Opinion ID: 2179687
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Delaware Constitutional History

Text: Within the last year, in Jones, this Court has had to decide whether the search and seizure language in the Delaware Constitution means the same thing as the United States Supreme Court's construction of similar language in Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. [43] In answering that question, we gave a comprehensive scholarly account of the historical differences in the search and seizure provisions in the Delaware and United States Constitution. [44] The original Delaware Constitution and Declaration of Rights were adopted in September 1776  approximately two months after the Declaration of Independence and fifteen years before the federal Bill of Rights. The primary and repeated concern expressed in the Declaration of Independence was that the King had either denied or violated the American rights as English citizens. Consequently, virtually all of the first state constitutions contained explicit provisions [45] dealing with the retention or limited reception of English common law [46] and included Declarations of Rights, often based upon common law antecedents. [47] Prior to the American Revolution, many aspiring colonial attorneys traveled to London to study law at the Middle Temple or one of the other English Inns of Court. [48] After their legal studies were completed, those individuals returned from London to practice law in colonial America. When he was Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, William H. Taft  previously President of the United States  wrote the Foreword to a book entitled  American Members of the Inns of Court.  According to Chief Justice Taft: This book contains proof of the instilling in all the communities of the Colonies of the principles of the Common Law as taught in the Inns of Court and by the decision of the English Judges.... Many of the law officers of the Colonies ... [had studied in London] at either the Middle Temple, the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn or Lincoln's Inn. When the [American] Revolution came on, the legal atmosphere of every community was permeated with the principles and the methods of the Common Law. So it was that the lawyers of the [American] Revolution who told part in the formation of the new Government brought to that great task  a deep respect for, and a close knowledge of, the Common Law. [49] Article 25 of Delaware's 1776 Constitution provided: The common law of England, as well as so much of the statute law as have been heretofore adopted in practice in this state, shall remain in force, unless they shall be altered by a future law of the Legislature; such parts only excepted as are repugnant to the rights and privileges contained in this constitution and the declaration of rights, & c. agreed to by this convention. [50] Delaware adopted the first search and seizure protections for its citizens in September of 1776 as part of the Declaration of Rights and Fundamental Rules of the Delaware State: That all warrants without oath to search suspected places or to seize any person or his property, are grievous and oppressive; and all general warrants to search suspected places, or to apprehend all persons suspected, without naming or describing the place or any person in special, are illegal and ought not to be granted. [51] The primary authorship of Delaware's 1776 Constitution and Declaration of Rights is traditionally ascribed to Thomas McKean, a Delaware lawyer and signatory to the Declaration of Independence. [52] It is interesting to note that Thomas McKean had studied the English common law at the Middle Temple in London, where he was a contemporary of William Blackstone. [53] In the third volume of his authoritative Commentaries on the Laws of England, Blackstone wrote: it is a settled and invariable principle in the laws of England, that every right, when withheld, must have a remedy, and every injury its proper redress. [54] In our view, it is logical to infer that by specifically adopting the existing common law of England, the framers of Delaware's first Constitution and Declaration of Rights contemplated that there would be a remedy for the violation of the right to be free from illegal searches and seizures. [55] Likewise, in our view, the framers of Delaware's first Declaration of Rights and Constitution did not contemplate excusing violations of the search and seizure right if the police acted in good faith. Article 30 of Delaware's first constitution provided: No article of the declaration of rights and fundamental rules of this state ... ought ever to be violated on any pretence whatever... [56] Excusing good faith violations of the constitutional right to be free from illegal searches and seizures is exactly the type of pretence that Article 30 in Delaware's 1776 Constitution expressly prohibited. The President of the 1792 Delaware Constitutional Convention was John Dickinson, who had studied the common law of England at the Middle Temple in London with Thomas McKean and, thus, was also a contemporary of William Blackstone. [57] During the 1787 debates over the United States Constitution in Philadelphia, Dickinson referred to Blackstone's Commentaries to determine that the term  ex post facto  in the common law applied only in criminal cases. [58] When the 1792 Delaware Constitution was drafted, Dickinson was instrumental in retaining the common law right to trial by jury as heretofore. [59] It is logical to infer, in the absence of any provisions to the contrary, that John Dickinson and the other framers of Delaware's 1792 Constitution intended to continue the common law principle that there must be a remedy for the violation of any vested right. [60] The probable cause provision in the present Delaware Constitution and Declaration of Rights was added in 1792 and has never been changed. [61] When the probable cause element was added to the oath requirement for search warrants in Delaware's Declaration of Rights in 1792, it was an enhancement of the right against illegal searches and seizures rights set forth in Delaware's 1776 Constitution and Declaration of Rights. In Jones, this Court concluded that the history of the search and seizure provisions in the Delaware Constitution reflected different and broader protections than those guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment. [62] The original search and seizure provision in the Delaware Constitution preceded the adoption of the Fourth Amendment by fifteen years and was originally like a similar provision in the Pennsylvania Constitution. [63] The Delaware Constitution was adopted in 1792 after the Fourth Amendment had already been adopted. [64] Nevertheless, the 1792 Delaware Constitution continued to follow the search and seizure language from the Pennsylvania Constitution rather than the language in the Fourth Amendment. [65]