Opinion ID: 787362
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Reasonableness of the Search

Text: 110 The Fourth Amendment provides that [t]he 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. The basic purpose of this Amendment, as recognized in countless decisions of this Court, is to safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary invasions by governmental officials. The Fourth Amendment thus gives concrete expression to a right of the people which is basic to a free society. Camara v. Mun. Court of City and County of San Francisco, 387 U.S. 523, 528, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967) (internal quotation marks omitted). To serve these purposes, the Constitution generally requires that searches be supported by probable cause and be approved prior to execution by a warrant issued by an impartial magistrate.
111 The Fourth Amendment's requirement that searches be supported by reasonable and particularized suspicion and a warrant is deeply rooted in our history. The historical background of that amendment demonstrates that our Framers' were steadfastly committed to the ideal that general warrants and searches conducted in the absence of reasonable and particular suspicion were intolerable in a democratic society. See Henry v. United States, 361 U.S. 98, 100, 80 S.Ct. 168, 4 L.Ed.2d 134 (1959). As the Henry Court noted, 112 The general warrant, in which the name of the person to be arrested was left blank, and the writs of assistance, against which James Otis inveighed, both perpetuated the oppressive practice of allowing the police to arrest and search on suspicion. Police control took the place of judicial control, since no showing of probable cause before a magistrate was required. The Virginia Declaration of Rights, adopted June 12, 1776, rebelled against that practice: That general warrants, whereby any officer or messenger may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of a fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, or whose offence is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are grievous and oppressive, and ought not to be granted. The Maryland Declaration of Rights (1776), Art. XXIII, was equally emphatic. 113 ... 114 That philosophy later was reflected in the Fourth Amendment. And as the early American decisions both before and immediately after its adoption show, common rumor or report, suspicion, or even strong reason to suspect was not adequate to support a warrant for arrest. 115 Id. at 100-102, 80 S.Ct. 168 (internal footnotes and citations omitted). [T]he particular way the Framers chose to curb the abuses of general warrants — and by implication, all general searches — was ... to retain the individualized suspicion requirement contained in the typical general warrant, but to make that requirement meaningful and enforceable, for instance, by raising the required level of individualized suspicion to objective probable cause. Vernonia Sch. Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 670, 115 S.Ct. 2386, 132 L.Ed.2d 564 (1995) (O'Connor, J., dissenting) (emphasis in original). 116 In particular, the Framers feared blanket searches, whereby law enforcement officials would go door-to-door to conduct searches of every house in an area, regardless of suspicion. See id. (noting that the Framers may have considered blanket area searches even more worrisome than the typical general search). They knew that the use of suspicionless blanket searches and seizures for investigatory purposes would subject unlimited numbers of innocent persons to the harassment and ignominy incident to involuntary detention. Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U.S. 721, 726, 89 S.Ct. 1394, 22 L.Ed.2d 676 (1969). It is plain that the Fourth Amendment was meant to prevent [such] wholesale intrusions upon the personal security of our citizenry. Id. 117 Fourth Amendment jurisprudence has evolved considerably over the years. The Court has recognized, for example, a number of reasonable departures from the warrant requirement and in some instance has relaxed the level of suspicion required before a law enforcement official may conduct a search. See, e.g., Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 24-25, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) (upholding stop and frisk searches upon reasonable suspicion as a general exception to the warrant requirement); Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 762, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969) (upholding searches conducted incident to arrest as a general exception to the warrant requirement). The Court has even approved certain limited categories of non-law enforcement searches conducted in the absence of any suspicion at all. See, e.g., United States v. Ramsey, 431 U.S. 606, 616, 97 S.Ct. 1972, 52 L.Ed.2d 617 (1977) (upholding suspicionless border searches pursuant to the longstanding right of the sovereign to protect itself by stopping and examining persons and property crossing into this country); New York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691, 702, 107 S.Ct. 2636, 96 L.Ed.2d 601 (1987) (upholding warrantless inspections of closely-regulated businesses as a special need beyond the need for normal law enforcement); Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656, 109 S.Ct. 1384, 103 L.Ed.2d 685 (1989) (upholding suspicionless drug testing of high-risk United States customs officials as a special need beyond the need for normal law enforcement); Chandler v. Miller, 520 U.S. 305, 323, 117 S.Ct. 1295, 137 L.Ed.2d 513 (1997) (affirming, without deciding explicitly, the constitutionality of blanket suspicionless searches at airports and entrances to federal buildings when such searches are carefully calibrated to meet a substantial and real risk to public safety). 8 However, the existence of the Warrant Clause in the Fourth Amendment demonstrates beyond doubt that there are some categories of searches for which individualized suspicion is nonnegotiable. Vernonia, 515 U.S. at 673, 115 S.Ct. 2386 (O'Connor, J., dissenting). And whether one attempts to manufacture neat categories with clever names, see ante, at 830-832, or groups them all into one large category of cases involving special needs, 9 118 see Burger, 119 482 U.S. at 702, 107 S.Ct. 2636, the overriding lesson is clear: when the government wishes to search individuals in order to obtain evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing, some level of individualized suspicion is required. 10
120 Never once in over two hundred years of history has the Supreme Court approved of a suspicionless search designed to produce ordinary evidence of criminal wrongdoing for use by the police. 11 The constitutional tradition described in Henry has been reaffirmed over time, most prominently in recent years by the majority opinion in Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 121 S.Ct. 447, 148 L.Ed.2d 333 (2000). In Edmond, the Court explained that 121 A search or seizure is ordinarily unreasonable in the absence of individualized suspicion of wrongdoing. While such suspicion is not an irreducible component of reasonableness, we have recognized only limited circumstances in which the usual rule does not apply. For example, we have upheld certain regimes of suspicionless searches where the program was designed to serve special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement. 122 Id. at 37, 121 S.Ct. 447 (emphasis added); see also Vernonia, 515 U.S. at 671, 115 S.Ct. 2386 (O'Connor, J., dissenting) (The view that mass, suspicionless searches, however evenhanded, are generally unreasonable remains inviolate in the criminal law enforcement context.). Edmond held that the only recognized exception to the general rule that searches be based on some type of individualized suspicion is when the search is justified by special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement, that render inoperative the Framers' historic mistrust of excessive power in the hands of the police. Edmond, 531 U.S. at 37, 121 S.Ct. 447. Therefore, no programmatic suspicionless search is reasonable unless the special need is divorced from the State's general interest in law enforcement. Ferguson v. City of Charleston, 532 U.S. 67, 79, 121 S.Ct. 1281, 149 L.Ed.2d 205 (2001) (holding unconstitutional a state hospital program that tested pregnant women for drug use and then made available to the police the results of the tests on the grounds that the immediate objective of the [suspicionless] searches was to generate evidence for law enforcement purposes). 123 Although the general interest in law enforcement does not refer to every law enforcement objective, see, e.g., Illinois v. Lidster, 540 U.S. 419, ___, 124 S.Ct. 885, 889, 157 L.Ed.2d 843 (2004) (upholding a suspicionless traffic stop under the special needs doctrine when the searches were designed to elicit information not about the occupants of the vehicle, but other individuals), valid special needs, as the Court most recently explained in Lidster, may not include efforts to obtain information related to possible crimes that the searched individual may have committed. See 540 U.S. at ___, 124 S.Ct. at 889. Further support for this principle comes from the cases involving school drug testing. In those cases, the Court has drawn a clear distinction between searches conducted for the purpose of solving and/or punishing crime and those searches conducted without the involvement of punitive consequences or law enforcement officials. See, e.g., Bd. of Educ. v. Earls, 536 U.S. 822, 833, 122 S.Ct. 2559, 153 L.Ed.2d 735 (2002) (emphasizing that the test results are not turned over to any law enforcement authority); see also Vernonia, 515 U.S. at 658 n. 2, 115 S.Ct. 2386 (stressing that the search here is undertaken for prophylactic and distinctly nonpunitive purposes) (emphasis added); Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 666, 109 S.Ct. 1384 (noting that test results may not be used in a criminal prosecution of the employee without the employee's consent). 124 In short, the Court has never, ever, upheld a regime of suspicionless searches based on the government's desire to pursue ordinary law enforcement objectives. See Edmond, 531 U.S. at 41, 121 S.Ct. 447 (noting that the Court had never approved [a general program of suspicionless seizures] whose primary purpose was to detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing); see also Vernonia, 515 U.S. at 658, 115 S.Ct. 2386; Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 679, 109 S.Ct. 1384; Skinner, 489 U.S. at 620-621, 109 S.Ct. 1402. To the contrary, the Court explicitly disapproved such searches in Edmond and explained that permitting suspicionless searches to be justified by the general interest in crime control would allow such intrusions to become a routine part of American life. 531 U.S. at 42, 121 S.Ct. 447. 12 125 When we are evaluating the reasonableness of a suspicionless search, conducted pursuant to a programmatic search regime, we consider all the available evidence in order to determine the relevant primary purpose. Ferguson, 532 U.S. at 81, 121 S.Ct. 1281. No matter what the ultimate goal of the statute itself may be, the question we ask is whether the immediate objective of the searches was to generate evidence for law enforcement purposes.  Id. at 83, 121 S.Ct. 1281 (emphasis in original). 13 If so, the search is unconstitutional. See id. at 86, 121 S.Ct. 1281; see also Lidster, 540 U.S. at ___, 124 S.Ct. at 890. 126 The unequivocal purpose of the searches performed pursuant to the DNA Act is to generate the sort of ordinary investigatory evidence used by law enforcement officials for everyday law enforcement purposes. The government maintained from the outset of this litigation that the purpose of the searches authorized by the DNA Act is to help law enforcement solve unresolved and future cases. 14 Moreover, it is plain that in passing the DNA Act, Congress's primary concern was the swift and accurate solution and prosecution of crimes as a general matter. The legislative history is littered with approving references to DNA evidence's ability to solve past and future crimes and thereby assist prosecutions. See, e.g., DNA Act House Report, at 8-11, 23-27, 32-36 (2000). For example, the Department of Justice argued to Congress that one of the underlying concepts behind CODIS is to create a database of convicted offender profiles and use it to solve crimes for which there are no suspects. Id. at 27. Members of Congress made similar arguments. See 146 CONG. REC. S11645-02, at S11647 (daily ed. Dec. 6, 2000) (arguing that the purpose of adding DNA profiles into CODIS is to solve crimes and prevent further crimes) (statement of Sen. Leahy); 146 CONG. REC. H8572-02, at H8575-6 (daily ed. Oct. 2, 2000) (statement of Rep. Canady) (The purpose of [CODIS] is to match DNA samples from crime scenes where there are no suspects with the DNA of convicted offenders. Clearly, the more samples we have in the system, the greater the likelihood we will come up with matches and solve cases.). 15 127 There can be no question that the government's primary purpose in conducting searches pursuant to the DNA Act is to generate evidence capable of assisting ordinary law enforcement investigations. The searches are designed to reveal at some point in time whether the individuals whose blood samples are involuntarily extracted have committed some crime. Lidster, 540 U.S. at ___, 124 S.Ct. at 889. This is the paradigmatic search condemned by the special needs doctrine. 128 Some, including the Government and Judge Gould in his concurring opinion, maintain that the DNA Act serves a constitutionally valid special need because the Fourth Amendment intrusion serves the state's need to supervise its conditional releasees. In Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 107 S.Ct. 3164, 97 L.Ed.2d 709 (1987), the Court held constitutionally reasonable the search of a probationer conducted pursuant to a Wisconsin probation regulation that permitted probation officers to conduct warrantless searches of probationers' homes so long as `reasonable grounds' to believe the presence of contraband supported the search. Id. at 870-71, 107 S.Ct. 3164. The regulation was not made a special condition of Griffin's probation, but instead applied to all probationers statewide. The Court held that the operation of the probation system presented a special need beyond that of normal law enforcement — the state's need to exercise [ ] supervision to assure that [probation] restrictions are in fact observed. Id. at 875, 107 S.Ct. 3164; see id. (holding that probation is a `special need' of the State, permitting a degree of impingement upon privacy that would not be constitutional if applied to the public at large). 129 For several reasons, Griffin does not support the validation of the search regime prescribed by the DNA Act. First and foremost, as I have already explained, the primary purpose of the DNA Act is to collect information for ordinary law enforcement purposes — to help law enforcement authorities determine whether specific individuals have committed particular crimes. It is not to assist in the supervision of releasees, the purpose the Griffin Court identified. 16 130 Second, although Griffin involved probationers, one of the classes of persons covered by the DNA Act, the similarities end there. Unlike in Griffin, the DNA Act involves surveillance that extends far beyond conditional releasees' periods of supervision. Contrary to the plurality's suggestion, the government's alleged interest in Griffin — supervision — was not, according to the Court, a clear law enforcement objective. See ante, at 824. Instead, the purpose of the search regime in Griffin was to facilitate the supervision of probationers during the finite term of their probation period; certainly, it was not to produce unbounded evidence of past or future crimes for inclusion in a permanent governmental database. Griffin explained its departure from the warrant and probable cause requirement by referring repeatedly to the special supervisory interests at the heart of the probation system. 131 A warrant requirement would interfere to an appreciable degree with the probation system, setting up a magistrate rather than the probation officer as the judge of how close a supervision the probationer requires. Moreover, the delay inherent in obtaining a warrant would make it more difficult for probation officials to respond quickly to evidence of misconduct, and would reduce the deterrent effect that the possibility of expeditious searches would otherwise create.... Although a probation officer is not an impartial magistrate, neither is he the police officer who normally conducts searches against the ordinary citizen.... In such a setting, we think it reasonable to dispense with the warrant requirement. 132 483 U.S. at 876-77, 107 S.Ct. 3164. 133 By contrast, the purpose of the DNA Act is to obtain material for inclusion in a permanent databank to help solve crimes that may have been committed prior to the individual's term of supervised released but, most often, will be committed at some time after his term of supervision is complete. 17 Although probation officers are forced to collect the blood samples under the Act, they are required immediately thereafter to turn them over to the FBI for analysis, permanent storage in CODIS, and future use by law enforcement officials for law enforcement purposes. See 42 U.S.C.A. § 14135a(b). Any use of the DNA samples to solve crimes committed during the period of supervised release is thus incidental to the primary purpose of the Act. And, under the special needs doctrine, it does not matter that an ancillary benefit of the Act may be to make the task of supervising conditional releasees somewhat easier. Even the presence of a benign motive cannot justify a departure from Fourth Amendment protections, given the pervasive involvement of law enforcement interests. Ferguson, 532 U.S. at 84-85 & n. 22, 121 S.Ct. 1281. 134 Third, CODIS is not limited to or even designed primarily to cover federal probationers or parolees. By the terms of the DNA Act, CODIS covers all persons convicted of the Act's qualifying offenses regardless of whether they are incarcerated in penal institutions or placed on supervised release. The overwhelming majority of individuals convicted of federal offenses are not sentenced to probation; they are sentenced to prison, where, under the Act, the compulsory extraction of blood samples occurs. 18 See generally U.S. Dep't of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics, Compendium of Federal Justice Statistics, 2001, available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/ pub/pdf/cfjs0105.pdf (last visited July 7, 2004) (noting that in 2000-2001, 74.5% of convicted offenders were sentenced to prison while only 17.5% were sentenced to probation). 19 CODIS now also includes DNA profiles of members of the armed forces, despite the fact that the army's DNA repository was originally promised to be used only for the identification of human remains. See Br. of Amicus Curiae Pub. Defender Serv. for the Dist. of Columbia, at 13 (citing 62 Fed.Reg. 51835, 51835 (Oct. 3, 1987)). Thus, the relevance of an individual's conditional release status to the CODIS program is highly attenuated. Only a very small percentage of persons covered by the Act are subjected to compulsory blood extraction while on conditional release, and the use of the information collected is not limited to that period of time. In no way can it fairly be said that, like Griffin, CODIS is a program designed to aid in the supervision of conditional releasees. 135 Last but not least, the Griffin Court confronted a search regime which required reasonable suspicion before any search could be conducted. See 483 U.S. at 871, 107 S.Ct. 3164; see also id. at 880 n. 8, 107 S.Ct. 3164 (holding that the only regulation upon which we rely for our constitutional decision is that which permits a warrantless search on `reasonable grounds.'). The state's supervisory interests, beyond the normal needs of law enforcement, were implicated in Griffin precisely because the searches were designed to check on individual probationers who were suspected of violating the terms of their conditional release. Neither Griffin nor any later precedent supports holding constitutional under the special needs doctrine all state regulations relating to the supervision of probationers and parolees without suspicion and notwithstanding the presence of an ordinary law enforcement purpose as the primary factor underlying the search. 20
136 The Fourth Amendment forbids blanket suspicionless searches conducted for ordinary law enforcement purposes. Under the plurality's opinion, the only remaining area of the Fourth Amendment that has been nonnegotiable would no longer be safe. Like Judge Gould, I believe that the special needs doctrine controls this case. Unlike Judge Gould, however, I would hold that the DNA Act is plainly designed to generate evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing, and not to serve a supervisory need, as was the case in Griffin. That is an impermissible purpose under the special needs doctrine. Consequently, I would hold that, under that doctrine, the Act is unconstitutional.