11 L.Ed.2d 354 (valid waiver of procedural due process found over objection of no compliance with Johnson). See also Employees of Dept. of Public Health and Welfare, Missouri v. Department of Public Health and Welfare, Missouri, 411 U.S. 279, 296, 93 S.Ct. 1614, 1623, 36 L.Ed.2d 251 (Marshall, J., concurring in result).
One apparent exception was Marchetti v. United States, 390 U.S. 39, 51—52, 88 S.Ct. 697, 704, 705, 19 L.Ed.2d 889, where we found no meaningful waiver of the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination when a gambler was forced to pay a wagering tax. We reasoned that there could be no choice when the gambler was faced with the alternative of giving up gambling or providing incriminatory information. Analytically, therefore, although the Court cited Johnson, Marchetti turned on the lack of a 'voluntary' waiver rather than the lack of any 'knowing' and 'intelligent' waiver.
See, e.g., Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 62 S.Ct. 457, 86 L.Ed. 680; Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U.S. 269, 63 S.Ct. 236, 87 L.Ed. 268; Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U.S. 506, 82 S.Ct. 884, 8 L.Ed.2d 70; cf. Chessman v. Teets, 354 U.S. 156, 77 S.Ct. 1127, 1 L.Ed.2d 1253 (no waiver of counsel shown at settlement of state court record).
See, e.g., Von Moltke v. Gillies, 332 U.S. 708, 68 S.Ct. 316, 92 L.Ed. 309; Uveges v. Pennsylvania, 335 U.S. 437, 69 S.Ct. 184, 93 L.Ed. 127; Moore v. Michigan, 355 U.S. 155, 78 S.Ct. 191, 2 L.Ed.2d 167; Boyd v. Dutton, 405 U.S. 1, 92 S.Ct. 759, 30 L.Ed.2d 755.
See, e.g., Brookhart v. Janis, 384 U.S. 1, 86 S.Ct. 1245, 16 L.Ed.2d 314; Barber v. Page, 390 U.S. 719, 88 S.Ct. 1318, 20 L.Ed.2d 255.
See, e.g., Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101.
See, e.g., Green v. United States, 355 U.S. 184, 78 S.Ct. 221, 2 L.Ed.2d 199.
See, e.g., McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459, 89 S.Ct. 1166, 22 L.Ed.2d 418; Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274.
Our cases concerning the validity of guilty pleas underscore the fact that the question whether a person has acted 'voluntarily' is quite distinct from the question whether he has 'waived' a trial right. The former question, as we made clear in Brady v. United States, 397 U.S., at 749, 90 S.Ct., at 1469, can be answered only by examining all the relevant circumstances to determine if he has been coerced. The latter question turns on the extent of his knowledge. We drew the same distinction in McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 766, 90 S.Ct. 1441, 1446, 25 L.Ed.2d 763:
'A conviction after a plea of guilty normally rests on the defendant's own admission in open court that he committed the acts with which he is charged. . . . That admission may not be compelled, and since the plea is also a waiver of trial—and unless the applicable law otherwise provides, a waiver of the right to contest the admissibility of any evidence the State might have offered against the defendant—it must be an intelligent act 'done with sufficient awareness of the relevant circumstances and likely consequences." (Footnote omitted.)
See, e.g., Smith v. United States, 337 U.S. 137, 69 S.Ct. 1000, 93 L.Ed. 1264.
See, e.g., Emspak v. United States, 349 U.S. 190, 75 S.Ct. 687, 99 L.Ed. 997.
See In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 42, 87 S.Ct. 1428, 1451, 18 L.Ed.2d 527.
As we have already noted, supra, at 232, Miranda itself involved interrogation of a suspect detained in custody and did not concern the investigatory procedures of the police in general on-the-scene questioning. 384 U.S., at 477, 86 S.Ct., at 1629.
By the same token, the present case does not require a determination of the proper standard to be applied in assessing the validity of a search authorized solely by an alleged consent that is obtained from a person after he has been placed in custody. We do note, however, that other courts have been particularly sensitive to the heightened possibilities for coercion when the 'consent' to a search was given by a person in custody. See, e.g., Judd v. United States, 89 U.S.App.D.C. 64, 66, 190 F.2d 649, 651; Channel v. United States, 285 F.2d 217 (9 Cir.); Villano v. United States, 310 F.2d 680, 684 (10 Cir.); United States v. Marrese, 336 F.2d 501 (3 Cir.).
'(In) the uniformly structured situation of the defendant whose case is formally called for plea or trial, where, with everything to be gained by the presence of counsel and no interest deserving consideration to be lost, an inflexible rule serves well.' Friendly, The Bill of Rights as a Code of Criminal Procedure, 53 Calif.L.Rev. 929, 950.
While we have occasionally referred to a consent search as a 'waiver,' we have never used that term to mean 'an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege.' Hence, for example, in Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 68 S.Ct. 367, 92 L.Ed. 436, this Court found the consent to be ineffective: '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.' Id., 333 U.S., at 13, 68 S.Ct., at 368, 92 L.Ed. 436. While the Court spoke in terms of 'waiver' it arrived at the conclusion that there had been no 'waiver' from an analysis of the totality of the objective circumstances—not from the absence of any express indication of Johnson's knowledge of a right to refuse or the lack of explicit warnings. See also Amos v. United States, 255 U.S. 313, 41 S.Ct. 266, 65 L.Ed. 654.
The Court was even more explicit in Von Moltke v. Gillies, 332 U.S., at 723—724, 68 S.Ct., at 323:
'To discharge this duty (of assuring the intelligent nature of the waiver) properly in light of the strong presumption against waiver of the constitutional right to counsel, a judge must investigate as long and as thoroughly as the circumstances of the case before him demand. The fact that an accused may tell him that he is informed of his right to counsel and desires to waive this right does not automatically end the judge's responsibility. To be valid such waiver must be made with an apprehension of the nature of the charges, the statutory offenses included within them, the range of allowable punishments thereunder, possible defenses to the charges and circumstances in mitigation thereof, and all other facts essential to a broad understanding of the whole matter. A judge can make certain that an accused's professed waiver of counsel is understandingly and wisely made only from a penetrating and comprehensive examination of all the circumstances under which such a plea is tendered.'
It seems clear that even a limited view of the demands of 'an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege' standard would inevitably lead to a requirement of detailed warnings before any consent search—a requirement all but universally rejected to date. See nn. 13 and 14, supra. As the Court stated in Miranda with respect to the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination: '(W)e will not pause to inquire in individual cases whether the defendant was aware of his rights without a warning being given. Assessments of the knowledge the defendant possessed, based on information as to his age, education, intelligence, or prior contact with authorities, can never be more than speculation; a warning is a clearcut fact.' Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S., at 468—469, 86 S.Ct., at 1625 (footnote omitted). See United States v. Moderacki, 280 F.Supp. 633 (D.Del.); United States v. Blalock, 255 F.Supp. 268 (E.D.Pa.).
See, e.g., Clewis v. Texas, 386 U.S. 707, 87 S.Ct. 1338, 18 L.Ed.2d 423; Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568, 81 S.Ct. 1860, 6 L.Ed.2d 1037; Reck v. Pate, 367 U.S. 433, 81 S.Ct. 1541, 6 L.Ed.2d 948; Payne v. Arkansas, 356 U.S. 560, 78 S.Ct. 844, 2 L.Ed.2d 975; Fikes v. Alabama, 352 U.S. 191, 77 S.Ct. 281, 1 L.Ed.2d 246; Harris v. South Carolina, 338 U.S. 68, 69 S.Ct. 1354, 93 L.Ed. 1815; Haley v. Ohio, 332 U.S. 596, 68 S.Ct. 302, 92 L.Ed. 224.
'The Court may be concerned with a narrower matter: the unknowing defendant who responds to police questioning because he mistakenly believes that he must and that his admissions will not be used against him. . . . The failure to inform an accused that he need not answer and that his answers may be used against him is very relevant indeed to whether the disclosures are compelled. Cases in this Court, to say the least, have never placed a premium on ignorance of constitutional rights. If an accused is told he must answer and does not know better, it would be very doubtful that the resulting admissions could be used against him. When the accused has not been informed of his rights at all the Court characteristically and properly looks very closely at the surrounding circumstances.' Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 499, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 1769, 12 L.Ed.2d 977 (White, J., dissenting).
The State also urges us to hold that a violation of the exclusionary rule may not be raised by a state or federal prisoner in a collateral attack on his conviction, and thus asks us to overturn our contrary holdings in Kaufman v. United States, 394 U.S. 217, 89 S.Ct. 1068, 22 L.Ed.2d 227; Whiteley v. Warden, 401 U.S. 560, 91 S.Ct. 1031, 28 L.Ed.2d 306; Harris v. Nelson, 394 U.S. 286, 89 S.Ct. 1082, 22 L.Ed.2d 281; and Mancusi v. DeForte, 392 U.S. 364, 88 S.Ct. 2120, 20 L.Ed.2d 1154. Since we have found no valid Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment claim in this case, we do not consider that question.
Cases cited as examples included Mancusi v. DeForte, 392 U.S. 364, 88 S.Ct. 2120, 20 L.Ed.2d 1154 (1968); Carafas v. LaVallee, 391 U.S. 234, 88 S.Ct. 1556, 20 L.Ed.2d 554 (1968); Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967).
The Act of Feb. 5, 1867, c. 28, § 1, 14 Stat. 385, provided that
'the several courts of the United States . . . within their respective jurisdictions, in addition to the authority already conferred by law, shall have power to grant writs of habeas corpus in all cases where any person may be restrained of his or her liberty in violation of the constitution, or of any treaty or law of the United States . . ..'
Bator, Finality in Criminal Law and Federal Habeas Corpus for State Prisoners, 76 Harv.L.Rev. 441, 466 (1963); Habeas Corpus, Oaks, Legal History in the High Court—64 Mich.L.Rev. 451, 451—456 (1966).
Oaks, supra, n. 3, at 452.
Professor Paul M. Bator of Harvard Law School and Professor Dallin H. Oaks formerly of the University of Chicago School of Law. Citations to the relevant articles are in n. 3, supra.
Oaks, supra, n. 3, at 468.
Bator, supra, n. 3, at 475—476.
H.R.Rep.No.730, 48th Cong., 1st Sess., 5 (1884), quoted in Bator, supra, n. 3, at 477.
Pollak, Proposals to Curtail Federal Habeas Corpus for State Prisoners: Collateral Attack on the Great Writ, 66 Yale L.J. 50, 65 (1956).
Reitz, Federal Habeas Corpus: Post-conviction Remedy for State Prisoners, 108 U.Pa.L.Rev. 461, 497 (1960).
Friendly, Is Innocence Irrelevant? Collateral Attack on Criminal Judgments, 38 U.Chi.L.Rev. 142, 160 (1970).
Bator, supra, n. 3, at 451.
The conventional justifications for extending federal habeas corpus to afford collateral review of state court judgments were summarized in Kaufman v. United States, 394 U.S. 217, 225—226, 89 S.Ct. 1068, 1073—1074, 22 L.Ed.2d 227, as follows:
'(T)he necessity that federal courts have the 'last say' with respect to questions of federal law, the inadequacy of state procedures to raise and preserve federal claims, the concern that state judges may be unsympathetic to federally created rights, the institutional constraints on the exercise of this Court's certiorari jurisdiction to review state convictions . . ..' Each of these justifications has merit in certain situations, although the asserted inadequacy of state procedures and unsympathetic attitude of state judges are far less realistic grounds of concern than in years past. The issue, fundamentally, is one of perspective and a rational balancing. The appropriateness of federal collateral review is evident in many instances. But is hardly follows that, in order to promote the ends of individual justice which are the foremost concerns of the writ, it is necessary to extend the scope of habeas review indiscriminately. This is especially true with respect to federal review of Fourth Amendment claims with the consequent denigration of other important societal values and interests.
Briefly, civil filings in United States district courts increased from 58,293 in 1961 to 96,173 in 1972. Total appeals commenced in the United States courts of appeals advanced from 4,204 in 1961 to 14,535 in 1972. Petitions for federal habeas corpus filed by state prisoners jumped from 1,020 in 1961 to 7,949 in 1972. Though habeas petitions filed by state prisoners did decline from 9,063 in 1970 to 7,949 in 1972, the overall increase from 1,000 at the start of the last decade is formidable. Furthermore, civil rights prisoner petitions under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 increased from 1,072 to 3,348 in the past five years. Some of these challenged the fact and duration of confinement and sought release from prison and must now be brought as actions for habeas corpus, Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973). See 1972 Annual Report of the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, II—5, II—22, II 28—32.
Mr. Chief Justice Burger has illustrated the absurd extent to which relitigation is sometimes allowed:
'In some of these multiple trial and appeal cases (on collateral attack) the accused continued his warfare with society for eight, nine, ten years and more. In one case . . . more than fifty appellate judges reviewed the case on appeals.' Address before the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, N.Y.L.J., Feb. 19, 1970, p. 1.
The English courts, 'long admired for (their) fair treatment of accused persons,' have never so extended habeas corpus. Friendly, supra, n. 12, at 145.
Amsterdam, Search, Seizure, and Section 2255: A Comment, 112 U.Pa.L.Rev. 378, 383—384 (1964). The article addresses the problem of collateral relief for federal prisoners, but its rationable applies forcefully to federal habeas for state prisoners as well.
Mr. Justice Harlan put it very well:
'Both the individual criminal defendant and society have an interest in insuring that there will at some point be the certainty that comes with an end to litigation, and that attention will ultimately be focused not on whether a conviction was free from error but rather on whether the prisoner can be restored to a useful place in the community.' Sanders v. United States, 373 U.S. 1, 24—25, 83 S.Ct. 1068, 1082, 10 L.Ed.2d 148 (1963) (dissenting opinion).
Supra, n. 16, at 388.
The latter occurs for various reasons, namely, failure of the accused to raise the claim at trial, a determination by the state courts that the claim did not merit a hearing, or a recent decision of this Court extending rights of the accused (although, on Fourth Amendment claims, such decisions have seldom been applied retroactively, see, e.g., Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 85 S.Ct. 1731, constitutional dimensions going to the
The dispersion of power between State and Federal Governments is constitutionally premised, as Mr. Justice Harlan observed:
'(I)t would surely be shallow not to recognize that the structure of our political system accounts no less for the free society we have. Indeed, it was upon the structure of government that the founders primarily focused in writing the Constitution. Out of bitter experience they were suspicious of every form of all-powerful central authority and they sought to assure that such a government would never exist in this country by structuring the federal establishment so as to diffuse power between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The diffusion of power between federal and state authority serves the same ends and takes on added significance as the size of the federal bureaucracy contines to grow.' Thoughts at a Dedication: Keeping the Judicial Function in Balance, 49 A.B.A.J. 943, 943—944 (1963).
The Justice recognized that problems of habeas corpus jurisdiction were 'of constitutional dimensiong going to the heart of the division of judicial powers in a federal system.' Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 464, 83 S.Ct. 822, 862, 9 L.Ed.2d 837 (1963) (dissenting opinion). Nor have such perceptions ever been the product of but a single Justice. As the Court noted in a historic decision on the conflicting realms of state and federal judicial power:
'(T)he constitution of the United States . . . recognizes and preserves the autonomy and independence of the states—independence in their legislative and independence in their judicial departments. Supervision over either the legislative or the judicial action of the states is in no case permissible except as to matters by the constitution specifically authorized or delegated to the United States. Any interference with either, except as thus permitted, is an invasion of the authority of the state, and, to that extent, a denial of its independence.' Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 78—79, 58 S.Ct. 817, 822—823, 82 L.Ed. 1188 (1938), quoting Mr. Justice Field in Baltimore & O.R. Co. v. Baugh, 149 U.S. 368, 401, 13 S.Ct. 914, 927, 37 L.Ed. 772 (1893).
Address at the annual dinner of the Section of Judicial Administration, American Bar Association, San Francisco, California, Aug. 14, 1972, pp. 5, 9, and 10.
Friendly, supra, n. 12, at 142. Judge Friendly's thesis, as he develops it, would encompass collateral attack broadly both within the federal system and with respect to federal habeas for state prisoners. Subject to the exceptions carefully delineated in his article, Judge Friendly would apply the criterion of a 'colorable showing of innocence' to any collateral attack of a conviction, including claims under the Fifth and Sixth as well as the Fourth Amendments. Id., at 151—157. In this case we need not consider anything other than the Fourth Amendment claims.
See Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 411, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 2012, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (Burger, C.J., dissenting); Paulsen, The Exclusionary Rule and Misconduct by the Police, 52 J.Crim.L.C. & P.S. 255, 256 (1961); see also J. Wilson, Varieties of Police Behavior (1968); 8 Wigmore, Evidence § 2184, pp. 51—52 (J. McNaughton ed. 1961), and H. Friendly, Benchmarks 260—261 (1967), suggesting that even at trial the exclusionary rule should be limited to exclusion of 'the fruit of activity intentionally or flagrantly illegal.' But see Kamisar, Public Safety v. Individual Liberties: Some 'Facts' and 'Theories,' 53 J.Crim.L.C. & P.S. 171, 188—190 (1962), and Kamisar, On the Tactics of Police-Prosecution Oriented Critics of the Courts, 49 Cornell L.Q. 436 (1964).
These expressions antedated the only scholarly empirical research, Mr. Justice Stewart having noted in Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 218, 80 S.Ct. 1437, 1444, 4 L.Ed.2d 669 (1960), that '(e)mpirical statistics are not available' as to the efficacy of the rule—a situation which continued until Professor Oaks' study. Indeed, in referring to the basis for the exclusionary rule, Professor Oaks noted that it has been supported, not by facts, but by 'recourse to polemic, rhetoric, and intuition.' Studying the Exclusionary Rule in Search and Seizure, 37 U.Chi.L.Rev. 665, 755 (1970). See also Burger, Who Will Watch the Watchman?, 14 Am.U.L.Rev. 1 (1964).
The most searching empirical study of the efficacy of the exclusionary rule was made by Professor Oaks, who concluded that '(a)s a device for directly deterring illegal searches and seizures by the police, the exclusionary rule is a failure.' Supra, n. 25, at 755. Professor Oaks, though recognizing that conclusive data may not yet be available, summarized the results of his study as follows:
'There is no reason to expect the rule to have any direct effect on the overwhelming majority of police conduct that is not meant to result in prosecutions, and there is hardly any evidence that the rule exerts any deterrent effect on the small fraction of law enforcement activity that is aimed at prosecution. What is known about the deterrent effect of sanctions suggests that the exclusionary rule operates under conditions that are extremely unfavorable for deterring the police. The harshest criticism of the rule is that it is ineffective. It is the sole means of enforcing the essential guarantees of freedom from unreasonable arrests and searches and seizures by law enforcement officers, and it is a failure in that vital task.
'The use of the exclusionary rule imposes excessive costs on the criminal justice system. It provides no recompense for the innocent and it frees the guilty. It creates the occasion and incentive for large scale lying by law enforcement officers. It diverts the focus of the criminal prosecution from the guilt or innocence of the defendant to a trial of the police. Only a system with limitless patience with irrationality could tolerate the fact that where there has been one wrong, the defendant's, he will be punished, but where there have been two wrongs, the defendant's and the officer's, both will go free. This would not be an excessive cost for an effective remedy against police misconduct, but it is a prohibitive price to pay for an illusory one.' Id., 755.
Despite a conviction that the exclusionary rule is a 'failure,' Professor Oaks would not abolish it altogether until there is something to take its place. He recommends 'an effective tort remedy against the offending officer or his employer.' He notes that such a 'tort remedy would give courts an occasion to rule on the content of constitutional rights (the Canadian example shows how), and it would provide the real consequence needed to give credibility to the guarantee.' Id., at 756—757.
'As the exclusionary rule is applied time after time, it seems that its deterrent efficacy at some stage reaches a point of diminishing returns, and beyond that point its continued application is a public nuisance.' Amsterdam, supra, n. 16, at 389.
Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 45, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 1646, 10 L.Ed.2d 726 (1963) (Harlan, J., concurring in result).
Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 493, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 2051, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971) (opinion of Burger, C.J.). The Chief Justice was quoting Mr. Justice Stone of the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Friendly, supra, n. 12, at 162—163.
Friendly, supra, n. 12, at 156.
The 1966 revision of the Federal Habeas Corpus statute enacted, among other things, the present 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a), (d), (e), and (f).
See Kaufman, supra, 394 U.S., at 220—221, nn. 3 and 4, 89 S.Ct., at 1070—1071, for a listing of the respective positions of the courts of appeals.
The letter from Circuit Judge Orie L. Phillips, Chairman of the Committee on Habeas Corpus of the Judicial Conference of the United States, which sponsored the 1966 legislation, to the Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Improvements in Judicial Machinery also strongly emphasized the necessity of expediting 'the determination in Federal courts of nonmeritorious and repetitious applications for the writ by State court prisoners.' S.Rep.No.1797, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 5 (1966); U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1966, p. 3667.
Mr. Justice Jackson, concurring in the result 20 years ago in Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 532, 73 S.Ct. 397, 423, 97 L.Ed. 469 (1953), lamented the 'floods of stale, frivolous and repetitious petitions (for federal habeas corpus by state prisoners which) inundate the docket of the lower courts and swell our own.' Id., at 536, 73 S.Ct., at 425. The inundation which concerned Mr. Justice Jackson consisted of 541 such petitions. In 1971, the latest year for which figures are available, state prisoners alone filed 7,949 petitions for habeas in federal district courts, over 14 times the number filed when Mr. Justice Jackson voiced his misgivings.
Brown v. Allen, supra, at 537, 73 S.Ct., at 425.
Commenting on this distortion of our criminal justice system, Justice Walter Schaefer of the Illinois Supreme Court has said:
'What bothers me is that almost never do we have a genuine issue of guilt or innocence today. The system has so changed that what we are doing in the courtroom is trying the conduct of the police and that of the prosecutor all along the line.' Address before Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, June 1968, cited by Friendly, supra, n. 12, at 145 n. 12.
The Court holds that Alcala's consent to search was shown, in the state court proceedings, to be constitutionally valid as a relinquishment of his Fourth Amendment rights. In those proceedings, no evidence was adduced as to Alcala's knowledge of his right to refuse assent. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, whose judgment is today reversed, would have required petitioner to produce such evidence. As discussed infra, p. 286, the Court of Appeals did not hold that the police must inform a subject of investigation of his right to refuse assent as an essential predicate to their effort to secure consent to search.
The Court concedes that the police lacked probable cause to search. Ante, at 227—228. At the time the search was conducted, there were three police vehicles near the car. 270 Cal.App.2d 648, 651, 76 Cal.Rptr. 17, 19 (1969). Perhaps the police in fact had some reason, not disclosed in this record, to believe that a search would turn up incriminating evidence. But it is also possible that the late hour and the number of men in Alcala's car suggested to the first officer on the scene that it would be prudent to wait until other officers had arrived before investigating any further.
Because Bustamonte was charged with possessing stolen checks found in the search at which he was present, he has standing to object to the search even though he claims no possessory or proprietary interest in the car. Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697 (1960). Cf. People v. Ibarra, 60 Cal.2d 460, 34 Cal.Rptr. 863, 386 P.2d 487 (1963); People v. Perez, 62 Cal.2d 769, 44 Cal.Rptr. 326, 401 P.2d 934 (1965).
The Court reads Davis v. United States, 328 U.S. 582, 66 S.Ct. 1256, 90 L.Ed. 1453 (1946), as upholding a search like the one in this case on the basis of consent. But it was central to the reasoning of the Court in that case that the items seized were the property of the Government temporarily in Davis' custody. See id., at 587—593, 66 S.Ct., at 1258—1261. The agents of the Government were thus simply demanding that property to which they had a lawful claim be returned to them. Because of this, the Court held that 'permissible limits of persuasion are not so narrow as where private papers are sought.' Id., at 593, 66 S.Ct., at 1261. The opinion of the Court therefore explicitly disclaimed stating a general rule for ordinary searches for evidence. That the distinction, for purposes of Fourth Amendment analysis, between mere evidence and contraband or instrumentalities has now been abolished, Warden, Maryland Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967), is no reason to disregard the fact that when Davis was decided, that distinction played an important role in shaping analysis.
In Zap v. United States, 328 U.S. 624, 628, 66 S.Ct. 1277, 1279, 90 L.Ed. 1477 (1946), the Court held that 'when petitioner, in order to obtain the government's business, specifically agreed to permit inspection of his accounts and records, he voluntarily waived such claim to privacy which he otherwise might have had as respects business documents related to those contracts.' (Emphasis added.) Because Zap had signed a contract specifically providing that his records would be open at all time to the Government, he had indeed waived his right to keep those records private. Cf. United States v. Biswell, 406 U.S. 311, 92 S.Ct. 1593, 32 L.Ed.2d 87 (1972).
Asside from Zap and Davis, supra, n. 4, I have found no cases decided by this Court explicitly upholding a search based on the consent of the defendant. It is hardly surprising, them, that '(t)he approach of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit finds no support in any of our decisions,' ante, at 229. But in nearly every case discussing the problem at length, the Court referred to consent as a waiver. And it mischaracterizes those cases to describe them as analyzing the totality of the circumstances, ante, at 234 n. 31. See infra, at 283—284.
That this application of the 'domino' method of adjudication is misguided is shown, I believe, by the fact that the phrase 'voluntary consent' seems redundant in a way that the phrase 'voluntary confession' does not.
The Court used the terms 'voluntary' or 'involuntary' in such cases as shorthand labels for an assessment of the police behavior in light of the particular characteristics of the individual defendant because behavior that might not be coercive of some individuals might nonetheless compel others to give incriminating statements. See, e.g., Haley v. Ohio, 332 U.S. 596, 599, 68 S.Ct. 302, 303, 92 L.Ed. 224 (1948); Stein v. New York, 346 U.S. 156, 185, 73 S.Ct. 1077, 1093, 97 L.Ed. 1522 (1953); Fikes v. Alabama, 352 U.S. 191, 77 S.Ct. 281, 1 L.Ed.2d 246 (1957).
I, of course, agree with the Court's analysis to the extent that it treats a verbal expression of assent as no true consent when it is elicited through compulsion. Ante, at 229. Since, in my view, it is just as unconstitutional to search after coercing consent as it is to search after uninformed consent, I agree with the rationale of Amos v. United States, 255 U.S. 313, 41 S.Ct. 266, 65 L.Ed. 654 (1921), Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 68 S.Ct. 367, 92 L.Ed. 436 (1948), and Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U.S. 543, 88 S.Ct. 1788, 20 L.Ed.2d 797 (1968). That an alternative rationale might have been used in those cases seems to me irrelevant.
See, e.g., Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971); Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969); Warden, Maryland Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967).
In Chimel, we explained that searches incident to arrest were justified by the need to protect officers from attacks by the persons they have arrested, and by the need to assure that easily destructible evidence in the reach of the suspect will not be destroyed. 395 U.S., at 762—763, 89 S.Ct., at 2039—2040. And in Coolidge, we said that searches of automobiles on the highway are justified because an alerted criminal might easily drive the evidence away while a warrant was sought. 403 U.S., at 459—462, 91 S.Ct., at 2034—2036. In neither situation is police convenience alone a sufficient reason for establishing an exception to the warrant requirement. Yet the Court today seems to say that convenience alone justifies consent searches.
The Court's interpretation of Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 68 S.Ct. 367, 92 L.Ed. 436 (1948), a similar case, is baffling. The Court in Johnson did not in fact analyze the totality of the circumstances, as the Court now argues, ante, at 243 n. 31; the single fact that the police claimed authority to search when in truth they lacked such authority conclusively established that no valid consent had been given.
The proposition rejected in the cases cited by the Court in nn. 13 and 14, was that, as in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), a statement to the subject of his rights must be given as an indispensable prerequisite to a request for consent to search. This case does not require us to address that proposition, for all that is involved here is the contention that the prosecution could satisfy the burden of establishing the knowledge of the right to refuse consent by showing that the police advised the subject of a search, that is sought to be justified by consent, of that right.
The Court's suggestion that it would be 'unrealistic' to require the officers to make 'the detailed type of examination' involved when a court considers whether a defendant has waived a trial right, ante, at 245, deserves little comment. The question before us relates to the inquiry to be made in court when the prosecution seeks to establish that consent was given. I therefore do not address the Court's strained argument that one may waive constitutional rights without making a knowing and intentional choice so long as the rights do not relate to the fairness of a criminal trial. I would suggest, however, that that argument is fundamentally inconsistent with the law of unconstitutional conditions. See, e.g., Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972); Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 22 L.Ed.2d 600 (1969); Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 83 S.Ct. 1790, 10 L.Ed.2d 965 (1963); Speiser v. Randall, 357 U.S. 513, 78 S.Ct. 1332, 2 L.Ed.2d 1460 (1958). The discussion of United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967), ante, at 239—240, also seems inconsistent with the opinion of Mr. Justice Stewart in Kirby v. Illinois, 406 U.S. 682, 92 S.Ct. 1877, 32 L.Ed.2d 411 (1972). In any event, I do not understand how one can relinquish a right without knowing of its existence, and that is the only issue in this case.
The Court's half-hearted defense, that lack of knowledge is to be 'taken into account,' rings rather hollow, in light of the apparent import of the opinion that even a subject who proves his lack of knowledge may nonetheless have consented 'voluntarily,' under the Court's peculiar definition of voluntariness.