Court Opinion

ID: 9427538
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:21:07.11352+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:07.831319
License: Public Domain

Mb. Justice Brennan-,
with whom Me. Justice Stewart joins except as to Part I, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in Parts I and II of the Court’s opinion.
I
I dissent from Part III for the reasons stated in the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Stevens which I join.
II
I also dissent from Part IY. In my view, even reading Title III to authorize covert entries, the Justice Department’s present practice of securing specific authorization for covert entries is not only preferable, see ante, this page n. 22, but also constitutionally required.
Breaking and entering into private premises for the purpose of planting a bug cannot be characterized as a mere mode of warrant execution to be left to the discretion of the executing officer. See ante, at 257. The practice entails an invasion *260of privacy of constitutional significance distinct from that which attends nontrespassory surveillance; indeed, it is tantamount to an independent search and seizure. First, rooms may be bugged without the need for surreptitious entry and physical invasion of private premises. See Lopez v. United States, 373 U. S. 427, 467-468 (1963) (Brennan, J., dissenting) . Second, covert entry, a practice condemned long before we condemned unwarranted eavesdropping, see Silverman v. United States, 365 U. S. 505 (1961), breaches physical as well as conversational privacy. The home or office itself, that “inviolate place which is a man’s castle,” id., at 512 n. 4, is invaded. Third, the practice is particularly intrusive and susceptible to abuse since it leaves naked to the hands and eyes of government agents items beyond the reach of simple eavesdropping.
Because of these additional intrusions attendant to covert entries, the Constitution requires that government agents who wish to break into private premises first secure specific judicial authorization for the surreptitious entry. Authority for the physical invasion cannot be derived from a Title III order authorizing only electronic surveillance.
“[T]he Fourth Amendment confines an officer executing a search warrant strictly within the bounds set by the warrant,” Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388, 394 n. 7 (1971), in order to assure that those “searches deemed necessary [remain] as limited as possible.” Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443, 467 (1971). See Stanford v. Texas, 379 U. S. 476, 485 (1965); Marron v. United States, 275 U. S. 192, 196 (1927).* As a consequence, a warrant that describes *261only the seizure of conversations cannot be read expansively to authorize constitutionally distinct physical invasions of privacy at the discretion of the executing officer. Rather, the Constitution demands that the necessity for home invasion be decided “by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime.” Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10, 14 (1948).
I cannot agree that adherence to this principle would amount to “specification of the precise manner” in which Title III orders are executed. See ante, at 257. The warrant could, consistent with the command of the Fourth Amendment, leave the details of how best to proceed with the covert entry to the discretion of the executing officers. The warrant need only state, as under the present Justice Department practice, that “surreptitious entry for the purpose of installing and removing any electronic interception devices [is] to be utilized in accomplishing the oral interception.” Ante, at 259 n. 22.
Nor can I agree that adherence to the strictures of the Warrant and Particularity Clauses of the Fourth Amendment would amount to “empty formalism.” See ante, at 258. Since premises may be bugged through means less drastic than home invasion, requiring police to secure prior approval for covert entries may well prevent unnecessary and improper intrusions. In any event, that the present case may not appear particularly abusive cannot justify the Court’s crabbed interpretation of the Fourth Amendment. Mr. Justice Brad*262ley’s admonition almost a century ago has even greater cogency in today’s world of ever more intrusive governmental invasions of privacy:
“It may be that it is the obnoxious thing in its mildest and least repulsive form; but illegitimate and unconstitutional practices get their first footing in that way, namely, by silent approaches and slight deviations from legal modes of procedure. This can only be obviated by adhering to the rule that constitutional provisions for the security of person and property should be liberally construed. A close and literal construction deprives them of half their efficacy, and leads to gradual depreciation of the right, as if it consisted more in sound than in substance. It is the duty of courts to be watchful for the constitutional rights of the citizen, and against any stealthy encroachments thereon.” Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 635 (1886).

The Court’s reliance upon United States v. Cravero, 545 F. 2d 406, 421 (CA5 1976) (on petition for rehearing), for the opposite proposition is misplaced. In Cravero, police could not have anticipated the need to arrest the suspect at his home at the time the arrest warrant was issued. It would have been unreasonable, therefore, to require the warrant to specify a home arrest. Here, by contrast, the covert entry was easily foreseeable. There is no reason why the federal agents who secured the *261warrant could not have advised the judge who issued the warrant that they contemplated covert entry. Indeed, the current Justice Department practice of securing specific prior authorization for covert entries demonstrates the practicability of a constitutional prior-authorization requirement.
United States v. Gervato, 474 F. 2d 40, 41 (CA3 1973), is distinguishable for the same reason and also because Gervato involved a mere mode of warrant execution (forcible entry) rather than an invasion of two separate expectations of privacy.