Court Opinion

ID: 9574308
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:04:03.372655+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:21.117217
License: Public Domain

Gunter, Justice,
dissenting.
This case involves unconstitutional police action in obtaining and using evidence to convict a citizen accused of a crime. The majority holds that there was no state or federal constitutional violation on the part of the state in procuring and using certain evidence in this criminal prosecution. I think both constitutions were violated; I think that the evidence sought to be suppressed by the appellant was unconstitutionally obtained and unconstitutionally used in this criminal prosecution; I would reverse the conviction and order a new trial free from the unconstitutionally used evidence; and I must therefore respectfully dissent.
The Fourth Amendment, and its equivalent as contained in the Georgia Constitution, reads: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrant shall issue, but upon *442probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
It is my view that all evidence, physical and testimonial, obtained by law enforcement officers from a citizen in violation of this constitutional provision cannot be used by the state in a criminal prosecution against the seizure-victim. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643 (1961); Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471 (1963); and Brown v. Illinois, -U. S. -(95 SC 2254, 45 LE2d 416) (1975).
What is said to here is by way of exordium: now, to get on with the dissent.
On the morning of July 6,1973, at some time prior to 8:30 a.m. a white female was raped and killed in her residence on a dairy farm in Monroe County, Georgia. Appellant, a black twenty-year old male who could not read and write, was a dairy farm employee on the premises where the crimes occurred. The victim’s husband was the employer of the appellant. The discovery of the victim’s body was reported to the sheriff, and he began his investigation at approximately 9:00 a.m. on Friday. Sometime before noon on Friday a deputy sheriff, at the sheriffs instructions, went to the dairy barn where the appellant was at work and took appellant to the sheriffs office-jail for questioning. The appellant remained at the sheriffs office-jail or in the custody of the sheriff from about 12:00 noon on Friday until sometime on the following Monday when a warrant was procured for his arrest. During this intervening period the physical evidence sought to be suppressed was obtained from him, and the incriminating testimonial evidence was obtained from him on Monday just before or just after the warrant for his arrest was procured. At what time the testimonial evidence was obtained on Monday is, as I read the transcript, immaterial, because it was clearly the fruit of the illegal procurement of the physical evidence.
' There was no probable cause for the arrest of the appellant at noon on Friday. The sheriff testified that from Friday until Monday he did not know whether he had sufficient evidence to get an arrest warrant. The sheriff testified: "I wanted to wait until I got the crime lab report.” Appellant’s fingerprints, trousers, and boots had *443been procured from him more than eight hours after he had been taken into custody, and the crime laboratory was to make a report on them. On Monday morning the sheriff also obtained samples of hair from the appellant and took them to the crime laboratory. On receiving the report from the crime laboratory in Atlanta on Monday, the sheriff called a deputy sheriff and instructed him to procure a warrant for the arrest of the appellant on the charge of murder.
The majority has held that there was "probable cause” for the arrest of the appellant by the sheriff; that the procurement by the sheriff of the physical and testimonial evidence after his arrest did not violate appellant’s federal constitutional rights; and that the evidence was not subject to suppression on federal constitutional grounds.
I.
Appellant’s Arrest Was Unreasonable Under Fourth Amendment Standards
An unreasonable arrest of a citizen by a policeman violates the Fourth Amendment. In this context the Supreme Court of the United States has said in many cases that unreasonable means "without probable cause” on the part of the arresting officer. An officer intending to make an arrest must first subjectively believe that he has probable cause for making the arrest, and, with limited exceptions, he must articulate his probable cause facts to a neutral judicial officer and procure an arrest warrant. In Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 20 (1968), the United States Supreme Court said: "We do not retreat from our holdings that the police must, whenever practicable, obtain advance judicial approval of searches and seizures through the warrant procedure, see, e.g., Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967); Beck v. Ohio, 379 U. S. 89, 96 (1964); Chapman v. United States, 365 U. S. 610 (1961), or that in most instances failure to comply with the warrant requirement can only be excused by exigent circumstances, see, e.g., Warden v. Hayden, 387 U. S. 294 (1967) (hot pursuit); cf. Preston v. United States, 376 U. S. 364, 367-368 (1964).”
In the case at bar no reasonable reason was given for not procuring an arrest warrant, and no exigent *444circumstances were present to exempt this requirement. In fact, the transcript shows, by the testimony of the sheriff himself, that the sheriff did not subjectively believe that he had probable cause to arrest the appellant. The transcript further shows that on the following Monday, after three full days of warrantless incarceration of the appellant, the sheriff subjectively believed that he had probable cause and procured an arrest warrant.
The majority has held that the sheriff had probable cause for the warrantless arrest of the appellant even though the sheriff himself, according to his own testimony, did not know it. It is difficult for me to understand how a court can hold that an officer has probable cause to make a warrantless arrest when the officer himself is unaware of that fact.
I think the arrest in this case without first procuring a warrant was unreasonable and violated the Fourth Amendment; putting the warrant procedure aside, I think there was no probable cause for a warrantless arrest, and the arrest was unreasonable and violated the Fourth Amendment; and I further think that the incarceration of the appellant for three days without taking him before a judicial officer for a probable cause determination was unreasonable and violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.
I quote Mr. Justice Frankfurter: "Ours is the accusatorial as opposed to the inquisitorial system. Such has been the characteristic of Anglo-American criminal justice since it freed itself from practices borrowed by the Star Chamber from the Continent whereby an accused was interrogated in secret for hours on end. See Ploscowe, The Development of Present-Day Criminal Procedures in Europe and America, 48 Harv. L. Rev. 433, 457-58, 467-473 (1935). Under our system society carries the burden of proving its charge against the accused not out of his own mouth. It must establish its case, not by interrogation of the accused even under judicial safeguards, but by evidence independently secured through skilful investigation. 'The law will not suffer a prisoner to be made the deluded instrument of his own conviction.’ 2 Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown, c. 46, § 34 (8th ed., 1824). The requirement of specific charges, their proof *445beyond a reasonable doubt, the protection of the accused from confessions extorted through whatever form of police pressures, the right to a prompt hearing before a magistrate, the right to assistance of counsel, to be supplied by government when circumstances make it necessary, the duty to advise an accused of his constitutional rights — these are all characteristics of the accusatorial system and manifestations of its demands. Protracted, systematic and uncontrolled subjection of an accused to interrogation by the police for the purpose of eliciting disclosures or confessions is subversive of the accusatorial system. It is the inquisitorial system without its safeguards. . .. In holding that the Due Process Clause bars police procedure which violates the basic notions of our accusatorial mode of prosecuting crime and vitiates a conviction based on the fruits of such procedure, we apply the Due Process Clause to its historic function of assuring appropriate procedure before liberty is curtailed or life is taken.” Watts v. Indiana, 338 U. S. 49, 54 (opinion of Frankfurter, J.).
II.
The Searches and Seizures Were Unreasonable under Fourth Amendment Standards
The searches and seizures in this case were not contemporaneous with or "incident to the arrest.” The transcript shows that the earliest of the searches and seizures occurred approximately eight and a half hours after the warrantless arrest of the appellant. I acknowledge that an arresting officer making a valid arrest can make a contemporaneous search and seizure that is incident to the arrest and therefore valid. However, searches and seizures following a warrantless arrest, made during the course of three days following the arrest without taking the arrested person before a judicial officer for a probable cause hearing, are not searches and seizures incident to an arrest. Such searches and seizures, in my opinion, are unreasonable and violate the Fourth Amendment.
A warrantless arrest, even with probable cause, becomes an unconstitutional arrest under Fourth Amendment standards unless the arresting officer takes the person arrested before a judicial officer for a probable *446cause hearing within a reasonable time. This was not done in this case, and the searches and seizures during the three-day period of warrantless incarceration violated the Fourth Amendment.
"Inquiry on the street and detention for identification, however, should be sharply distinguished from detention at the police station for purposes of interrogation. At this point, still another factor should be added to the list of those considered in determining reasonableness under all the circumstances. 'In the Anglo-American law, there is no regular provision for police examination of a person suspected of crime.’ The absence of such a provision is implicit in the requirements of the common law; whether an arrest is made with or without a warrant, the duty of the officer is to promptly take the arrested person before a magistrate. The practical basis for this rule is apparent; 'ours is the accusatorial as opposed to the inquisitional system.’ Opportunity for prolonged police investigation presents the most dangerous threat to that system. In the federal courts, the codification of the common law doctrine respecting prompt arraignment has been enforced by a rule excluding from evidence the products of an unlawful detention prior to a hearing before a magistrate. The rule itself is not based upon the Constitution; it is the product of the Supreme Court’s supervisory power over the administration of federal criminal justice and hence inapplicable to the states.
"However, since the decision in Wong Sun v. United States, a constitutional principle requiring the exclusion of evidence under certain circumstances may also be applicable in this area. Although the question was not directly involved in Wong Sun, it would seem that a violation of the right to prompt arraignment, being a fundamental part of the arrest process, would also be a violation of the Fourth Amendment, and evidence which is the product thereof should be inadmissible upon constitutional grounds. In any event, it seems clear that the underlying substantive right which is here involved is grounded in the Constitution. Its observance is indispensable to a cluster of basic rights including the right to bail and the right to habeas corpus. Furthermore, *447as indicated above, it bears an intimate relationship to the requirement of the Fourth Amendment of reasonable seizures. 'What real meaning is left in the Fourth Amendment’s guaranty against arbitrary arrest if the arrestee is unable to reach a judicial officer within a reasonable time to determine whether or not his arrest was arbitrary?’ ” Leagre, The Fourth Amendment and the Law of Arrest, 54 J. Crim. L., C. & P. S. 393, 417 (1963).
III.
The Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments Require the Suppression of Unconstitutionally Seized Evidence
Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643 (1961) said that the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments require the suppression of unconstitutionally seized evidence in the prosecution of a seizure-victim in a state court. Mapp held: "Today we once again examine Wolfs documentation of the right to privacy free from unreasonable state intrusion, and, after its dozen years on our books, are lead by it to close the only courtroom door remaining open to evidence secured by official lawlessness and flagrant abuse of that basic right, reserved to all persons as a specific guarantee against that same unlawful conduct. We hold that all evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution is, by that same authority, inadmissible in a state court.” Pp. 654, 655.
In Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471 (1963), the Supreme Court of the United States held that unconstitutionally procured evidence, both physical and testimonial, must be suppressed in a criminal prosecution of the seizure-victim.
In Brown v. Illinois, supra, (1975), the Supreme Court of the United States declined to overrule Wong Sun and held that the unconstitutionally obtained evidence in that case had to be suppressed.
Mr. Justice White’s concurring opinion in Brown v. Illinois was: "Insofar as the court holds (1) that despite Miranda warnings the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments require the exclusion from evidence of statements obtained as the fruit of an arrest which the arresting officers knew or should have known was without probable cause and unconstitutional, and (2) that the statements obtained in this case were in this category, *448I am in agreement and therefore concur in the judgment.” 45 LE2d 428.
Reasons for the constitutional requirement of suppression of illegally obtained evidence in criminal prosecutions were well-stated by Justice Traynor of the Supreme Court of California in 1955, some six years prior to the Mapp declaration by the Supreme Court of the United States.
In People v. Cahan, 44 Cal. 2d 434 (282 P2d 905) (1955), Justice Traynor said: "It is contended, however, that the police do not always have a choice of securing evidence by legal means and that in many cases the criminal will escape if illegally obtained evidence cannot be used against him. This contention is not properly directed at the exclusionary rule, but at the constitutional provisions themselves. It was rejected when those provisions were adopted. In such cases had the Constitution been obeyed, the criminal could in no event be convicted. He does not go free because the constable blundered, but because the Constitutions prohibit securing the evidence against him. Their very provisions contemplate that it is preferable that some criminals go free than that the right of privacy of all the people be set at naught.” P. 449.
"We have been compelled to reach that conclusion because other remedies have completely failed to secure compliance with the constitutional provisions on the part of police officers with the attendant result that the courts under the old rule have been constantly required to participate in, and in effect condone, the lawless activities of law enforcement officers.
"When, as in the present case, the very purpose of an illegal search and seizure is to get evidence to introduce at a trial, the success of the lawless venture depends entirely on the court’s lending its aid by allowing the evidence to be introduced. It is no answer to say that a distinction should be drawn between the government acting as law enforcer and the gatherer of evidence and the government acting as judge. '(Njo distinction can be taken between the government as prosecutor and the government as judge. If the existing code does not permit district attorneys to have a hand in such dirty business it does not permit the *449judge to allow such iniquities to succeed.’ Holmes, J., dissenting in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, 470 (48 SC 564, 575, 72 LE 944). Outof regardfor its own dignity as an agency of justice and custodian of liberty the court should not have a hand in such 'dirty business.’ See, McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332, 345 (63 SC 608, 87 LE 819).” P. 445.
Conclusion
I believe that a fair prosecution by the state is an integral part of a fair trial conducted by the state; a fair criminal trial conducted by the state is mandated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and evidence procured by the state in violation of the Constitution must be rejected in a fair trial. The physical and testimonial evidence procured from the appellant during the three-day period of his warrantless imprisonment falls in that category. I would therefore reverse the conviction and order a new trial free from the unconstitutionally seized evidence.
I think the court, by its decision today, shrinks from the majesty of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments as an owl shrinks from light.
I respectfully dissent.