Opinion ID: 1215390
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Heading Rank: 1

Heading: historical background of search and seizure constitutional provisions

Text: Alone among the guaranties adopted by the framers of the United States Constitution, the Fourth Amendment incorporated procedural safeguards against arbitrary government that had existed in both England and the colonies since the early 1760s. It is, of course, not possible to understand the Fourth Amendment without considering the long history of government abuse of warrantless searches and seizures in England. But it was the events of the 30 years prior to the Constitutional Convention of 1789 that excited a strong sensibility among Americans and led directly to the adoption of the Fourth Amendment. 3 Story, Commentaries on the Constitutional 748 (1833); see also Davis v. United States, 328 U.S. 582, 605, 66 S.Ct. 1256, 1267, 90 L.Ed. 1453 (1946) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). The legislative history of searches and seizures in England begins in 1335, when innkeepers in port towns were commanded to search guests for imported counterfeit money. In the fifteenth century the Crown granted certain guilds the right to send their officers to search the workshops of all persons in order to determine whether there were violations of guild regulations. Stengel, The Background of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, 3 U Rich L Rev 278, 283 (1969); Lasson, The History and Development of the Fourth Amendment 23 (1937 repr. 1970). Search and seizure quickened during the Elizabethan and Stuart eras, when political and religious unrest provoked sharp, oppressive reaction by the Crown. Stengel, supra 3 U Rich L Rev at 283; Lasson, supra at 24. Matters concerning printing, religion, seditious libel and treason became the subjects of uncompromising laws. Government officers were given unbridled discretionary power to search out persons and places, and to seize indiscriminately. Landynski, Search and Seizure and the Supreme Court 20-30 (1966). The primary instruments for ensuring political and religious conformity in the country were the Privy Council and the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission. The first ordinance to license books and restrict printing was enacted in 1566, when the Court of Star Chamber authorized wardens of the Stationers' Company to open all packages and trunks of papers and books brought into the country whenever they suspected a violation of the ordinance. Lasson, supra at 24. James I (r. 1603-25) uninhibitedly granted arbitrary powers to persecute nonconformists, to censure the press, and to regulate trade. It was during his reign that the writ of assistance, a general warrant commanding all officers and subjects to assist in the execution of the warrant, came into being. Lasson, supra at 28. The reign of Charles I (r. 1625-49), who preferred to rule by prerogative rather than by accommodation, was particularly noteworthy for its reliance on general searches for printed matter. [2] The Long Parliament, which assembled in 1640, reacted to his brand of despotism by abolishing the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, and ordering the punishment of those who had executed general warrants against members of Parliament. But even it was unable to resist the easy temptations of despotism, for with the monarchy in ruins, political writers targeted the Parliament. In retaliation, Parliament passed censorship and search laws similar to those enacted by the very king it deposed. Landynski, supra at 23. During the Restoration era of Charles II (r. 1660-85), warrants routinely were issued to search for seditious literature in the trunks, cabinets and studies of political suspects. Stengel, supra, 3 U Rich L Rev at 284; Lasson, supra at 31. The Licensing Act, which was aimed at regulating the press, granted to officials a power to search as broad as any English government had enjoyed in the past. Lasson, supra at 37. Charles additionally used the device of general warrants to control customs, and he enacted the despised hearth money tax, empowering collectors to enter any house at any time during the day. Id. A more thoughtful mood slowly began to develop in reaction to the indiscriminate use of these general warrants. William of Orange (r. 1689-1702), who ascended the throne as a result of the Revolution of 1688, condemned a tax law that exposed every man's house to be entered into, and searched by persons unknown to him as a badge of slavery upon the whole people. Landynski, supra at 25. It was not, however, until the mid-eighteenth century that the despotic use of general warrants finally was curtailed. In 1762, John Wilkes, a member of Parliament, began publishing a series of anonymous pamphlets, entitled The North Britain, which were highly critical of the government. A general warrant was issued, authorizing arrest of the printers and publishers and seizure of their papers. Over 40 persons were arrested. Some retaliated by suing the executing officers for trespass. These suits were heard before Charles Pratt, later Lord Camden, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, whose views were more enlightened than those of the government he served. Camden allowed, over objection, the case to go to the jury and upheld heavy damage awards against the defendants. Taylor, Two Studies in Constitutional Interpretation 29-31 (1969). Two cases tried before Lord Camden at this time had particularly enduring effects on the constitutional history of America, as well as that of England. The first, Wilkes v. Wood, 19 Howell's St.Tr. 1153 (1763), which grew out of the events described above, was, according to Edmund Randolph, the inspiration for the provision in the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights establishing as a fundamental right freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. See Randolph, Essay on the Revolutionary History of Virginia, 44 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 43-47 (1936), quoted in 1 Schwartz, The Bill of Rights, a Documentary History 248 (1971). Lord Camden did not doubt the illegality of these warrants, and in summing up the evidence he asserted: The defendants claim the right, under precedence, to force person's houses, break open escrutores, seize their papers & c, upon a general warrant, where no inventory is made of things thus taken away, and where no offenders' names are specified in the warrant, and therefore a discretionary power given to messengers to search wherever their suspicions may chance to fall. If such a power is truly invested in a secretary of state, and he can delegate this power, it certainly may affect the person and property of every man in this kingdom, and is totally subversive of the liberty of the subject. Wilkes v. Wood, supra, 19 Howell's St.Tr. at 1167. In 1765 that case came before Chief Justice Lord Mansfield on the Court of King's Bench. While Lord Mansfield affirmed the decision on somewhat narrow grounds, he did declare that a warrant which failed to name a person was too general and therefore illegal. Taylor, supra at 32. A few weeks later the last and most important of these cases, Entick v. Carrington, 19 Howell's St.Tr. 1029 (1765)  a case which has been frequently relied upon since by the Supreme Court of the United States  came before Lord Camden. See Hall, Search and Seizure 19 n. 11 (1982), and cases cited therein. There, a warrant was issued for the arrest of John Entick, the reputed author of seditious literature, and the seizure of his books and papers. Once again, Lord Camden expressed his mistrust of warrants issued by the government: Before I state the question, it will be necessary to describe the power claimed by this warrant in its full extent. If honestly exerted, it is a power to seize that man's papers, who is charged upon oath to be the author or publisher of seditious libel; if oppressively, it acts against every man who is so described in the warrant, though he be innocent. It is executed against the party, before he is heard or even summoned; and the information, as well as the informers, is unknown. Entick v. Carrington, supra at 1064. In England the general warrant principally involved political and religious offenses. In the American colonies the issue was raised in a somewhat different context, that of commerce. Justice Betty Roberts discussed this period in the history of search warrants in her dissent in State v. Atkinson, 298 Or. 1, 15-16, 688 P.2d 832 (1984): During colonial times, the British government enacted a variety of regulations restricting the colonies from trading with anyone but England or her dependencies. The Molasses Act of 1733, which imposed a prohibitive duty on molasses and sugar imported from the non-British West Indies, was one such restriction. The act was weakly enforced, however, until 1760, when England decided to halt the thriving illegal trade. A potent weapon was found in the writs of assistance, which granted to officers in broadly written terms the power to search any house or shop, to break open doors, chests and packages, and to remove prohibited goods. The effect of these writs was more invidious even than those used in England. In England they had been employed in particular libel cases and were, therefore, inherently limited. In the colonies the writs were not returnable after execution but were good as a continuous license during the lifetime of the sovereign. Lasson, The History and Development of the Fourth Amendment (1937 repr 1970). Reaction against the writs found its full expression in Massachusetts. In 1772 the citizens of Boston composed a document which identified those rights that the colonists regarded as fundamental, among others, freedom from writs of assistance, by which `Officers    break thro' the sacred rights of the Domicil, ransack men's houses, destroy their securities, carry off their property, and    commit the most horred [ sic ] murders.' Schwartz, The Great Rights of Mankind 61 (1977). Two years later in a petition to the King for redress of grievances, the Continental Congress complained: `The officers of the customs are empowered to break open and enter houses, without the authority of any civil magistrate, founded on legal information.' Landynski, Search and Seizure and the Supreme Court, 37-38 (1966). In 1776, even before the Declaration of Independence, Virginia adopted a Constitution and Declaration of Rights, the first true bill of rights in the modern American sense. Many of the rights included in the Declaration extended well beyond those known in Britain at that time. One right was the guaranty of protection against general warrants: `10. That general warrants, whereby any officer or messenger may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, or whose offence [sic] is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are grievous and oppressive and ought not to be granted.' 1 Schwartz, The Bill of Rights, A Documentary History 235 (1971). Seven of the eleven other colonies which subsequently adopted constitutions included provisions, similar to that of Virginia, barring the use of general warrants. Schwartz, The Great Rights of Mankind 88 (1977).    In 1787 delegates from the different states met in Philadelphia to compose a general constitution that would repair the structural defects of the Articles of Confederation; the convention adjourned, however, without including a bill of rights, and this omission was seized upon by antifederalists to discredit the constitution in subsequent ratifying conventions. Among those rights not guaranteed by this new instrument of national government was freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. Elbridge Gerry, one of the leading antifederalists, wrote in 1788: There is no provision by a bill of rights to guard against the dangerous encroachments of power in too many instances to be named: but I cannot pass over in silence the insecurity in which we are left with regard to warrants unsupported by evidence  the daring experiment of granting writs of assistance in a former arbitrary administration is not yet forgotten in the [ sic ] Massachusetts; nor can we be so ungrateful to the memory of the patriots who counteracted their operation, as so soon after their manly exertions to save us from such a detestable instrument of arbitrary power, to subject ourselves to the insolence of any petty revenue officer to enter our houses, search, insult, and seize at pleasure. 1 Schwartz, The Bill of Rights, supra at 488-89. In Virginia, Patrick Henry urged the rejection of the constitution primarily because of the absence of a provision protecting against illegal searches, Landynski, supra at 40: A man may be seized, any property may be taken, in the most arbitrary manner, without any evidence or reason. Every thing the most sacred may be searched and ransacked by the strong hand of power. We have infinitely more reason to dread general warrants here than they have in England, because there, if a person be confined, liberty may be quickly obtained by the writ of habeas corpus. But here a man living many hundreds of miles from the judges may get in prison before he can get that writ. III Elliot (ed), The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 461 (1861). [3] The Fourth Amendment and its later counterparts in state constitutions, including Oregon's, resulted from repressive acts by government against the governed. Unwarranted searches for seditious literature in trunks, cabinets and homes; restriction of freedom of the press and expression; searches to control commerce and collect revenues; and searches for religious offenses, these were the evils complained of. The goals of constitutional search and seizure provisions are to restrain the government from using search and seizures to persecute nonconformists and repress the rights of the governed  rights such as freedom of speech and religion, the right to trial, the right to engage in commerce, and the right to be secure in one's home and person. Many of the searches and seizures described above were not made as part of a criminal investigation, but as part of a plan of a repressive government. I do not maintain that our constitutional search and seizure provisions concern only searches and seizures made as part of a criminal investigation. I do maintain that the history of these provisions, reason and common sense, compel the conclusion that the terms searches and seizures, as used in our constitutions, have a well understood and well defined meaning, at variance from the construction of the majority.