Court Opinion

ID: 9419859
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:51:51.391464+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:20.996133
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Rutledge,
dissenting.
I am substantially in accord with the views expressed by Mr. Justice Frankfurter in his exhaustive opinion as to the controlling principles which should govern in the disposition of this case. Perhaps it should be added that the evidence does not clearly show that the officer who flashed the light into the window was in fact attempting to open it by force or to do more than observe the interior. But the situation was such that his action clearly created in Davis’ mind the impression that he either was entering by force or intended to do so. It therefore must be taken, I think, that Davis’ so-called consent was induced by this apparent compulsion, the very kind of thing the Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent. There was no such consent as would legalize the entry and search.
Moreover, whatever may be the scope of search incident to lawful arrest for a misdemeanor, I know of no decision which goes so far as to rule that this right of search extends to breaking and entering locked premises by force. That was not done here. But the search followed on consent given in the reasonable belief that it was necessary to avoid the breaking and entry. I think it was therefore in no better case legally than if in fact the breaking and forceable entry had occurred. The search was justified neither by consent nor by the doctrine of reasonable search as incident to a lawful arrest.