holding that federal court correctly declined to abstain from hearing claims that prisoners were being detained without probable cause hearings, because “[t]he order to hold preliminary hearings could not prejudice the conduct of the trial on the merits” and was directed “only at the legality of pretrial detention without a judicial hearing, an issue that could not be raised in defense of the criminal prosecution”
How later courts described this case
- holding that federal court correctly declined to abstain from hearing claims that prisoners were being detained without probable cause hearings, because “[t]he order to hold preliminary hearings could not prejudice the conduct of the trial on the merits” and was directed “only at the legality of pretrial detention without a judicial hearing, an issue that could not be raised in defense of the criminal prosecution”
- holding that federal court correctly did not abstain from hearing claims that plaintiffs were detained without hearings, because “[t]he order to hold preliminary hearings could not prejudice the conduct of the trial on the merits” and was directed “only at the legality of pretrial detention without a judicial hearing, an issue that could not be raised in defense of the criminal prosecution”
- holding that while the Fourth Amendment requires “a judicial determination of probable cause as a prerequisite to extended restraint of liberty following arrest,” the United States Constitution does not require trial formalities for a judicial probable cause determination for issuance of an arrest warrant or a postarrest detention review
- finding that plaintiff's claim of detention without probable cause constitutes a "suitable exception” to the mootness doctrine on the grounds that "it is by no means certain that any given individual, named as plaintiff, would be in pretrial custody long enough for a district judge to certify the class”
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Pompey v. Broward County, 95 F.3d 1543 (1996)
Gerstein is distinguishable from this case.
Distinguished by United States ex rel. Redding v. Godinez, 900 F. Supp. 945 (1995)
Petitioner’s citation to Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 95 S.Ct. 854, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975), is inapposite, as this case only deals with the warrantless arrest of a suspect.
Distinguished by Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460 (1983)
Mathews v. Eldridge, supra, at 335, again suggests the points at which Gerstein is inapposite in the prison context.
Distinguished by People v. Eason, 40 N.Y.2d 297 (1976)
Apart from the fact that the determination is grounded in Fourth Amendment principles not at all germane here, Gerstein is inapposite because the final determination as to the sentence imposed under section 65.00 (subd 1, par [b]) is rendered by a neutral member of the judicial branch of government.
The opinion
Mr. Justice Stewart, with whom Mr. Justice Douglas,
Mr. Justice Brennan, and Mr. Justice Marshall join,
concurring.
I concur in Parts I and II of the Court’s opinion, since the Constitution clearly requires at least a timely judicial determination of probable cause as a prerequisite to pretrial detention. Because Florida does not provide all defendants in custody pending trial with a fair and reliable determination of probable cause for their detention, the respondents and the members of the class they represent are entitled to declaratory and injunctive relief.
Having determined that Florida’s current pretrial detention procedures are constitutionally inadequate, I think it is unnecessary to go further by way of dicta. In particular, I would not, in the abstract, attempt to specify those procedural protections that constitutionally need not be accorded incarcerated suspects awaiting trial.
*127 Specifically, I see no need in this case for the Court to say that the Constitution extends less procedural protection to an imprisoned human being than is required to test the propriety of garnishing a commercial bank account, North Georgia Finishing, Inc. v. Di-Chem, Inc., 419 U. S. 601 ; the custody of a refrigerator, Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., 416 U. S. 600 ; the temporary suspension of a public school student, Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S. 565 ; or the suspension of a driver’s license, Bell v. Burson, 402 U. S. 535 . Although it may be true that the Fourth Amendment’s “balance between individual and public interests always has been thought to define the ‘process that is due’ for seizures of person or property in criminal cases,” ante, at 125 n. 27, this case does not involve an initial arrest, but rather the continuing incarceration of a presumptively innocent person. Accordingly, I cannot join the Court’s effort to foreclose any claim that the traditional requirements of constitutional due process are applicable in the context of pretrial detention.
It is the prerogative of each State in the first instance to develop pretrial procedures that provide defendants in pretrial custody with the fair and reliable determination of probable cause for detention required by the Constitution. Cf. Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 488 . The constitutionality of any particular method for determining probable cause can be properly decided only by evaluating a State’s pretrial procedures as a whole, not by isolating a particular part of its total system. As the Court recognizes, great diversity exists among the procedures employed by the States in this aspect of their criminal justice system. Ante, at 123-124.
There will be adequate opportunity to evaluate in an appropriate future case the constitutionality of any new procedures that may be adopted by Florida in response to the Court’s judgment today holding that Florida’s present procedures are constitutionally inadequate.