Court Opinion

ID: 9691830
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 15:15:33.460216+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:26.068450
License: Public Domain

*226GALLAGHER, Associate Judge,
dissenting (in part), with whom Associate Judge FICKLING, joins:
I am concerned that this court has cast aside judicial restraint and entered an advisory opinion on this grave constitutional question. Courts have been cautioned not to do this from time out of mind. E. g., Hayburn’s Case, 2 Dall. 409, 1 L.Ed. 436 (1792); United States v. Ferreira, 13 How. 40, 14 L.Ed. 42 (1851); United States v. Evans, 213 U.S. 297, 301, 29 S.Ct. 507, 53 L.Ed. 803 (1909); Muskrat v. United States, 219 U.S. 346, 31 S.Ct. 250, 55 L.Ed. 246 (1911); United Public Workers (C.I.O.) v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75, 89, 67 S.Ct. 556, 91 L.Ed. 754 (1947); . Rescue Army v. Municipal Court, 331 U.S. 549, 67 S.Ct. 1409, 91 L.Ed. 1666 (1947); Barr v. Matteo, 355 U.S. 171, 172, 78 S.Ct. 204, 2 L.Ed.2d 179 (1957); United States v. Fruehauf, 365 U.S. 146, 157, 81 S.Ct. 547, 5 L.Ed.2d 476, reh. denied, 365 U.S. 875, 81 S.Ct. 899, 6 L.Ed.2d 864 (1961); Hall v. Beals, 396 U.S. 45, 48, 90 S.Ct. 200, 24 L.Ed.2d 214 (1969). The record is admittedly so barren as to prevent a square confrontation with the constitutional issue. Before this confrontation may occur there must be no major void in essential facts. So, faced with this void and instead of restraining itself, the court has reached for the abstract concept involved in the lineup order under review and stamped its approval. I hope this will be a one time excursion for the court, for reasons I will give.
As a predicate, it is necessary to understand what the court has done. It considers the new concept of compelling a person to appear in a lineup where reasonable grounds to believe a suspect committed a grave crime (probable cause) are con-cededly lacking — but some cause to suspect he committed it is present — and concludes this accords with the Fourth Amendment and is therefore constitutional. Having done this, it comes to grips with the facts in the case in the waning moments of the opinion and decides they are so lacking as to prevent an affirmance of the lineup order under review.
When it finally reached consideration of the facts, it did so to determine “whether on the facts as presented the requisite specificity as to articulable facts was present in order to permit meaningful evaluation of the reasonableness of the proposed lineup by the neutral and detached judicial officer.” It acknowledges that this “is the constitutional touchstone of such an order.” It proceeds to set out various factual voids in the record — but not by any means all of them as far as I am concerned. Then, to my astonishment, the court concludes the facts presented do not enable an evaluation of “the reasonableness of the proposed intrusion against its impact * * * on personal liberty.” Yet, it had previously stated it had decided this constitutional issue and had concluded that:
On balance, and realistically viewing the impact of a court-ordered lineup of the kind here contemplated on liberty, we conclude * * * that the public interest can validly require this intrusion.
And so we have an advance advisory opinion by the majority that the proposed lineup order is constitutional if more, but as yet undetermined, facts can be supplied. This is why “advisory opinions are not merely advisory opinions. They are ghosts that slay.”1
But, says the majority, the constitutional issue should not be avoided because present resolution of that issue is essential to a proper disposition of the case. This is particularly true, they say, where the question is novel and the public need is so great. But that is just the point. Where, as here, there is a novel constitutional issue which cuts deeply into personal liberties the court should not vault into an opinion which seeks to overthrow generations of precedents on a record concededly lacking in facts essential to decide the issue on the merits. It would be redundant to labor the *227great public need these days to solve and prevent crimes of violence in urban areas. I have said as much too many times before.2 In our anxiety, though, we should not lose sight of the need for preservation of the freedom of the individual. The art lies in the wise balancing of the two needs. In cases involving the eternal conflict between the freedom of the individual and his control by society, “[t]he stuff of these contests are facts, and judgment upon facts.”3
This court is not “authorized to answer academic questions”, White v. Johnson, 282 U.S. 367, 373, 51 S.Ct. 115, 75 L.Ed. 388 (1931). “Constitutional questions are not to be decided hypothetically.” Anniston Mfg. Co. v. Davis, 301 U.S. 337, 353, 57 S.Ct. 816, 823, 81 L.Ed. 1143, reh. denied, 302 U.S. 772, 58 S.Ct. 3,82 L.Ed. 599 (1937), citing Borden’s Farm Products Co. v. Baldwin, 293 U.S. 194, 208-210, 55 S.Ct. 187, 79 L.Ed. 281 (1934). “[Ojnly an adjudication on the merits can provide the concrete factual setting that sharpens the deliberative process especially demanded for constitutional decision.” United States v. International Union, etc., 352 U.S. 567, 591, 77 S.Ct. 529, 541, 1 L.Ed.2d 563 (1957). Without facts the issues cannot be presented with the “clarity, precision and certainty”4 which constitutional decision demands; and “ * * * before [a question] of constitutional law, both novel and of far reaching importance, [is] passed upon * * * ‘the facts essential to [its] decision should be definitely found by the lower [court] upon adequate evidence.’ ” Borden’s Farm Products Co. v. Baldwin, 293 U.S. 194, 212, 55 S.Ct. 187, 193, 79 L.Ed. 281 (1934), citing Hammond v. Schappi Bus Line, 275 U.S. 164, 171-172, 48 S.Ct. 66, 72 L.Ed. 218 (1927). Constitutional questions “are not to be entertained upon dubious presentations or, most certainly, when the presentation reasonably may be taken as not intended to put them forward squarely and inescapably.” Aircraft & Diesel Equipment Corp. v. Hirsch, 331 U.S. 752, 763, 67 S.Ct. 1493, 1498, 91 L.Ed. 1796 (1947). “Counsel are prone to shape litigation, so far as it is within their control, in order to secure comprehensive rulings. This is true both of counsel for defendants and for the Government. Such desire on their part is not difficult to appreciate. But the Court has its responsibilityUnited States v. International Union, etc., supra, 352 U.S. at 592, 77 S.Ct. at 541. (Emphasis added.)
So, rather than there being a necessity to decide the constitutionality of the abstract concept involved here, there is a duty to avoid deciding because of the factual void. E. g., Morales v. New York, 396 U.S. 102, 90 S.Ct. 291, 24 L.Ed.2d 299 (1969); United States v. International Union, etc., supra, 352 U.S. at 591-592, 77 S.Ct. 529; District of Columbia v. Little, 339 U.S. 1, 3-4, 70 S.Ct. 468, 94 L.Ed. 599 (1950); Aircraft & Diesel Equipment Corp. v. Hirsch, supra; Rescue Army v. Municipal Court, supra, 331 U.S. at 575-576, 67 S.Ct. 1409.
When the majority does wrestle with the facts — or rather the lack of them — it sets out several lines of inquiry to be pursued. It is striking that it does so because “[u]n-der the limited facts presented the proposed lineup ‘would invite intrusions upon constitutionally guaranteed rights based on nothing more substantial than [possible] inarticulate hunches * * *.’ ” Having enumerated factors to be explored, the majority concludes that “[t]here is every reason * * * for the police to disclose all factors they possess shedding light on the likelihood, that the tentative identification5 is the correct one.” (Emphasis added.)
*228As I read'the factors to be explored, the majority is requiring that the Government obtain what may well amount to probable cause to arrest,6 I must say this is a curious result after a laborious opinion deciding the constitutionality of a hypothetical lineup order bottomed on suspicion rather than the traditional probable cause to arrest. It demonstrates the recklessness of deciding serious constitutional issues without essential facts. How can the majority opinion be read with any confidence as to what is really being decided?
I agree, of course, that anything which may lead to probable cause to arrest should be pursued. But this course taken by the majority simply compounds my puzzlement as to why they have rendered an advisory opinion on the constitutionality of the proposed lineup order. I might add that I am just as puzzled as to why the judicial officer took the extraordinary step of entering this novel lineup order carrying with it such far-reaching implications with little or no factual inquiry apparent on his part. The record expressly leaves open, for example, whether the Government has so much as explored whether the suspect would voluntarily submit to interrogation (Tr. 1-1 — 16). It contains no indication that all investigative avenues have been explored and the request for the lineup order was a last resort; nor does it show whether the usual examination of the rape victim was made for specimens. In fact, it contains no testimony at all.
The majority points to Morales v. New York, supra, as supporting the validity of the contemplated lineup order. But Morales does no such thing. There, in connection with a confession by the defendant, the Court had before it whether the police “may detain for custodial questioning on less than probable cause for a traditional arrest * * Id. at 104-105, 90 S.Ct. at 293. The Court concluded that the record did not permit a satisfactory evaluation of the facts surrounding the apprehension and detention of the defendant. It said that an evidentiary hearing might develop that (1) there was probable cause for an arrest, or (2) the defendant’s confrontation with the police was voluntary, or (3) the confession was not the product of illegal detention. But, said the Court, “in the absence of a record that squarely and necessarily presents the issue and fully illuminates the factual context in which the question arises, we choose not to grapple with the question of the legality of custodial questioning on less than probable cause for a full-fledged arrest.” Id. at 105-106, 90 S.Ct. at 293. (Emphasis supplied.)
I should think the only lesson to be drawn from Morales is that this court should not grapple now with the novel and grave constitutional issue presented here for precisely the same reason.
The majority places similar reliance upon the Circuit Court’s interim order in Shaykar v. Curran (No. 24,826). But that court seemed at pains to make clear that it was following the unusual procedure concerning the scientific samplings “ * * * to balance the need of this Court for more time to consider these novel questions fully with the need of the Government for expedition and efficiency in its criminal investigation processes * * * [and] it is intended as a means of presenting the issues. * * * ” I think we should take the court at its word and not strain to draw the conclusion, as the majority does, that the court has already adjudged the constitutionality of the procedures when the court said it has not.7
In my view, the ruling that “the contemplated lineup” is constitutionally permissible may not prudently be relied upon as a binding precedent because judicial restraint *229went out the window, and the court sought to decide this serious constitutional question virtually in a vacuum, with the resulting infirmities I have related. In doing so the majority went contrary to reams of Supreme Court decisions going back to the “foundation of the government.” Baker v. Grice, 169 U.S. 284, 292, 18 S.Ct. 323, 42 L.Ed. 748 (1898). This is the way a court incurs “self-inflicted wounds.” 8
The unprecedented order so lightly entered by the judicial officer should not stand; and I agree with the majority to this limited extent.9 Because of the grossly inadequate record in this case, I would vacate the order without a pause to entertain the questions otherwise raised.

. Frankfurter, “A Note on Advisory Opinions”, 37 Harv.L.Rev. 1002, 1008 (1924).

. See, e. g., United States v. Frye, D.C.App., 271 A.2d 788 (1970) ; Gaskins v. United States, D.C.App., 262 A.2d 810 (1970) ; Clarke v. United States, D.C.App., 256 A.2d 782 (1969).

. Frankfurter, supra note 1, at 1002.

. Rescue Army v. Municipal Court, 331 U.S. 549, 576, 67 S.Ct. 1409, 91 L.Ed. 1666 (1947).

. I do not consider that the pertinent statement of the complainant rises to the dignity of a “tentative identification.”

. This carries with it the necessary implication that if additional inquiry brings substantially negative results a further lineup order involving the suspect should not be entered.

. It may be that the Circuit Court will eventually endorse some such procedures relating to scientific evidence but the point is that conclusion has not been reached as yet.

. Charles Evans Hughes, The Supreme Court of the United States, 50.

. I am also in accord on the agreed dismissal of the companion case in No. 4480 Original, Clarence Wise v. The Honorable Tim Murphy et al.