Opinion ID: 1258566
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: relevant historical background of search and seizure jurisprudence

Text: The history and development of search and seizure jurisprudence in Great Britain and the United States demonstrate that the issuance of general writs of assistance in the Colonies is widely presumed to be one of the leading causes of the American Revolution. See O.M. Dickerson, Writs of Assistance as a Cause of the Revolution, in The Era of the American Revolution: Studies Inscribed to Evarts Boutell Greene 40 (Richard B. Morris ed., 1939) (A[merican] histories without exception list writs of assistance as one of the active causes of the American Revolution.). General warrantswhich the Founding Fathers considered evilwere usually unparticularized warrant[s] (for example, ordering a search of `suspected places') or warrants which were issued without a complaint under oath or an adequate showing of cause. Thomas Y. Davies, Recovering the Original Fourth Amendment, 98 Mich. L.Rev. 547, 558 (1999) [hereinafter Original Fourth Amendment ]. In particular, the Founders' primary animadversion was the use of general writs of assistance, which attested to the authority of the bearer to search places in which the bearer suspected uncustomed goods were hidden, and commanded that all peace officers and any other persons who were present `be assisting' in the performance of the search. Id. at 561 n. 18; see generally Marcus v. Search Warrant, 367 U.S. 717, 81 S.Ct. 1708, 6 L.Ed.2d 1127 (1961) (brief history of the Fourth Amendment); Letter from Father of Candor to J. Almon, reprinted in An Enquiry into the Doctrine, Lately Propagated, Concerning Libels, Warrants, and the Seizure of Papers (Da Capo Press 1970) (1764) (discussing general writs of assistance); Nelson B. Lasson, The History and Development of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution (Da Capo Press 1970) (1937) (detailed history of early Fourth Amendment development) [hereinafter History and Development ]; William John Cuddihy, The Fourth Amendment: Origins and Original Meaning, 602-1791 (1990) (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Claremont Graduate School) (on file with N.C. Supreme Court Library, Raleigh, N.C.) (lengthy discussion of the origins of the Fourth Amendment). These writs of assistance, at least in England, were issued by the Court of Exchequer, which was authorized by statute to issue the writs to commissioned customs officials and naval officers. See Original Fourth Amendment at 561 n. 18. General warrants and writs of assistance were controversial not only in the Colonies, but in England as well, where Chief Justice Pratt in Huckle v. Money compared the general warrant to the Spanish Inquisition and found the general warrant to be worse, calling it a law under which no Englishman would wish to live an hour. 2 Wils. 206, 207, 95 Eng. Rep. 768, 769 (K.B. 1763); see also Money v. Leach, 3 Burr. 1742, 97 Eng. Rep. 1075 (K.B. 1765); Entick v. Carrington, 2 Wils. 275, 95 Eng. Rep. 807 (K.B. 1765); Wilkes v. Wood, Lofft 1, 98 Eng. Rep. 489 (C.P. 1763). One of the primary reasons for founding-era hatred of general warrants and general writs of assistance was that both writs conferred upon petty officers broad and unfettered discretion to determine when it was legally proper to conduct a search. See Original Fourth Amendment at 578, 582. In fact, Sir Matthew Hale described such warrants as allowing the officer executing the general warrant to be the judge in his own case. Matthew Hale, 2 The History of the Pleas of the Crown 150 (George Wilson ed., Dublin 1778). In the Colonies, the disdain for general writs of assistance sparked James Otis's speech in the case of Petition of Lechmere : I will to my dying day oppose, with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand, and villainy on the other, as this writ of assistance is. John Adams, Abstract of the Argument in 2 Legal Papers of John Adams 139-40 (L. Kinvin Wroth & Hiller B. Zobel eds., 1965); see also Quincy's Mass. Rep. 1761-1772, App. I 395-540 (1865) (detailing Massachusetts cases on writs of assistance). John Adams described Otis's speech as the thing that breathed into this nation the breath of life. Letter from John Adams to H. Niles (Jan. 14, 1818), in X The Works of John Adams 276 (Boston, Little, Brown & Co. 1856). After the Revolution, many states inserted clauses banning general warrants into the enumeration of rights in their constitutions. See History and Development at 79-82 (discussing state provisions). For instance, the North Carolina Constitution has provided a prohibition against general warrants since the first constitution in 1776: General warrants, whereby any officer or other person may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of the act committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, whose offense is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are dangerous to liberty and shall not be granted. N.C. Const. art. I, § 20. During the state legislatures' debates on ratification of the United States Constitution, the lack of a bill of rights, specifically the absence of a provision against general warrants, was discussed in detail. See History and Development at 92-97. Eventually, a search and seizure amendment was proposed by James Madison in the United States Congress during the drafting of the Bill of Rights. See id. at 97-100. Finally, what we now know as the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution was submitted to the states and thereafter ratified: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. U.S. Const. amend. IV. Fourth Amendment jurisprudence initially developed slowly in the new nation. However, as urban crime became a concern of the federal and state governments, prompting the formation of full-time police forces, Fourth Amendment jurisprudence began to take shape with an increasing emphasis on warrantless searches and seizures. See Original Fourth Amendment at 724-34 (discussing modern Fourth Amendment doctrine); see also History and Development at 106-43 (detailing early Fourth Amendment precedent). Three Supreme Court of the United States opinions on Fourth Amendment doctrine are apposite to the present case: Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996); Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979); and Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925). The issue in Carroll was the validity of warrantless automobile stops in the enforcement of the National Prohibition Act. 267 U.S. at 143, 45 S.Ct. 280. Mentioning the similarities between searches for contraband on ships and searches for contraband in automobiles, [2] the Court held a warrant was not required to search an automobile under the circumstances of the case. Id. at 149-53, 45 S.Ct. 280. In making this determination, the Court relied upon various customs statutes which allowed warrantless searches of ships, such as 1 Stat. 29, which was passed by the same Congress that proposed the Fourth Amendment for ratification. Id. (citing Act of July 31, 1789, Sess. I, ch. 5, Sec. 24, 1 Stat. 29, 43). The Court in Carroll nonetheless limited warrantless automobile searches by clarifying: [T]hose lawfully within the country, entitled to use the public highways, have a right to free passage without interruption or search unless there is known to a competent official authorized to search, probable cause for believing that their vehicles are carrying contraband or illegal merchandise. 267 U.S. at 154, 45 S.Ct. 280. Over fifty years later, the Court continued to develop the jurisprudence surrounding warrantless automobile seizures and searches in Delaware v. Prouse , in which the Court held an officer's stop of an automobile unconstitutional because the stop was performed without an articulable and reasonable suspicion that the driver was unlicensed. 440 U.S. at 663, 99 S.Ct. 1391. The Court stated: [E]xcept in those situations in which there is at least articulable and reasonable suspicion that a motorist is unlicensed or that an automobile is not registered, or that either the vehicle or an occupant is otherwise subject to seizure for violation of law, stopping an automobile and detaining the driver in order to check his driver's license and the registration of the automobile are unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Id. The evolution of this concept was solidified in Whren v. United States , when the Supreme Court held that if an officer has probable cause to believe a traffic violation has occurred, the officer's stop of the driver does not run afoul of the Fourth Amendment. 517 U.S. at 811-19, 116 S.Ct. 1769. This is true even if the asserted traffic violation was merely a pretext hiding the officer's subjective reason for the stop. Id. Certainly applicable to the issue sub judice is that the Supreme Court noted that probable cause is the traditional justification for police intrusion. 517 U.S. at 817, 116 S.Ct. 1769. Another issue that has frequently arisen in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is equally applicable to traffic stop cases: When is it permissible to seize a person in the absence of probable cause that a crime has occurred? Beginning with Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), the Supreme Court of the United States began developing the idea that in certain situations, a suspect may be stopped for further investigation based upon a reasonable, articulable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot. In Terry, a Cleveland, Ohio police detective observed two men, Chilton and Terry, standing at a street corner. Id. at 5, 88 S.Ct. 1868. As he continued to observe the men, he noted that one would leave the other one and walk ... past some stores, turn around, and then walk back toward the street corner, peering in the store window again before conferring with his cohort at the street corner. Id. at 6, 88 S.Ct. 1868. Once he returned, the other would pace down the street in the same manner. Id. The detective observed the two men doing this ritual alternately between five and six times apiecein all, roughly a dozen trips. Id. The two men then conferred with a third man. Id. The third man left, and the two men walked together and stopped in front of Zucker's store, where they once again conversed with the third man whom the officer observed conferring with them earlier. Id. The detective then approached the three men, identified himself as a police officer and asked for their names. 392 U.S. at 6-7, 88 S.Ct. 1868. The detective then proceeded to pat down the outside of Terry's clothing and felt a pistol [i]n the left breast pocket of Terry's overcoat. Id. at 7, 88 S.Ct. 1868. The detective then discovered a firearm in the outer pocket of Chilton's overcoat. Id. The issue in Terry was whether the admission of the firearm found on Terry as evidence against him violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. 392 U.S. at 8, 88 S.Ct. 1868. The Court, in determining that the admission of the firearm did not violate Terry's Fourth Amendment rights, first reaffirmed that `[n]o right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded, by the common law, than the right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person, free from all restraint or interference of others, unless by clear and unquestionable authority of law.' Id. at 9, 88 S.Ct. 1868 (quoting Union Pac. Ry. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251, 11 S.Ct. 1000, 35 L.Ed. 734 (1891)). The Court noted that whenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has `seized' that person. Id. at 16, 88 S.Ct. 1868. After determining that the stop and frisk did not violate Terry's rights, the Court stated: Each case of this sort will, of course, have to be decided on its own facts. We merely hold today that where a police officer observes unusual conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his experience that criminal activity may be afoot and that the persons with whom he is dealing may be armed and presently dangerous, where in the course of investigating this behavior he identifies himself as a policeman and makes reasonable inquiries, and where nothing in the initial stages of the encounter serves to dispel his reasonable fear for his own or others' safety, he is entitled for the protection of himself and others in the area to conduct a carefully limited search of the outer clothing of such persons in an attempt to discover weapons which might be used to assault him. Id. at 30, 88 S.Ct. 1868 (emphasis added). The Court continued to expound upon the doctrine articulated in Terry in subsequent cases. In Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 88 S.Ct. 1889, 20 L.Ed.2d 917 (1968), a companion case to Terry, the Court found that a police officer lacked reasonable suspicion that a suspect was involved in narcotics sales when the officer's conclusion was based merely on having observed the suspect speak at length with known narcotics addicts. Id. at 64, 88 S.Ct. 1889. In so deciding, the Court noted: The police officer is not entitled to seize and search every person whom he sees on the street or of whom he makes inquiries. Before he places a hand on the person of a citizen in search of anything, he must have constitutionally adequate, reasonable grounds for doing so. Id. In United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989), the defendant had been seized at an airport on suspicion of criminal activity involving controlled substances. The Court spelled out the facts which amounted to reasonable suspicion to seize the defendant for further investigation: Paying $2,100 in cash for two airplane tickets is out of the ordinary, and it is even more out of the ordinary to pay that sum from a roll of $20 bills containing nearly twice that amount of cash. Most business travelers, we feel confident, purchase airline tickets by credit card or check so as to have a record for tax or business purposes, and few vacationers carry with them thousands of dollars in $20 bills. We also think the agents had a reasonable ground to believe that respondent was traveling under an alias; the evidence was by no means conclusive, but it was sufficient to warrant consideration. While a trip from Honolulu to Miami, standing alone, is not a cause for any sort of suspicion, here there was more: surely few residents of Honolulu travel from that city for 20 hours to spend 48 hours in Miami during the month of July. Id. at 8-9, 109 S.Ct. 1581 (footnote omitted). In Sokolow, the Court noted the difference between seizures of persons based upon probable cause and reasonable suspicion: In Terry v. Ohio , we held that the police can stop and briefly detain a person for investigative purposes if the officer has a reasonable suspicion supported by articulable facts that criminal activity may be afoot, even if the officer lacks probable cause. The officer, of course, must be able to articulate something more than an inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or `hunch.' The Fourth Amendment requires some minimal level of objective justification for making the stop. That level of suspicion is considerably less than proof of wrongdoing by a preponderance of the evidence. We have held that probable cause means a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found, and the level of suspicion required for a Terry stop is obviously less demanding than that for probable cause. Id. at 7, 109 S.Ct. 1581 (citations omitted). It is in light of this rich historical background and well-established judicial authority that I am compelled to dissent.