Court Opinion

ID: 9795099
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:20:10.249426+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:24:22.963325
License: Public Domain

Me. Justice Brennan,
with whom Mr. Justice Stewart, Mr. Justice Marshall, and Mr. Justice Blackmun join,
concurring in the judgment.
Appellant’s conviction of violating the Puerto Rico Controlled Substances Act was based on evidence discovered when police, admittedly without probable cause, searched appellant’s luggage after he arrived in Puerto Rico from Florida. The Supreme Court of Puérto Rico has construed Public Law 22 to authorize such searches without probable cause.*
*475I concur in the Court’s holding that the Fourth Amendment applies in full force to Puerto Rico, that the search of appellant’s luggage without a warrant based on probable cause violated the Fourth Amendment, that Public Law 22 is unconstitutional insofar as it purports to authorize what the Fourth Amendment prohibits, and that the evidence discovered in the unconstitutional search therefore must be suppressed.
Appellee concedes that the Fourth Amendment applies to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Brief for Appellee 12, citing Examining Board v. Flores de Otero, 426 U. S. 572, 599 (1976); Calero-Toledo v. Pearson Yacht Leasing Co., 416 U. S. 663, 668 n. 5 (1974). Whatever the validity of the old cases such as Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U. S. 244 (1901), Dorr v. United States, 195 U. S. 138 (1904), and Balzac v. Porto Rico, 258 U. S. 298 (1922), in the particular historical context in which they were decided, those cases are clearly not authority for questioning the application of the Fourth Amendment— or any other provision of the Bill of Rights — to the Common*476wealth of Puerto Rico in the 1970’s. As Mr. Justice Black declared in Reid v. Covert, 354 U. S. 1, 14 (1957) (plurality-opinion) : “[N] either the cases nor their reasoning should be given any further expansion. The concept that the Bill of Rights and other constitutional protections against arbitrary government are inoperative when they become inconvenient or when expediency dictates otherwise is a very dangerous doctrine and if allowed to flourish would destroy the benefit of a written Constitution and undermine the basis of our Government.”

Four of the eight members of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico were of the opinion that Public Law 22 as so construed violated the Fourth *475Amendment of the Federal Constitution. See ante, at 468. But Art. V, §4, of the Puerto Rico Constitution provides that no law shall be held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico except by a majority of the total number of justices of which the court is composed. Appellant argues that this requirement violates the Supremacy Clause and the Due Process Clause of the Federal Constitution. In light of our resolution of the merits of appellant’s search-and-seizure claim, we need not pass on these contentions. Cf. Ohio ex rel. Bryant v. Akron Park Dist., 281 U. S. 74 (1930).
The Commonwealth’s discussion of the impact of Art. V, §4, on this ease, however, implicitly suggests a claim that this “super-majority” provision constitutes an adequate and independent n.onfederal ground supporting the judgment reached by the Puerto Rico Supreme Court. This cannot be. The provision neither supplies an independent substantive basis for the decision, nor controls the parties’ conduct of the litigation. It affects only the internal “working rules” of the court. While such rules might affect the decision of cases, they cannot be adequate grounds in support of those decisions.