Searches and Inspections in Noncriminal Cases
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Annotations
Searches and Inspections in Noncriminal Cases.—Certain early cases held that the Fourth Amendment was applicable only when a search was undertaken for criminal investigatory purposes,80 and the Supreme Court until recently employed a reasonableness test for such searches without requiring either a warrant or probable cause in the absence of a warrant.81 But, in 1967, the Court in two cases held that administrative inspections to detect building code violations must be undertaken pursuant to warrant if the occupant objects.82 “We may agree that a routine inspection of the physical condition of private property is a less hostile intrusion than the typical policeman’s search for the fruits and instrumentalities of crime. . . . But we cannot agree that the Fourth Amendment interests at stake in these inspection cases are merely ‘peripheral.’ It is surely anomalous to say that the individual and his private property are fully protected by the Fourth Amendment only when the individual is suspected of criminal behavior.”83 Certain administrative inspections used to enforce regulatory schemes with regard to such items as alcohol and firearms are, however, exempt from the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement and may be authorized simply by statute.84
Camara and See were reaffirmed in Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc.,85 in which the Court held to violate the Fourth Amendment a provision of the Occupational Safety and Health Act that authorized federal inspectors to search the work area of any employment facility covered by the Act for safety hazards and violations of regulations, without a warrant or other legal process. The liquor and firearms exceptions were distinguished on the basis that those industries had a long tradition of close government supervision, so that a person in those businesses gave up his privacy expectations. But OSHA was a relatively recent statute and it regulated practically every business in or affecting interstate commerce; it was not open to a legislature to extend regulation and then follow it with warrant-less inspections. Additionally, OSHA inspectors had unbounded discretion in choosing which businesses to inspect and when to do so, leaving businesses at the mercy of possibly arbitrary actions and certainly with no assurances as to limitation on scope and standards of inspections. Further, warrantless inspections were not necessary to serve an important governmental interest, as most businesses would consent to inspection and it was not inconvenient to require OSHA to resort to an administrative warrant in order to inspect sites where consent was refused.86
In Donovan v. Dewey,87 however, the Court seemingly limited Barlow’s reach and articulated a new standard that appeared to permit extensive governmental inspection of commercial property without a warrant. Under the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act, governing underground and surface mines (including stone quarries), federal officers are directed to inspect underground mines at least four times a year and surface mines at least twice a year, pursuant to extensive regulations as to standards of safety. The statute specifically provides for absence of advanced notice and requires the Secretary of Labor to institute court actions for injunctive and other relief in cases in which inspectors are denied admission. Sustaining the statute, the Court proclaimed that government had a “greater latitude” to conduct warrantless inspections of commercial property than of homes, because of “the fact that the expectation of privacy that the owner of commercial property enjoys in such property differs significantly from the sanctity accorded an individual’s home, and that this privacy interest may, in certain circumstances, be adequately protected by regulatory schemes authorizing warrant-less inspections.”88
Dewey was distinguished from Barlow’s in several ways. First, Dewey involved a single industry, unlike the broad coverage in Barlow’s. Second, the OSHA statute gave minimal direction to inspectors as to time, scope, and frequency of inspections, while FMSHA specified a regular number of inspections pursuant to standards. Third, deference was due Congress’s determination that unannounced inspections were necessary if the safety laws were to be effectively enforced. Fourth, FMSHA provided businesses the opportunity to contest the search by resisting in the civil proceeding the Secretary had to bring if consent was denied.89 The standard of a long tradition of government supervision permitting warrantless inspections was dispensed with, because it would lead to “absurd results,” in that new and emerging industries posing great hazards would escape regulation.90
Dewey was applied in New York v. Burger91 to inspection of automobile junkyards and vehicle dismantling operations, a situation where there is considerable overlap between administrative and penal objectives. Applying the Dewey three-part test, the Court concluded that New York has a substantial interest in stemming the tide of automobile thefts, that regulation of vehicle dismantling reasonably serves that interest, and that statutory safeguards provided adequate substitute for a warrant requirement. The Court rejected the suggestion that the warrantless inspection provisions were designed as an expedient means of enforcing the penal laws, and instead saw narrower, valid regulatory purposes to be served, such as establishing a system for tracking stolen automobiles and parts, and enhancing the ability of legitimate businesses to compete. “[A] State can address a major social problem both by way of an administrative scheme and through penal sanctions,” the Court declared; in such circumstances warrantless administrative searches are permissible in spite of the fact that evidence of criminal activity may well be uncovered in the process.92
Most recently, however, in City of Los Angeles v. Patel, the Court declined to extend the “more relaxed standard” applicable to searches of closely regulated businesses to hotels when invalidating a Los Angeles ordinance that gave police the ability to inspect hotel registration records without advance notice and carried a six-month term of imprisonment and a $1,000 fine for hotel operators who failed to make such records available.93 The Patel Court, characterizing inspections pursuant to this ordinance as “administrative searches,”94 held “that a hotel owner must be afforded an opportunity to have a neutral decision maker review an officer’s demand to search the registry before he or she faces penalties for failing to comply” for such a search to be permissible under the Fourth Amendment.95 In so doing, the Court expressly declined to treat the hotel industry as a “closely regulated” industry subject to the more relaxed standard applied in Dewey and Burger on the grounds that doing so would “permit what has always been a narrow exception to swallow the rule.”96 The Court emphasized that, over the prior 45 years, it had recognized only four industries as having “such a history of government oversight that no reasonable expectation of privacy . . . could exist for a proprietor over the stock of such an enterprise.”97 These four industries involve liquor sales, firearms dealing, mining, and running an automobile junkyard, and the Court distinguished hotel operations from these industries, in part, because “nothing inherent in the operation of hotels poses a clear and significant risk to the public welfare.”98 However, the Court also suggested that, even if hotels were to be seen as pervasively regulated, the Los Angeles ordinance would still be deemed unreasonable because (1) there was no substantial government interest informing the regulatory scheme; (2) warrantless inspections were not necessary to further the government’s purpose; and (3) the inspection program did not provide, in terms of the certainty and regularity of its application, a constitutionally adequate substitute for a warrant.99
In other contexts, not directly concerned with whether an industry is comprehensively regulated, the Court has also elaborated the constitutional requirements affecting administrative inspections and searches. In Michigan v. Tyler,100 for example, it subdivided the process by which an investigation of the cause of a fire may be conducted. Entry to fight the fire is, of course, an exception based on exigent circumstances, and no warrant or consent is needed; fire fighters on the scene may seize evidence relating to the cause under the plain view doctrine. Additional entries to investigate the cause of the fire must be made pursuant to warrant procedures governing administrative searches. Evidence of arson discovered in the course of such an administrative inspection is admissible at trial, but if the investigator finds probable cause to believe that arson has occurred and requires further access to gather evidence for a possible prosecution, he must obtain a criminal search warrant.101
One curious case has approved a system of “home visits” by welfare caseworkers, in which the recipients are required to admit the worker or lose eligibility for benefits.102 In another unusual case, the Court held that a sheriff’s assistance to a trailer park owner in disconnecting and removing a mobile home constituted a “seizure” of the home.103
In addition, there are now a number of situations, some of them analogous to administrative searches, where “ ‘special needs’ beyond normal law enforcement . . . justify departures from the usual warrant and probable cause requirements.”104 In one of these cases the Court, without acknowledging the magnitude of the leap from one context to another, has taken the Dewey/Burger rationale— developed to justify warrantless searches of business establishments— and applied it to justify the significant intrusion into personal privacy represented by urinalysis drug testing. Because of the history of pervasive regulation of the railroad industry, the Court reasoned, railroad employees have a diminished expectation of privacy that makes mandatory urinalysis less intrusive and more reasonable.105
With respect to automobiles, the holdings are mixed. Random stops of automobiles to check drivers’ licenses, vehicle registrations, and safety conditions were condemned as too intrusive; the degree to which random stops would advance the legitimate governmental interests involved did not outweigh the individual’s legitimate expectations of privacy.106 On the other hand, in South Dakota v. Opperman,107 the Court sustained the admission of evidence found when police impounded an automobile from a public street for multiple parking violations and entered the car to secure and inventory valuables for safekeeping. Marijuana was discovered in the glove compartment.
80 In re Strouse, 23 Fed. Cas. 261 (No. 13,548) (D. Nev. 1871); In re Meador, 16 Fed. Cas. 1294, 1299 (No. 9375) (N.D. Ga. 1869).
81 Abel v. United States, 362 U.S. 217 (1960); Frank v. Maryland, 359 U.S. 360 (1959); Oklahoma Press Pub. Co. v. Walling, 327 U.S. 186 (1946).
82 Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523 (1967) (home); See v. City of Seattle, 387 U.S. 541 (1967) (commercial warehouse).
83 Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 530 (1967).
84 Colonnade Catering Corp. v. United States, 397 U.S. 72 (1970); United States v. Biswell, 406 U.S. 311 (1972). Colonnade, involving liquor, was based on the long history of close supervision of the industry. Biswell, involving firearms, introduced factors that were subsequently to prove significant. Thus, although the statute was of recent enactment, firearms constituted a pervasively regulated industry, so that dealers had no reasonable expectation of privacy, because the law provides for regular inspections. Further, warrantless inspections were needed for effective enforcement of the statute.
85 436 U.S. 307 (1978). Dissenting, Justice Stevens, with Justices Rehnquist and Blackmun, argued that not the warrant clause but the reasonableness clause should govern administrative inspections. Id. at 325.
86 Administrative warrants issued on the basis of less than probable cause but only on a showing that a specific business had been chosen for inspection on the basis of a general administrative plan would suffice. Even without a necessity for probable cause, the requirement would assure the interposition of a neutral officer to establish that the inspection was reasonable and was properly authorized. 436 U.S. at 321, 323. The dissenters objected that the warrant clause was being constitutionally diluted. Id. at 325. Administrative warrants were approved also in Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 538 (1967). Previously, one of the reasons given for finding administrative and noncriminal inspections not covered by the Fourth Amendment was the fact that the warrant clause would be as rigorously applied to them as to criminal searches and seizures. Frank v. Maryland, 359 U.S. 360, 373 (1959). See also Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U.S. 266, 275 (1973) (Justice Powell concurring) (suggesting a similar administrative warrant procedure empowering police and immigration officers to conduct roving searches of automobiles in areas near the Nation’s borders); id. at 270 n.3 (indicating that majority Justices were divided on the validity of such area search warrants); id. at 288 (dissenting Justice White indicating approval); United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 547 n.2, 562 n.15 (1976).
87 452 U.S. 594 (1981).
88 Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U.S. 594, 598–99 (1981).
89 452 U.S. at 596–97, 604–05. Pursuant to the statute, however, the Secretary has promulgated regulations providing for the assessment of civil penalties for denial of entry and Dewey had been assessed a penalty of $1,000. Id. at 597 n.3. It was also true in Barlow’s that the government resorted to civil process upon refusal to admit. 436 U.S. at 317 & n.12.
90 Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U.S. 594, 606 (1981). Duration of regulation will now be a factor in assessing the legitimate expectation of privacy of a business. Id. Accord, New York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691 (1987) (although duration of regulation of vehicle dismantling was relatively brief, history of regulation of junk business generally was lengthy, and current regulation of dismantling was extensive).
91 482 U.S. 691 (1987).
92 482 U.S. at 712 (emphasis in original).
93 576 U.S. ___, No. 13–1175, slip op. at 14 (2014). Patel involved a facial, rather than an as-applied, challenge to the Los Angeles ordinance. The Court clarified that facial challenges under the Fourth Amendment are “not categorically barred or especially disfavored.” Id. at 4. Some had apparently taken the Court’s earlier statement in Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40 (1968), that “[t]he constitutional validity of a warrantless search is pre-eminently the sort of question which can only be decided in the concrete factual context of the individual case,” id. at 59, to foreclose facial Fourth Amendment challenges. Patel, slip op. at 5. However, the Patel Court construed Sibron’s language to mean only that “claims for facial relief under the Fourth Amendment are unlikely to succeed when there is substantial ambiguity as to what conduct a statute authorizes.” Id.
94 Patel, slip op. at 10.
95 Id. at 11. The Court further noted that actual pre-compliance review need only occur in those “rare instances” where a hotel owner objects to turning over the registry, and that the Court has never “attempted to prescribe” the exact form of such review. Id. at 10–11.
96 Id. at 14.
97 Id. (quoting Barlow’s, 436 U.S. at 313).
98 Id. The majority further stated that the existence of regulations requiring hotels to maintain licenses, collect taxes, and take other actions did not establish a “comprehensive scheme of regulation” distinguishing hotels from other industries. Id. at 15. It also opined that the historical practice of treating hotels as public accommodations does not necessarily mean that hotels are to be treated as comprehensively regulated for purposes of warrantless searches. Id. at 14–15.
99 Id. at 16. Specifically, the Court noted that the government’s alleged interest in ensuring that hotel operators not falsify their records, as they could if given an opportunity for pre-compliance review, applied to every recordkeeping requirement. Id. The Court similarly noted that there were other ways to further the city’s interest in warrantless inspections (e.g., ex parte warrants) and that the ordinance failed to sufficiently constrain a police officer’s discretion as to which hotels to search and under what circumstances. Id.
100 436 U.S. 499 (1978).
101 The Court also held that, after the fire was extinguished, if fire investigators were unable to proceed at the moment, because of dark, steam, and smoke, it was proper for them to leave and return at daylight without any necessity of complying with its mandate for administrative or criminal warrants. 436 U.S. at 510– 11. But cf. Michigan v. Clifford, 464 U.S. 287 (1984) (no such justification for search of private residence begun at 1:30 p.m. when fire had been extinguished at 7 a.m.).
102 Wyman v. James, 400 U.S. 309 (1971). It is not clear what rationale the majority used. It appears to have proceeded on the assumption that a “home visit” was not a search and that the Fourth Amendment does not apply when criminal prosecution is not threatened. Neither premise is valid under Camara and its progeny, although Camara preceded Wyman. Presumably, the case would today be analyzed under the expectation of privacy/need/structural protection theory of the more recent cases.
103 Soldal v. Cook County, 506 U.S. 56, 61 (1992) (home “was not only seized, it literally was carried away, giving new meaning to the term ‘mobile home’”).
104 City of Ontario v. Quon, 560 U.S. ___, No. 08–1332, slip op. (2010) (reasonableness test for obtaining and reviewing transcripts of on-duty text messages of police officer using government-issued equipment); Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 873 (1987) (administrative needs of probation system justify warrantless searches of probationers’ homes on less than probable cause); Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 526 (1984) (no Fourth Amendment protection from search of prison cell); New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325 (1985) (simple reasonableness standard governs searches of students’ persons and effects by public school authorities); O’Connor v. Ortega, 480 U.S. 709 (1987) (reasonableness test for work-related searches of employees’ offices by government employer); Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Ass’n, 489 U.S. 602 (1989) (neither probable cause nor individualized suspicion is necessary for mandatory drug testing of railway employees involved in accidents or safety violations). All of these cases are discussed infra under the general heading “Valid Searches and Seizures Without Warrants.”
105 Skinner, 489 U.S. at 627.
106 Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648 (1979). Standards applied in this case had been developed in the contexts of automobile stops at fixed points or by roving patrols in border situations. Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U.S. 266 (1973); United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873 (1975); United States v. Ortiz, 422 U.S. 891 (1975); United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543 (1976).
107 428 U.S. 364 (1976). See also Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433 (1973) (sustaining admission of criminal evidence found when police conducted a warrantless search of an out-of-state policeman’s automobile following an accident, in order to find and safeguard his service revolver). The Court in both cases emphasized the reduced expectation of privacy in automobiles and the noncriminal purposes of the searches.
