Opinion ID: 1798464
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The District Attorney as Magistrate.

Text: In the case at bar, the arrest warrant was authorized by an assistant corporation counsel. This is authorized by secs. 52.22 and 52.25, Stats. As to counties having a population of over 500,000, the former section of the statutes imposes upon the corporation counsel or his assistants the powers and duties conferred upon the district attorney. We must determine whether a district attorney is the equivalent of a neutral and detached magistrate who may constitutionally be empowered to authorize the issuance of the warrant. Our conclusion is that he is not. In Johnson v. United States (1948), 333 U. S. 10, 13, 68 Sup. Ct. 367, 92 L. Ed. 436, Mr. Justice JACKSON, speaking for the court, commented as follows: The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime.  The effect of this rule is to interpose the impartial judgment of a judicial officer between the citizen and the police and also between the citizen and the prosecutor, so that an individual may be secure from an improper search or an improper arrest. We recognize that the district attorney holds an office of great dignity and that in some respects he has quasi-judicial responsibilities. His decision to initiate prosecution or to refuse to do so is, in a sense, a judicial determinaton. See O'Neil v. State (1926), 189 Wis. 259, 261, 207 N. W. 280. He is a sworn minister of justice. State v. Russell (1892), 83 Wis. 330, 338, 53 N. W. 441. It is one thing to acknowledge that a district attorney is capable of making quasi-judicial judgments; it is a vastly different thing to assert that as a government enforcement agent he can qualify as the neutral, deliberate, and impartial magistrate who is authorized to determine probable cause under the Fourth amendment within its meaning and spirit as interpreted by the United States supreme court. The disqualification of the district attorney under the Fourth amendment is as necessary in a paternity proceeding under the Wisconsin statutes as in a criminal case. We note that the corporation counsel is obligated to prosecute the putative father if the mother of the illegitimate child fails to do so under sec. 52.23, Stats. In our opinion, the determination of the district attorney does not constitute the determination of a neutral and detached magistrate, as required in Johnson v. United States (1948), 333 U. S. 10, 14, 68 Sup. Ct. 367, 92 L. Ed. 436. It is only an impartial magistrate who can accomplish the essential purpose of the Fourth Amendment to shield the citizen from unwarranted intrusions into his privacy. Jones v. United States (1958), 357 U. S. 493, 498, 78 Sup. Ct. 1253, 2 L. Ed. (2d) 1514. With reference to the issuance of process, sec. 954.01 (2), Stats., provides that district attorneys are not magistrates.  . . . However, under sec. 954.02 (4), a district attorney may initiate a prosecution by issuing a summons instead of a warrant. It is defensible to permit a corporation counsel or district attorney to issue a summons even though he may not issue a warrant, because a summons (unlike a warrant) does not authorize an arrest. By the Court. Order reversed.