Opinion ID: 703576
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Judicial Determination of Probable Cause

Text: 9 Shak contends that the district court erred by holding that he was not entitled to a judicial determination of probable cause before being required to return to court for a hearing on misdemeanor charges. This contention lacks merit. 10 The Supreme Court has expressed a preference for the use of arrest warrants when feasible. Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 113 (1975). Nonetheless, a [police officer]'s on-the-scene assessment of probable cause provides legal justification for arresting a person suspected of crime, and for a brief period of detention to take the administrative steps incident to arrest. See id. at 113-114. A person arrested and held in custody for trial, however, is entitled to a timely judicial determination of probable cause. Id. at 114. The Supreme Court has explained that [o]nce the suspect is in custody ..., the reasons that justify dispensing with the magistrate's neutral judgment evaporate while the suspect's need for a neutral determination of probable cause increases significantly, noting that prolonged detention may be more serious than the interference occasioned by arrest. Id. at 114. 11 Here, Shak concedes that: (1) officer Tanaka had probable cause to arrest him; and (2) his detention at the Honolulu Police Station for one hour and forty-five minutes was not excessive. Thus, the two Fourth Amendment concerns discussed in Gerstein, a warrantless arrest in which the police officer's judgment concerning probable cause is mistaken and prolonged detention, are not present in the instant case. 12 In addition, the Supreme Court has stopped short of holding that jurisdictions were constitutionally compelled to provide a probable cause hearing immediately upon taking a suspect into custody and completing booking procedures, see County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U.S. 44, 53-54 (1991), and acknowledged the burden that proliferation of pretrial proceedings places on the criminal justice system and recognized that the interests of everyone involved, including those persons who are arrested, might be disserved by introducing further procedural complexity into an already intricate system. Id. 13 Accordingly, the district court did not err as a matter of law in dismissing Shak's claim that he had a right to a probable cause hearing before being required to return to court.