Opinion ID: 1234405
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Searches and Seizures Were Unreasonable under Fourth Amendment Standards

Text: The searches and seizures in this case were not contemporaneous with or incident to the arrest. The transcript shows that the earliest of the searches and seizures occurred approximately eight and a half hours after the warrantless arrest of the appellant. I acknowledge that an arresting officer making a valid arrest can make a contemporaneous search and seizure that is incident to the arrest and therefore valid. However, searches and seizures following a warrantless arrest, made during the course of three days following the arrest without taking the arrested person before a judicial officer for a probable cause hearing, are not searches and seizures incident to an arrest. Such searches and seizures, in my opinion, are unreasonable and violate the Fourth Amendment. A warrantless arrest, even with probable cause, becomes an unconstitutional arrest under Fourth Amendment standards unless the arresting officer takes the person arrested before a judicial officer for a probable cause hearing within a reasonable time. This was not done in this case, and the searches and seizures during the three-day period of warrantless incarceration violated the Fourth Amendment. Inquiry on the street and detention for identification, however, should be sharply distinguished from detention at the police station for purposes of interrogation. At this point, still another factor should be added to the list of those considered in determining reasonableness under all the circumstances. `In the Anglo-American law, there is no regular provision for police examination of a person suspected of crime.' The absence of such a provision is implicit in the requirements of the common law; whether an arrest is made with or without a warrant, the duty of the officer is to promptly take the arrested person before a magistrate. The practical basis for this rule is apparent; `ours is the accusatorial as opposed to the inquisitional system.' Opportunity for prolonged police investigation presents the most dangerous threat to that system. In the federal courts, the codification of the common law doctrine respecting prompt arraignment has been enforced by a rule excluding from evidence the products of an unlawful detention prior to a hearing before a magistrate. The rule itself is not based upon the Constitution; it is the product of the Supreme Court's supervisory power over the administration of federal criminal justice and hence inapplicable to the states. However, since the decision in Wong Sun v. United States, a constitutional principle requiring the exclusion of evidence under certain circumstances may also be applicable in this area. Although the question was not directly involved in Wong Sun, it would seem that a violation of the right to prompt arraignment, being a fundamental part of the arrest process, would also be a violation of the Fourth Amendment, and evidence which is the product thereof should be inadmissible upon constitutional grounds. In any event, it seems clear that the underlying substantive right which is here involved is grounded in the Constitution. Its observance is indispensable to a cluster of basic rights including the right to bail and the right to habeas corpus. Furthermore, as indicated above, it bears an intimate relationship to the requirement of the Fourth Amendment of reasonable seizures. `What real meaning is left in the Fourth Amendment's guaranty against arbitrary arrest if the arrestee is unable to reach a judicial officer within a reasonable time to determine whether or not his arrest was arbitrary?' Leagre, The Fourth Amendment and the Law of Arrest, 54 J. Crim. L., C. & P. S. 393, 417 (1963). III.