1. In civil proceedings brought in the Federal District Court
under R.S. § 1979, 8 U.S.C. § 43 (Civil Rights Act), petitioners
sought an injunction against the use, in pending state criminal
proceedings against them in New Jersey, of evidence claimed to have
been obtained by an unlawful search by state police.
Held: the District Court properly dismissed the
complaints. Pp.
342 U. S.
117-125.
2. Federal courts should refuse to intervene in state criminal
proceedings to suppress the use of evidence even when claimed to
have been secured by unlawful search and seizure. Pp.
342 U. S.
120-125.
184 F.2d 575, affirmed.
In suits brought by petitioners under R.S. § 1979, 8 U.S.C. §
43, to enjoin the use, in a state criminal trial, of evidence
claimed to have been obtained by an unlawful search by state
police, the District Court dismissed the complaints. The Court of
Appeals affirmed. 184 F.2d 575. This Court granted certiorari. 341
U.S. 930.
Affirmed, p.
342 U. S.
125.
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioners asked equitable relief from the Federal District
Court to prevent the fruit of an unlawful search by New Jersey
police from being used in evidence in a State
Page 342 U. S. 118
criminal trial. The suit was brought under R.S. § 1979, 8 U.S.C.
§ 43, providing for redress against
"Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance,
regulation, custom, or usage, or any State or Territory, subjects,
or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or
other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of
any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution
and laws. . . . [
Footnote
1]"
Upon respondents' motion, the District Court dismissed the
complaints, "it appearing that the plaintiffs have not exhausted
their remedies under state law." The Court of Appeals affirmed. 184
F.2d 575. Since it raises important questions touching the Civil
Rights Act in the context of our federal system we brought the case
here. 341 U.S. 930.
Two suits arising out of separate series of events, were
consolidated in the Court of Appeals, and are before us as one
case. The facts do not differ materially. Newark police officers
entered petitioners' homes without legal authority. There they
seized property of petitioners useful in bookmaking, a misdemeanor
under N.J.Rev.Stat.
Page 342 U. S. 119
2:135-3. It is not disputed that these searches, if made by
federal officers, would have violated the Fourth Amendment.
Stefanelli was arrested, arraigned, and subsequently indicted for
bookmaking. He pleaded not guilty. The other petitioners, after
hearing, were held on the same charge to await the action of the
Essex County grand jury. All allege that the seized property is
destined for evidence against them in the New Jersey criminal
proceedings. Petitioners have made no move in the State courts to
suppress the evidence, justifying their failure to do so on the
ground that, under existing New Jersey law, the seized property is
admissible without regard to the illegality of its procurement.
Petitioners invoke our decision in
Wolf v. Colorado,
338 U. S. 25. The
precise holding in that case was
"that, in a prosecution in a State court for a State crime, the
Fourteenth Amendment does not forbid the admission of evidence
obtained by an unreasonable search and seizure."
Id. at
338 U. S. 33.
Although our holding was thus narrowly confined, in the course of
the opinion, it was said:
"The security of one's privacy against arbitrary intrusion by
the police -- which is at the core of the Fourth Amendment -- is
basic to a free society. It is therefore implicit in 'the concept
of ordered liberty,' and, as such, enforceable against the States
through the Due Process Clause. . . . Accordingly, we have no
hesitation in saying that, were a State affirmatively to sanction
such police incursion into privacy, it would run counter to the
guaranty of the Fourteenth Amendment."
Id. at
338 U. S. 27-28.
There was disagreement as to the legal consequences of this view,
but none as to its validity. We adhere to it. Upon it is founded
the argument of petitioners.
If the Fourteenth Amendment forbids unreasonable searches and
seizures by the States, they contend, such a search and seizure by
State police officers subjects its victims to the deprivation,
under color of State law, of a
Page 342 U. S. 120
right, privilege, or immunity secured by the Constitution for
which redress is afforded by R.S. § 1979. Appropriate redress, they
urge, is a suit in equity to suppress the evidence in order to bar
its further use in State criminal proceedings.
There is no occasion to consider such constitutional questions
unless their answers are indispensable to the disposition of the
cause before us. In the view we take, we need not decide whether
the complaint states a cause of action under R.S. § 1979. For even
if the power to grant the relief here sought may fairly and
constitutionally be derived from the generality of language of the
Civil Rights Act, to sustain the claim would disregard the power of
courts of equity to exercise discretion when, in a matter of equity
jurisdiction, the balance is against the wisdom of using their
power. Here, the considerations governing that discretion touch
perhaps the most sensitive source of friction between States and
Nation -- namely, the active intrusion of the federal courts in the
administration of the criminal law for the prosecution of crimes
solely within the power of the States.
We hold that the federal courts should refuse to intervene in
State criminal proceedings to suppress the use of evidence even
when claimed to have been secured by unlawful search and seizure.
The maxim that equity will not enjoin a criminal prosecution
summarizes centuries of weighty experience in Anglo-American law.
It is impressively reinforced when not merely the relations between
coordinate courts, but between coordinate political authorities,
are in issue. The special delicacy of the adjustment to be
preserved between federal equitable power and State administration
of its own law has been an historic concern of congressional
enactment,
see, e.g., 28 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1342, 2283,
2284(5). This concern has been reflected in decisions of this
Court, not governed by explicit congressional requirement, bearing
on a
Page 342 U. S. 121
State's enforcement of its criminal law.
E.g., Watson v.
Buck, 313 U. S. 387;
Beal v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 312 U. S.
45;
Spielman Motor Co. v. Dodge, 295 U. S.
89;
Fenner v. Boykin, 271 U.
S. 240. It has received striking confirmation even where
an important countervailing federal interest was involved.
Maryland v. Soper (No. 1), 270 U. S.
9;
Maryland v. Soper (No. 2), 270 U. S.
36;
Maryland v. Soper (No. 3), 270 U. S.
44. [
Footnote 2]
These considerations have informed our construction of the Civil
Rights Act. This Act has given rise to differences of application
here. Such differences inhere in the attempt to construe the
remaining fragments of a comprehensive enactment, dismembered by
partial repeal and invalidity, loosely and blindly drafted in the
first instance, [
Footnote 3]
and drawing on the whole Constitution itself for its scope and
meaning. Regardless of differences in particular cases, however,
the Court's lodestar of adjudication has been that the statute
"should be construed so as to respect the proper balance between
the States and the federal government in law enforcement."
Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91,
325 U. S. 108.
Only last term, we reiterated our conviction that the Civil Rights
Act "was not to be used to centralize power so as to upset the
federal system."
Collins v. Hardyman, 341 U.
S. 651,
341 U. S. 658.
Discretionary refusal to exercise equitable power under the Act to
interfere with State criminal prosecution is
Page 342 U. S. 122
one of the devices we have sanctioned for preserving this
balance.
Douglas v. City of Jeannette, 319 U.
S. 157. And, under the very section now invoked, we have
withheld relief in equity even when recognizing that comparable
facts would create a cause of action for damages.
Compare Giles
v. Harris, 189 U. S. 475,
with Lane v. Wilson, 307 U. S. 268.
In
Douglas v. City of Jeannette, supra, the Court,
speaking through Chief Justice Stone, said:
"Congress, by its legislation, has adopted the policy, with
certain well defined statutory exceptions, of leaving generally to
the state courts the trial of criminal cases arising under state
laws, subject to review by this Court of any federal questions
involved. Hence, courts of equity in the exercise of their
discretionary powers should conform to this policy by refusing to
interfere with or embarrass threatened proceedings in state courts
save in those exceptional cases which call for the interposition of
a court of equity to prevent irreparable injury which is clear and
imminent. . . ."
Id. at
319 U. S. 163.
[
Footnote 4] No such
irreparable injury, clear and imminent, is threatened here. At
worst, the evidence sought to be suppressed may provide the basis
for conviction of the petitioners in the New Jersey courts. Such a
conviction, we have held, would not deprive them of due process of
law.
Wolf v. Colorado, supra.
If these considerations limit federal courts in restraining
State prosecutions merely threatened, how much more cogent are they
to prevent federal interference with proceedings
Page 342 U. S. 123
once begun. If the federal equity power must refrain from
staying State prosecutions outright to try the central question of
the validity of the statute on which the prosecution is based, how
much more reluctant must it be to intervene piecemeal to try
collateral issues. [
Footnote
5]
The consequences of exercising the equitable power here invoked
are not the concern of a merely doctrinaire alertness to protect
the proper sphere of the States in enforcing their criminal law. If
we were to sanction this intervention, we would expose every State
criminal prosecution to insupportable disruption. Every question of
procedural due process of law -- with its far-flung and undefined
range -- would invite a flanking movement against the system of
State courts by resort to the federal forum, with review, if need
be, to this Court, to determine the issue. Asserted
unconstitutionality in the impaneling and selection of the grand
[
Footnote 6] and petit
[
Footnote 7] juries, in the
failure to appoint counsel, [
Footnote 8] in the admission of a confession, [
Footnote 9] in the creation of an
unfair trial atmosphere, [
Footnote 10] in the misconduct of the trial court
[
Footnote 11] -- all would
provide ready opportunities, which conscientious counsel might be
bound to employ, to subvert the orderly, effective prosecution
Page 342 U. S. 124
of local crime in local courts. To suggest these difficulties is
to recognize their solution. [
Footnote 12]
Mr. Justice Holmes dealt with this problem in a situation
especially appealing:
"The relation of the United States and the Courts of the United
States to the States
Page 342 U. S. 125
and the Courts of the States is a very delicate matter that has
occupied the thoughts of statesmen and judges for a hundred years
and cannot be disposed of by a summary statement that justice
requires me to cut red tape and to intervene."
Memorandum of Mr. Justice Holmes in 5 The Sacco-Vanzetti Case,
Transcript of the Record (Henry Holt & Co., 1929) 5516. A
proper respect for those relations requires that the judgment below
be affirmed.
Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK and MR. JUSTICE CLARK concur in the
result.
MR. JUSTICE MINTON took no part in the consideration or decision
of this case.
[
Footnote 1]
"Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance,
regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects,
or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or
other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of
any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution
and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law,
suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress."
Jurisdiction was founded, without regard to citizenship of the
parties of amount in controversy, on 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3):
"The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any
civil action authorized by law to be commenced by any person:"
"
* * * *"
"(3) To redress the deprivation, under color of any State law,
statute, ordinance, regulation, custom or usage, of any right,
privilege or immunity secured by the Constitution of the United
States or by any Act of Congress providing for equal rights of
citizens or of all persons within the jurisdiction of the United
States."
Hague v. CIO, 307 U. S. 496.
[
Footnote 2]
In those cases, despite the obvious concern of Congress for
enforcement of revenue laws unimpeded by local opposition, the
Court duly respected State criminal justice by carefully limiting
the power of removing to the federal courts State criminal
prosecutions involving federal revenue officers who claimed that
such prosecutions were "on account of any act done under color of
[their] office."
R.S. § 643, now 28 U.S.C. § 1442.
[
Footnote 3]
We recently commented on the circumstances surrounding the
enactment of this legislation in
United States v.
Williams, 341 U. S. 70,
341 U. S. 74,
and
Collins v. Hardyman, 341 U. S. 651,
341 U. S.
657.
[
Footnote 4]
Hague v. CIO, supra, was distinguished in the
Jeannette case:
"In these respects, the case differs from
Hague v. CIO,
supra, at
307 U. S. 501-502, where
local officials forcibly broke up meetings of the complainants and
in many instances forcibly deported them from the state without
trial."
Douglas v. City of Jeannette, supra, at
319 U. S.
164.
[
Footnote 5]
Congress has consistently demonstrated concern that the orderly
course of judicial proceedings should not, in the absence of
compelling circumstances defined by statute, be broken up for the
piecemeal determination of the issues involved.
See, e.g.,
28 U.S.C. § 1291;
Cobbledick v. United States,
309 U. S. 323
(appeals from "final decisions" of the district courts); 28 U.S.C.
§ 1441(c) (removal of "separable controversies"),
and cf. Hurn
v. Oursler, 289 U. S. 238.
[
Footnote 6]
See Smith v. Texas, 311 U. S. 128.
[
Footnote 7]
See Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.
S. 303;
Pierre v. Louisiana, 306 U.
S. 354.
[
Footnote 8]
See Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S.
45.
[
Footnote 9]
See Watts v. Indiana, 338 U. S. 49.
[
Footnote 10]
See Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U. S. 86.
[
Footnote 11]
See Townsend v. Burke, 334 U.
S. 736.
[
Footnote 12]
Although this is the first such case to reach us, instances are
not wanting where the fairness of State court proceedings has been
attacked in the lower federal courts under R.S. § 1979 and related
sections. We refer to them by way of illustration. An action for
damages was sustained against a motion to dismiss where plaintiff
alleged that she was arrested without warrant, that defendants, a
justice of the peace and a constable, maliciously secured the
appointment of a biased jury and subjected her to a fraudulent
trial resulting in a conviction reversed on appeal.
McShane v.
Moldovan, 172 F.2d 1016;
cf. Picking v. Pennsylvania R.
Co., 151 F.2d 240 (complaint seeking damages for false arrest
and detention in violation of the Uniform Extradition Act sustained
against motion to dismiss).
But see Campo v. Niemeyer, 182
F.2d 115;
Lyons v. Baker, 180 F.2d 893;
Bottone v.
Lindsley, 170 F.2d 705;
Mitchell v. Greenough, 100
F.2d 184;
Llano Del Rio Co. v. Anderson-Post Hardwood Lumber
Co., 79 F. Supp.
382,
aff'd per curiam, 187 F.2d 235. Closer to the
case before us are suits for injunctions grounded on the contention
that particular phases of criminal proceedings are unfair. The
lower courts have refused to intervene.
Cooper v.
Hutchinson, 184 F.2d 119 (refusal of State court to allow
criminal defendant counsel of his own choosing; case remanded for
district court to retain jurisdiction pending exhaustion of State
remedies);
Ackerman v. International Longshoremen's &
Warehousemen's Union, 187 F.2d 860,
rev'g 82 F. Supp.
65, which had enjoined prosecutions in part on the ground of
discrimination in selection of grand jury panel;
McGuire v.
Amrein, 101 F.
Supp. 414 (refusal to suppress wiretap evidence; alternate
ground);
Erickson v. Hogan, 94 F. Supp. 459 (suppression
of evidence obtained through unlawful search and seizure);
Refoule v. Ellis, 74 F. Supp.
336 (court would not enjoin use of allegedly coerced confession
in State prosecution although enjoining future unlawful arrest,
detention and interrogation of plaintiff);
cf. Eastus v.
Bradshaw, 94 F.2d 788.
And see Hoffman v.
O'Brien, 88 F. Supp.
490, where an action under R.S. § 1979 to enjoin the
enforcement of the New York wiretap law was dismissed for want of a
justiciable controversy.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, dissenting.
Mr. Justice Murphy, Mr. Justice Rutledge, and I voted in
Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U. S. 25, that
evidence obtained as a result of an unreasonable search and seizure
should be excluded from state as well as federal trials. In
retrospect, the views expressed by Mr. Justice Murphy and Mr.
Justice Rutledge grow in power and persuasiveness. I adhere to
them. I therefore think that any court may with propriety step in
to prevent the use of this illegal evidence. To hold first that the
evidence may be admitted, and second that its use may not be
enjoined, is to make the Fourth Amendment an empty and hollow
guarantee so far as state prosecutions are concerned.