Court Opinion

ID: 9425325
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:14:22.638251+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:54.718563
License: Public Domain

*305MR. Justice Brennan,
dissenting in part.
Without effecting an arrest, and without first seeking to obtain a search warrant from a magistrate, the police decided to scrape respondent’s fingernails for destructible evidence. In upholding this search, the Court engrafts another, albeit limited, exception on the warrant requirement. Before we take the serious step of legitimating even limited searches merely upon probable cause — without a warrant or as incident to an arrest — we ought first be certain that such probable cause in fact existed. Here, as my Brother Douglas convincingly demonstrates “[w]hether there was or was not probable cause is difficult to determine on this record.” Ante, at 301. And, since the Court of Appeals did not consider that question, the proper course would be to remand to that court so that it might decide in the first instance whether there was probable cause to arrest or search. There is simply no need for this Court to decide, upon a disputed record and at this stage of the litigation, whether the instant search would be permissible if probable cause existed.