Court Opinion

ID: 9428040
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:22:37.512845+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:11.367482
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice White,
with whom Mr. Justice Stewart joins, concurring in part.
Although I join Parts I and II-A of the Court’s opinion, I do not join Parts II-B, II-C, and III because I believe that the fruits inquiry undertaken in Part II-B should not be done in the first instance in this Court. As the Court recognizes, the Supreme Court of Kentucky did not address the question whether petitioner’s admission to ownership of the drugs was the fruit of an illegal detention, even though the question was presented there. The state-court majority did state that in concluding that the search of petitioner’s person was incident to a valid arrest it “disregard [ed] as irrelevant the detention during the period in which the officers were procuring a search warrant.” The court also observed that “[t]his search was not explored in detail at the suppression hearing” and that “the sequence of the search of the purse and Rawlings’ admission of ownership of the drugs is not clearly established in the record.” The court then concluded that “[cjlearly, after Rawlings admitted ownership of the drugs, the officers were entitled to arrest and search the person, or search and then arrest.” 581 S. W. 2d 348, 350 (1979).
In proceeding in this manner, the Supreme Court of Kentucky plainly failed properly to dispose of a federal question, as the Court implicitly recognizes. Because the fruits question was never addressed below and was barely mentioned in the briefs before this Court, I would vacate the judgment below and remand to permit the state court to address the question under the correct legal standard. This Court should not attempt to decide a factual issue on a record that the *114state court itself apparently thought inadequate for that purpose.