United States v. Chadwick

Mr. Justice Blackmun,

with whom Mr. Justice Rehnquist joins, dissenting.

I think it somewhat unfortunate that the Government sought a reversal in this case primarily to vindicate an extreme view of the Fourth Amendment that would restrict the protection of the Warrant Clause to private dwellings and a few other “high privacy” areas. I reject this argument for the reasons stated in Parts (2) and (3) of the Court’s opinion, with which I am in general agreement. The over-broad nature of the Goverment’s principal argument, however, has served to distract the Court from the more important task of defining the proper scope of a search incident to an arrest. The Court fails to accept the opportunity this case presents to apply the rationale of recent decisions and develop a clear doctrine concerning the proper consequences *18 of custodial arrest. Accordingly, I dissent from the judgment.

I

One line of recent decisions establishes that no warrant is required for the arresting officer to search the clothing and effects of one placed in custodial arrest. The rationale for this was explained in United States v. Robinson, 414 U. S. 218 (1973):

“A police officer’s determination as to how and where to search the person of a suspect whom he has arrested is necessarily a quick ad hoc judgment which the Fourth Amendment does not require to be broken down in each instance into an analysis of each step in the search. The authority to search the person incident to a lawful custodial arrest, while based upon the need to disarm and to discover evidence, does not depend on what a court may later decide was the probability in a particular arrest situation that weapons or evidence would in fact be found upon the person of the suspect. A custodial arrest of a suspect based on probable cause is a reasonable intrusion under the Fourth Amendment; that intrusion being lawful, a search incident to the arrest requires no additional justification. It is the fact of the lawful arrest which establishes the authority to search, and we hold that in the case of a lawful custodial arrest a full search of the person is not only an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment, but is also a ‘reasonable’ search under that Amendment.” Id., at 235 .

Accord, Gustafson v. Florida, 414 U. S. 260 (1973). Under this doctrine, a search of personal effects need not be contemporaneous with the arrest, and indeed may be delayed a number of hours while the suspect remains in lawful custody. United States v. Edwards, 415 U. S. 800 (1974).

A second series of decisions concerns the consequences of custodial arrest of a person driving an automobile. The car *19 may be impounded and, with probable cause, its contents (including locked compartments) subsequently examined without a warrant. Texas v. White, 423 U. S. 67 (1975); Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U. S. 433, 439-448 (1973); Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S. 42, 47-52 (1970). Moreover, once a car has been properly impounded for any reason, the police may follow a standard procedure of inventorying its contents without any showing of probable cause. South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U. S. 364 (1976).

I would apply the rationale of these two lines of authority and hold generally that a warrant is not required to seize and search any movable property in the possession of a person properly arrested in a public place. A person arrested in a public place is likely to have various kinds of property with him: items inside his clothing, a briefcase or suitcase, packages, or a vehicle. In such instances the police cannot very well leave the property on the sidewalk or street while they go to get a warrant. The items may be stolen by a passer-by or removed by the suspect's confederates. Rather than requiring the police to “post a guard” over such property, I think it is surely reasonable for the police to take the items along to the station with the arrested person.

In the present case the Court of Appeals held, and respondents do not contest, that it was proper for the federal agents to seize the footlocker and take it to their office. Given the propriety of seizing the footlocker, there is some reason to believe that the subsequent search a fortiori was permissible. See Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S., at 51-52 . I acknowledge, however, that impounding the footlocker without searching it would have been a. less intrusive alternative in this case. The police could have waited to conduct their search until after a warrant had been obtained. Nevertheless, the mere fact that a warrant could have been obtained while the footlocker was safely impounded does not necessarily make the warrantless search unreasonable. See, e. g., United States *20 v. Edwards, 415 U. S., at 805 ; Cardwell v. Lewis, 417 U. S. 583, 595-596 (1974) (plurality opinion).

As the Court in Robinson recognized, custodial arrest is such a serious deprivation that various lesser invasions of privacy may be fairly regarded as incidental. An arrested person, of course, has an additional privacy interest in the objects in his possession at the time of arrest. To be sure, allowing impoundment of those objects pursuant to arrest, but requiring a warrant for examination of their contents, would protect that incremental privacy interest in cases where the police assessment of probable cause is subsequently rejected by a magistrate. But a countervailing consideration is that a warrant would be routinely forthcoming in the vast majority of situations where the property has been seized in conjunction with the valid arrest of a person in a public place. I therefore doubt that requiring the authorities to go through the formality of obtaining a warrant in this situation would have much practical effect in protecting Fourth Amendment values. 1

I believe this sort of practical evaluation underlies the Court’s decisions permitting clothing, personal effects, and automobiles to be searched without a warrant as an incident of arrest, even though it would be possible simply to impound these items until a warrant could be obtained. The Court’s opinion does not explain why a wallet carried in the arrested person’s clothing, but not the footlocker in the present case, is subject to “reduced expectations of privacy caused by *21 the arrest.” Ante, at 16 n. 10. Nor does the Court explain how such items as purses or briefcases fit into the dichotomy. 2 Perhaps the holding in the present case will be limited in the future to objects that are relatively immobile by virtue of their size or absence of a means of propulsion.

It is also possible that today’s decision will not have much impact because other doctrines often will be available to sustain warrantless searches of objects in police custody. As the Court acknowledges, ante, at 15 n. 9, no warrant is necessary when the authorities suspect the object they have impounded has dangerous contents. Moreover, police may establish a routine procedure of inventorying the contents of any container taken into custody, for reasons of security and property conservation. Cf. South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U. S. 364 (1976). Law enforcement officers should not be precluded from conducting an inventory search when they take a potential “Trojan horse” into their office. Finally, exigent circumstances may often justify an immediate search of property seized in conjunction with an arrest, in order to facilitate the apprehension of confederates or the termination of continuing criminal activity. Cf. Warden v. Hayden, 387 U. S. 294, 298-300 (1967).

Since one of the preceding special circumstances is likely to be available in most instances, and since the suspect’s expectations of privacy are properly abated by the fact of arrest itself, it would be better, in my view, to adopt a clear-cut rule permitting property seized in conjunction with a valid arrest in a public place to be searched without a warrant. *22 Such an approach would simplify the constitutional law of criminal procedure without seriously derogating from the values protected by the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures. 3

II

The approach taken by the Court has the perverse result of allowing fortuitous circumstances to control the outcome of the present case. The agents probably could have avoided having the footlocker search held unconstitutional either by delaying the arrest for a few minutes or by conducting the search on the spot rather than back at their office. Probable cause for the arrest was present from the time respondents Machado and Leary were seated on the footlocker inside Boston’s South Station and the agents’ dog signaled the presence of marihuana. Rather than make an arrest at this moment, the agents commendably sought to determine the possible involvement of others in the illegal scheme. They waited a short time until respondent Chadwick arrived and the footlocker had been loaded into the trunk of his car, and then made the arrest. But if the agents had postponed the arrest just a few minutes longer until the respondents started to drive away, then the car could have been *23 seized, taken to the agents’ office, and all its contents— including the footlocker — searched without a warrant. 4

Alternatively, the agents could have made a search of the footlocker at the time and place of the arrests. Machado and Leary were standing next to an open automobile trunk containing the footlocker, and thus it was within the area of their “immediate control.” And certainly the footlocker would have been properly subject to search at the time if the arrest had occurred a few minutes earlier while Machado and Leary were seated on it. 5

*24 In many cases, of course, small variations in the facts are determinative of the legal outcome. Criminal law necessarily involves some line drawing. But I see no way that these alternative courses of conduct, which likely would have been held constitutional under the Fourth Amendment, would have been any more solicitous of the privacy or well-being of the respondents. Indeed, as Judge Thomsen observed in dissenting from this aspect of the Court of Appeals’ decision that is today affirmed, the course of conduct followed by the agents in this case was good police procedure. 6 It is decisions of the kind made by the Court today that make criminal law a trap for the unwary policeman and detract from the important activities of detecting criminal activity and protecting the public safety.

A search warrant serves additional functions where an arrest takes place in a home or office. The warrant assures the occupants that the officers have legal authority to conduct the search and defines the area to be searched and the objects to be seized. See Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523, 532 (1967). But a warrant would serve none of these functions where the arrest takes place in a public area and the authorities are admittedly empowered to seize the objects in question. Cf. United States v. Watson, 423 U. S. 411, 414-424 (1976) (warrant not required for arrest, based on probable cause, in public place).

The Courts of Appeals generally have held that it is proper for the police to seize a briefcase or package in the possession of a person at the time of arrest, and subsequently to search the property without a warrant after the arrested person has been taken into custody. See, e. g., United States v. Schleis, 543 F. 2d 59 (CA8 1976), cert. pending, No. 76 — 5722; United States v. Battle, 166 U. S. App. D. C. 396, 510 F. 2d 776 (1975) ; United States ex rel. Muhammad v. Mancusi, 432 F. 2d 1046 (CA2 1970), cert. denied, 402 U. S. 911 (1971).

“ ‘My basic premise is that Fourth Amendment doctrine, given force and effect by the exclusionary rule, is primarily intended to regulate the police in their day-to-day activities and thus ought to be expressed in terms that are readily applicable by the police in the context of the law enforcement activities in which they are necessarily engaged. A highly sophisticated set of rules, qualified by all sorts of ifs, ands, and buts arid requiring the drawing of subtle nuances and hairline distinctions, may be the sort of heady stuff upon which the facile minds of lawyers and judges eagerly feed, but they may be ‘literally impossible of application by the officer in the field.’ ” LaFave, “Case-by-Case Adjudication” versus “Standardized Procedures”: The Robinson Dilemma, 1974 Sup. Ct. Rev. 127 , 141 (footnotes omitted), quoting United States v. Robinson, 153 U. S. App. D. C. 114, 154, 471 F. 2d 1082, 1122 (1972) (dissenting opinion), rev’d, 414 Ü. S. 218 (1973).

The scope of the “automobile search” exception to the warrant requirement extends to the contents of locked compartments, including glove compartments and trunks. See cases cited supra, at 19. The Courts of Appeals have construed this doctrine to include briefcases, suitcases, and foot-lockers inside automobiles. United States v. Tramunti, 513 F. 2d 1087, 1104-1105 (CA2 1975); United States v. Issod, 508 F. 2d 990, 993 (CA7 1974), cert. denied, 421 U. S. 916 (1975); United States v. Soriano, 497 F. 2d 147 (CA5 1974) (en banc), convictions summarily aff’d sub nom. United States v. Aviles, 535 F. 2d 658 (1976), cert. pending, Nos. 76-5132 and 76-5143; United States v. Evans, 481 F. 2d 990, 993-994 (CA9 1973).

Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752, 763 (1969), authorizes an on-the-spot search of the area within the “immediate control” of an arrested person. It is well established that an immediate search of packages or luggage carried by an arrested person is proper. See Draper v. United States, 358 U. S. 307, 310-311 (1959). Such searches have been sustained by the Courts of Appeals even if they occurred after the arrested person had been handcuffed and thus could no longer gain access to the property in question. United States v. Eatherton, 519 F. 2d 603, 609-610 (CA1), cert. denied, 423 U. S. 987 (1975); United States v. Kaye, 492 F. 2d 744 (CA6 1974); United States v. Mehciz, 437 F. 2d 145 (CA9), cert. denied, 402 U. S. 974 (1971). Searches under the Chimel rationale have also been approved when the suitcase or briefcase was close by, but not touching, the arrested person. United States v. French, 545 F. 2d 1021 (CA5 1977) (suitcase “within an arm’s length” of arrested person); United States v. Frick, 490 F. 2d 666 (CA5 1973), cert. denied sub nom. Peterson v. United States, 419 U. S. 831 (1974) (briefcase lying on seat of automobile next to which person was arrested).

“A railroad station, after the arrival of a train, is not a good place to conduct such an arrest and search, especially when the agents did not know whether one or more men might respond to the telephone call Machado had made. Nor is a street outside the station a good place to open a footlocker containing marijuana. The agents acted wisely in arresting Machado at the car, and in postponing until they arrived at JEK opening the footlocker, to confirm the fact that it contained contraband.” 632 F. 2d 773, 786 (1976).

I might add that postponing the arrest until after the car was started would have increased the likelihood that respondents would attempt to evade arrest, possibly endangering innocent bystanders.