Court Opinion

ID: 9424377
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:11:28.363222+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:50.148023
License: Public Domain

*338Mr. Justice Marshall,
whom Mr. Justice Brennan joins,
dissenting.
Although I substantially agree with its initial statement of the issue in this case, the Court's opinion goes on to imply that the appellee has refused to provide information germane to a determination of her eligibility for AFDC benefits. The record plainly shows, however, that Mrs. James offered to furnish any information that the appellants desired and to be interviewed at any place other than her home. Appellants rejected her offers and terminated her benefits solely on the ground that she refused to permit a home visit. In addition, appellants make no contention that any sort of probable cause exists to suspect appellee of welfare fraud or child abuse.
Simply stated, the issue in this case is whether a state welfare agency can require all recipients of AFDC bene-, fits to submit to warrantless “visitations” of their homes. In answering that question, the majority dodges between constitutional issues to reach a result clearly inconsistent with the decisions of this Court. We are told that there is no search involved in this case; that even if there were a search, it would.not be unreasonable; and that even if this were an unreasonable search, a welfare recipient waives her right to object by accepting benefits. I emphatically disagree with all three conclusions. Furthermore, I believe that binding regulations of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare prohibit appellants from requiring the home visit.
I
The Court’s assertion that this case concerns no search “in the Fourth Amendment meaning of that term” is neither' “obvious” nor “simple.” I should have thought that the Fourth Amendment governs all intrusions by agents of the public upon personal security, *339Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 18 n. 15 (1968). As Mr. Justice Harlan has said:
“[T]he Constitution protects the privacy of the home against all unreasonable intrusion of whatever character. ! . . ‘[It applies] to all invasions on the part of the government and its employés of the sanctity of a man's home/ ” Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 550-551 (1961) (dissenting opinion).
This Court has rejected as “anomalous” the contention that only suspected criminals are protected by the Fourth Amendment, Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523, 530 (1967). In an era of rapidly burgeoning governmental activities and their concomitant inspectors, caseworkers, and researchers, a restriction of the Fourth Amendment to “the traditional criminal law context” tramples the ancient concept that a man’s home , is his castle. Only last Term, we reaffirmed that this concept has lost none of its vitality, Rowan v. United States Post Office, 397 U. S. 728, 738 (1970).
Even if the Fourth Amendment does not apply to each and every governmental entry into the home, the welfare visit is not some sort of purely benevolent inspection. ‘ No one questions the motives of the dedicated wel- ' fare caseworker. Of course, caseworkers seek to be friends, but the point is that they are also required to be sleuths. The majority concedes that, the “visitation” is partially investigative, but claims that this investigative aspect has been given too much emphasis. Emphasis has indeed been given. Time and again, in briefs and at oral argument, appellants emphasized the need to enter AFDC homes to guard against welfare fraud and child abuse, both of which are felonies.1 The New York *340statutes provide emphasis by requiring all caseworkers to report any evidence of fraud that a home visit uncovers, N. Y. Social Services Law § 145. And appellants have strenuously emphasized the importance of the visit to provide evidence leading to civil forfeitures including elimination of benefits and loss of child custody.
Actually, the home visit is precisely the type of inspection proscribed by Camara and its companion case, See v. City of Seattle, 387 U. S. 541 (1967), except that the welfare visit is a more severe intrusion upon privacy and family dignity. Both the home visit and the searches in those cases may convey benefits to the householder. Fire inspectors give frequent advice concerning fire prevention, wiring capacity, and other matters, and obvious self-interest causes many to welcome the fire of safety inspection. Similarly, the welfare caseworker may provide welcome advice on home management and child care. Nonetheless, both searches may result in the imposition of civil penalties — loss or reduction of welfare benefits or an order to upgrade a housing defect. The fact that one purpose of the visit is to provide evidence that may lead to an elimination of benefits is sufficient to grant appellee protection since Camara stated that the Fourth Amendment applies to inspections which , can resúlt in only civil violations, 387 U. S., at 531. But here the case is stronger since the home visit; like many housing inspections, may lead to criminal convictions. ,
j The Court attempts to distinguish See and Camara by telling us that those cases involved “true” and “genuine” searches. The only concrete distinction offered is that See and Camara concerned criminal prosecutions for refusal to permit the search. The Camara opinion did observe that one could be prosecuted for a refusal to allow •that search; but, apart from the issue of consent, there is neither logic in, nor precedent for, the view that the *341ambit of the Fourth Amendment depends not on the character of the governmental intrusion but on the size of the club that the State wields against a resisting citizen. Even if the magnitude of the penalty were relevant, which sanction for resisting the search is more severe? For protecting the privacy of her home, Mrs. James lost the sole means of support for herself and her infant son. For protecting the privacy of his commercial warehouse, Mr. See received a $100 suspended fine.
Conceding for the sake of argument that someone might view the “visitation” as a search, the majority nonetheless concludes that such a search is not unreasonable. However, its mode of reaching that conclusion departs from the entire history of Fpurth Amendment case law. Of course, the Fourth Amendment test is reasonableness, but in determining whether a search is reasonable, this Court is not free merely to balance, in a totally ad hoc fashion, any number of subjectivé factors. An unbroken line of cases holds that, subject to a few narrowly drawn exceptions, any search without a warrant is constitutionally unreasonable, see, e. g., Agnello v. United. States., 269 U. S. 20, 32 (1925); Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10, 13-14 (1948); Chapman v. United States, 365 U. S. 610, 613-615 (1961); Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523, 528-529 (1967); Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752, 762 (1969); Vale v. Louisiana, 399 U. S. 30, 34-35 (1970). In this casé, no suggestion that evidence will disappear, that a criminal will escape, or that an officer will be injured, justifies the failure to obtain a warrant. Instead, the majority asserts what amounts to three state interests that allegedly render this search reasonable. None of these interests is sufficient to carve out a new exception to the warrant requirement.
First, it is argued that the home visit is justified to protect dependent children from “abuse” and “exploita*342tion.” These are heinous crimes, but they are not confined to indigent households. Would the majority sanction, in the absence of probable cause, compulsory visits to all American homes for the purpose of discovering child abuse? Or is this Court prepared to hold as a matter of constitutional law that a mother, merely because she is poor, is substantially more likely to injure or exploit her children? Such a categorical approach to an entire class of. citizens would be dangerously at odds with the tenets of our democracy.
Second, the Court contends that, caseworkers must enter the homes of AFDC beneficiaries to determine eligibility. Interestingly, federal regulations do not require the home visit. In fact, the regulations specify the recipient himself as the primary source of eligibility information thereby rendering an inspection of the home only one of several alternative secondary sources.2 The majority’s implication that a biannual home visit somehow assures the verification of actual residence or actual physical presence in the home strains credulity in the context of urban poverty. Despite the caseworker’s responsibility for dependent children, he is not even required to see the children as a part of the home visit.3 Appellants offer scant explanation for their refusal even to attempt to utilize public records, expenditure receipts, documents such as leases, non-home interviews, personal financial records, sworn, declarations, etc. — all sources that governmental agencies regularly accept as ade*343quate to establish eligibility for other public benefits. In this setting, it ill behooves appellants to refuse to utilize informational sources less drastic than an invasion of the privacy of the home.
We are told that the plight of Mrs. James is no different from that of a taxpayer who is required to document his right to a tax deduction, but this analogy is seriously flawed. The record shows that Mrs. James has offered to be interviewed anywhere other than her home, to answer any questions, and to provide any documentation that the welfare agency desires. The agency curtly refused all these offers and insisted on its “right” to pry into appellee’s home. Tax exemptions are also governmental “bounty.” A true analogy would be an Internal Revenue Service requirement that in order to claim a dependency exemption, a taxpayer must allow a specially trained IRS agent to invade the home for the purpose of questioning the occupants and looking for evidence that the exemption is being properly utilized for the benefit of the dependent. If such a system were even proposed, the cries of constitutional outrage would be unanimous.
Appellants offer a third state interest that the Court seems to accept as partial justification for this search. We are told that the visit is designed to rehabilitate, to provide aid. This is strange doctrine. indeed. A paternalistic notion that a complaining citizen’s constitutional rights can be violated so long as the State is somehow helping him is alien to our Nation’s philosophy. More than 40 years ago, Mr. Justice Brandéis warned:
“Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent.” Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, 479 (1928) (dissenting opinion).
*344Throughout its opinion, the majority alternates between two views of the State’s interest in requiring the home visit. First we are told that the State’s purpose is benevolent so that no search is involved. Next we are told that the State’s need to prevent child abuse and to avoid the misappropriation of welfare funds justifies dispensing with the warrant requirement. But when all the State’s purposes are considered at one time, I can only conclude that the home visit is a search and that, absent a warrant, that search is unreasonable.4
Although the Court does not agree with my conclusion that the home visit is an unreasonable search, its opinion suggests that even if the visit were unreasonable, appellee has somehow waived her right to object. Surely the majority, cannot believe that valid Fourth Amendment consent can be given under the threat of the loss of one’s sole meáns of support. Nor has Mrs. James waived her rights. Had the Court squarely faced the question of whether the State can condition welfare payments on the waiver of clear constitutional rights, the answer would be plain. The decisions of this Court do not support the notion that a State can use welfare benefits as a wedge to coerce “waiver” of Fourth Amendment rights, see Reich, Midnight Welfare Searches and the Social Security Act, 72 Yale L. J. 1347, 1349-1350 (1963); Note, Rehabilitation, Investigation and the Welfare Home Visit, 79 Yale L. J. 746, 758 *345(1970). In Sherbert v. Verner,5 this Court did not say, “Aid merely ceases. There is no abridgment of religious freedom.” Nor did the Court say in Speiser v. Randall,6 “The tax is simply increased. No one is compelled to relinquish First Amendment rights.” As my Brother Douglas points out, the majority’s statement that Mrs. James’ “choice [to be searched or to lose her benefits] is entirely hers, and nothing of constitutional magnitude is involved” merely restates the issue. To Mr. Justice Douglas’ eloquent discussion of the law of unconstitutional conditions, I would add only that this Court last Term reaffirmed Sherbert and Speiser as applicable to the law of public welfare:
“Relevant constitutional restraints apply as much to the withdrawal of public assistance benefits a,s to disqualification for unemployment compensation . . . denial of a tax exemption . . . or . . . discharge from public employment.” Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U. S. 254, 262 (1970). .
II
The Court’s examination of the constitutional issues presented by this case has constrained me to respond. It would not have been necessary to reach these questions for I believe that HEW regulations, binding on the States, prohibit the unconsented home visit.7
*346The federal Handbook of Public Assistance Administration provides:
“The [state welfare] agency especially guards against violations of legal rights and common decencies in such areas as entering a home by force, or without permission, or under false pretenses; making home visits outside of working hours, and particularly making such visits during sleeping hours . . . Part IV, § 2300 (a) (emphasis supplied).
Although the tone of this language is descriptive, HEW requirements are stated in terms of principles and objectives, Handbook, pt. I, § 4210 (3); and appellants do not contend that this regulation is merely advisory. Instead, appellants respond with the tired assertion that consent obtained by threatening termination of benefits constitutes valid permission under this regulation. There is no reason to suspect that HEW shares this crabbed view of consent. The Handbook, itself, insists on careful scrutiny of purported consent, pt. IV, § 2400. Section 2200 (a) is designed to protect the privacy of welfare recipients, and it would be somewhat ironic to adopt a construction of the regulation that provided that any person who invokes his privacy rights ceases to be a recipient.
Appellants next object that the home visit has long been a part of welfare administration and has never been disapproved by HEW. The short answer to this is that we deal with only the unconsented home visit. The general utility and acceptance of the home visit casts little light on whether HEW might prefer not to impose the visit on unwilling recipients. Appellants also remind us that the Federal Government itself requires a limited number of home visits for sampling purposes. *347However, while there may well be a special need to employ mandatory visits as a part of quality control samples, Mrs. James’ home was not a part of such a sample. Furthermore appellants admit that § 2200 (a) governs the quality control program; so it is not clear that un-consented home, visits are allowed even for sampling purposes. Although there appears to be no regulatory history, appellants tell us § 2200 (a) merely permits a recipient to refuse a particular home visit and. does not allow him to .forbid home visits altogether. I suppose that one could read such a limitation into the section, but given the regulation’s explicit language, given that HEW does not require home visits and views the visits. as only one of several alternative sources of eligibility information, given HEW’s concern for the privacy of its clients, and given the durable principle of this Court that doubtful questions of interpretation should be resolved in a manner which avoids constitutional questions, United States v. Delaware & Hudson Co., 213 U. S. 366, 407 (1909), I would conclude that Mrs. James is protected by §'2200 (a).
Ill
In deciding that the homes of AFDC recipients are not entitled to protection from warrantless searches by welfare caseworkers, the Court declines to follow prior case law and employs, a rationale that, if applied to the claims of all citizens, would threaten the vitality of the Fourth Amendment. This Court has occasionally pushed beyond established constitutional contours to protect the vulnerable and to. further basic human values. I find no little irony in the fact that the burden of today’s departure from principled adjudication is placed upon the lowly poor. Perhaps the majority has explained why a commercial warehouse deserves more protection than does this poor woman’s home. I am not convinced; and, therefore, I must respectfully dissent.

 For example, appellants’ Reply Brief offers two specific illustrations of the home visit’s efficacy. In the first, a man was discovered in the home and benefits were terminated. In the second, child abuse was discovered.

 HEW Handbook of Public Assistance Administration, pt. IY, §2200 (e)(1).

 Appellants respond by asserting that if the caseworker becomes suspicious concerning the child’s absence, further investigation may take place. One certainly would hope that the caseworker would continue his investigation, but the fact remains that the failure to require that the cui’d be seen undercuts the argument that the home visit is designed to protect the child’s welfare and necessary to verify his presence in the home.

 Since the majority refuses to sanction the warrant procedure in any form, I have not discussed what standard should be required for a warrant to issue. Certainly, if one of the purposes of the welfare search is to obtain evidence of criminal conduct, that is no reason to permit less than probable cause. And because the home visit is a more severe intrusion than is the housing inspection and there are less drastic means to obtain eligibility information, I would apply the analysis of Camara and would be inclined to utilize a traditional probable cause standard.

 374 U. S. 398 (1963).

 357 U. S. 513 (1958).

 It is a time-honored doctrine that statutes and regulations are first examined by a reviewing court to see if constitutional questions can be avoided,. Ashwander v. TV A, 297 U. S. 288, 346-348 (1936) (Brandéis, J., concurring); see, e. g., Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U. S. 471 (1970); King v. Smith, 392 U. S. 309 (1968). The court below chose not to invoke this doctrine, and litigation in this Court has emphasized the constitutional issues. However, the nonconstitutional questions were briefed by. an amicus curiae and *346appellants responded fully in their Reply Brief. The parties may-prefer a decision on constitutional grounds; but we, of course; are. not bound by their litigation strategies.