Under the Fourth Amendment, Federal courts and officers are
under such limitations and restraints in the exercise of their
power and authority as to forever secure the people, their persons,
houses, papers and effects against all unreasonable searches and
seizures under the guise of law.
The protection of the Fourth Amendment reaches all alike,
whether accused of crime or not; and the duty of giving it force
and effect is obligatory on all entrusted with the enforcement of
Federal laws.
The tendency of those executing Federal criminal laws to obtain
convictions by means of unlawful seizures and enforced confessions
in violation of Federal rights is not to be sanctioned by the
courts which are charged with the support of constitutional
rights.
The Federal courts cannot, as against a seasonable application
for their return, in a criminal prosecution, retain for the
purposes of evidence against the accused his letters and
correspondence seized in his house during his absence and without
his authority by a United States marshal holding no warrant for his
arrest or for the search of his premises.
While the efforts of courts and their officials to bring the
guilty to punishment are praiseworthy, they are not to be aided by
sacrificing the great fundamental rights secured by the
Constitution.
While an incidental seizure of incriminating papers, made in the
execution of a legal warrant, and their use as evidence, may be
justified, and a collateral issue will not be raised to ascertain
the source of competent evidence,
Adams v. New York,
192 U. S. 585,
that rule does not justify the retention of letters seized in
violation of the protection given by the Fourth Amendment where an
application in the cause for their return has been made by the
accused before trial.
The court has power to deal with papers and documents in the
possession of the District Attorney and other officers of the court
and to direct their return to the accused if wrongfully seized.
Where letters and papers of the accused were taken from his
premises by an official of the United States, acting under color of
office but
Page 232 U. S. 384
without any search warrant and in violation of the
constitutional rights of accused under the Fourth Amendment, and a
seasonable application for return of the letters and papers has
been refused and they are used in evidence over his objection,
prejudicial error is committed, and the judgment should be
reversed.
The Fourth Amendment is not directed to individual misconduct of
state officers. Its limitations reach the Federal Government and
its agencies.
Boyd v. United States, 116 U.
S. 616.
The facts, which involve the validity under the Fourth Amendment
of a verdict and sentence and the extent to which the private
papers of the accused taken without search warrant can be used as
evidence against him, are stated in the opinion.
Page 232 U. S. 386
MR. JUSTICE DAY delivered the opinion of the court:
An indictment was returned against the plaintiff in error,
defendant below, and herein so designated, in the district court of
the United States for the western district of Missouri, containing
nine counts. The seventh count, upon which a conviction was had,
charged the use of the mails for the purpose of transporting
certain coupons or tickets representing chances or shares in a
lottery or gift enterprise, in violation of § 213 of the Criminal
Code. Sentence of fine and imprisonment was imposed. This writ of
error is to review that judgment.
The defendant was arrested by a police officer, so far as the
record shows, without warrant, at the Union Station in Kansas City,
Missouri, where he was employed by an express company. Other police
officers had gone to the house of the defendant, and being told by
a neighbor where the key was kept, found it and entered the house.
They searched the defendant's room and took possession of various
papers and articles found there, which were afterwards turned over
to the United States marshal. Later in the same day, police
officers returned with the marshal, who thought he might find
additional evidence and, being admitted by someone in the house,
probably a boarder, in response to a rap, the marshal searched the
defendant's room and carried away certain letters and envelops
found in the drawer of a chiffonier. Neither the marshal nor the
police officer had a search warrant.
Page 232 U. S. 387
The defendant filed in the cause before the time for trial the
following petition:
"Petition to Return Private Papers, Books, and Other
Property."
"Now comes defendant and states that he is a citizen and
resident of Kansas City, Missouri, and that he resides, owns, and
occupies a home at 1834 Penn street in said city:"
"That, on the 21st day of December, 1911, while plaintiff was
absent at his daily vocation, certain officers of the government,
whose names are to plaintiff unknown, unlawfully and without
warrant or authority so to do, broke open the door to plaintiff's
said home and seized all of his books, letters, money, papers,
notes, evidences of indebtedness, stock, certificates, insurance
policies, deeds, abstracts, and other muniments of title, bonds,
candies, clothes, and other property in said home, and this in
violation of §§ 11 and 23 to the Constitution of Missouri, and of
the 4th and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution of the United
States;"
"That the district attorney, marshal, and clerk of the United
States court for the western district of Missouri took the
above-described property so seized into their possession, and have
failed and refused to return to defendant portion of same,
to-wit:"
"One (1) leather grip, value about $7; one (1) tin box valued at
$3; one (1) Pettis county, Missouri, bond, value $500; three (3)
mining stock certificates which defendant is unable to more
particularly describe, valued at $12,000; and certain stock
certificates in addition thereto, issued by the San Domingo Mining,
Loan, & Investment Company; about $75 in currency; one (1)
newspaper published about 1790, an heirloom; and certain other
property which plaintiff is now unable to describe."
"That said property is being unlawfully and improperly
Page 232 U. S. 388
held by said district attorney, marshal, and clerk, in violation
of defendant's rights under the Constitution of the United States
and the state of Missouri."
"That said district attorney purposes to use said books,
letters, papers, certificates of stock, etc., at the trial of the
above-entitled cause, and that, by reason thereof and of the facts
above set forth, defendant's rights under the amendments aforesaid
to the Constitutions of Missouri and the United States have been
and will be violated unless the court order the return prayed
for;"
"Wherefore, defendant prays that said district attorney,
marshal, and clerk be notified, and that the court direct and order
said district attorney, marshal, and clerk, to return said property
to said defendant."
Upon consideration of the petition, the court entered in the
cause an order directing the return of such property as was not
pertinent to the charge against the defendant, but denied the
petition as to pertinent matter, reserving the right to pass upon
the pertinency at a later time. In obedience to the order, the
district attorney returned part of the property taken and retained
the remainder, concluding a list of the latter with the statement
that
"all of which last above described property is to be used in
evidence in the trial of the above-entitled cause, and pertains to
the alleged sale of lottery tickets of the company above
named."
After the jury had been sworn and before any evidence had been
given, the defendant again urged his petition for the return of his
property, which was denied by the court. Upon the introduction of
such papers during the trial, the defendant objected on the ground
that the papers had been obtained without a search warrant, and by
breaking open his home, in violation of the 4th and Fifth
Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, which
objection was overruled by the court. Among the papers retained and
put in evidence were a number of
Page 232 U. S. 389
lottery tickets and statements with reference to the lottery,
taken at the first visit of the police to the defendant's room, and
a number of letters written to the defendant in respect to the
lottery, taken by the marshal upon his search of defendant's
room.
The defendant assigns error, among other things, in the court's
refusal to grant his petition for the return of his property, and
in permitting the papers to be used at the trial.
It is thus apparent that the question presented involves the
determination of the duty of the court with reference to the motion
made by the defendant for the return of certain letters, as well as
other papers, taken from his room by the United States marshal,
who, without authority of process, if any such could have been
legally issued, visited the room of the defendant for the declared
purpose of obtaining additional testimony to support the charge
against the accused, and, having gained admission to the house,
took from the drawer of a chiffonier there found certain letters
written to the defendant, tending to show his guilt. These letters
were placed in the control of the district attorney, and were
subsequently produced by him and offered in evidence against the
accused at the trial. The defendant contends that such
appropriation of his private correspondence was in violation of
rights secured to him by the 4th and Fifth Amendments to the
Constitution of the United States. We shall deal with the 4th
Amendment, which provides:
"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."
The history of this Amendment is given with particularity in the
opinion of Mr. Justice Bradley, speaking for
Page 232 U. S. 390
the court in
Boyd v. United States, 116 U.
S. 616. As was there shown, it took its origin in the
determination of the framers of the Amendments to the Federal
Constitution to provide for that instrument a Bill of Rights,
securing to the American people, among other things, those
safeguards which had grown up in England to protect the people from
unreasonable searches and seizures, such as were permitted under
the general warrants issued under authority of the government, by
which there had been invasions of the home and privacy of the
citizens, and the seizure of their private papers in support of
charges, real or imaginary, make against them. Such practices had
also received sanction under warrants and seizures under the
so-called writs of assistance, issued in the American colonies.
See 2 Watson, Const. 1414
et seq. Resistance to
these practices had established the principle which was enacted
into the fundamental law in the Fourth Amendment, that a man's
house was his castle, and not to be invaded by any general
authority to search and seize his goods and papers. Judge Cooley,
in his Constitutional Limitations, pp. 425, 426, in treating of
this feature of our Constitution said:
"The maxim that 'every man's house is his castle' is made a part
of our constitutional law in the clauses prohibiting unreasonable
searches and seizures, and has always been looked upon as of high
value to the citizen."
"Accordingly," says Lieber in his work on Civil Liberty and
Self-Government, 62, in speaking of the English law in this
respect,
"no man's house can be forcibly opened, or he or his goods be
carried away after it has thus been forced, except in cases of
felony; and then the sheriff must be furnished with a warrant, and
take great care lest he commit a trespass. This principle is
jealously insisted upon."
In
Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S. 727,
96 U. S. 733,
this court recognized the principle of protection as applicable to
letters and sealed packages in the mail, and held that,
consistently
Page 232 U. S. 391
with this guaranty of the right of the people to be secure in
their papers against unreasonable searches and seizures, such
matter could only be opened and examined upon warrants issued on
oath or affirmation, particularly describing the thing to be
seized, "as is required when papers are subjected to search in
one's own household."
In the
Boyd case,
supra, after citing Lord
Camden's judgment in
Entick v. Carrington, 19 Howell's
State Trials 1029, Mr. Justice Bradley said (630):
"The principles laid down in this opinion affect the very
essence of constitutional liberty and security. They reach farther
than the concrete form of the case then before the court, with its
adventitious circumstances; they apply to all invasions on the part
of the government and its employees of the sanctity of a man's home
and the privacies of life. It is not the breaking of his doors and
the rummaging of his drawers that constitutes the essence of the
offense, but it is the invasion of his indefeasible right of
personal security, personal liberty, and private property, where
that right has never been forfeited by his conviction of some
public offense -- it is the invasion of this sacred right which
underlies and constitutes the essence of Lord Camden's
judgment."
In
Bram v. United States, 168 U.
S. 532, this court, in speaking by the present Chief
Justice of
Boyd's Case, dealing with the Fourth and Fifth
Amendments, said (544):
"It was in that case demonstrated that both of these Amendments
contemplated perpetuating, in their full efficacy, by means of a
constitutional provision, principles of humanity and civil liberty
which had been secured in the mother country only after years of
struggle, so as to implant them in our institutions in the fullness
of their integrity, free from the possibilities of future
legislative change."
The effect of the Fourth Amendment is to put the courts
Page 232 U. S. 392
of the United States and Federal officials, in the exercise of
their power and authority, under limitations and restraints as to
the exercise of such power and authority, and to forever secure the
people, their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against all
unreasonable searches and seizures under the guise of law. This
protection reaches all alike, whether accused of crime or not, and
the duty of giving to it force and effect is obligatory upon all
intrusted under our Federal system with the enforcement of the
laws. The tendency of those who execute the criminal laws of the
country to obtain conviction by means of unlawful seizures and
enforced confessions, the latter often obtained after subjecting
accused persons to unwarranted practices destructive of rights
secured by the Federal Constitution, should find no sanction in the
judgments of the courts, which are charged at all times with the
support of the Constitution, and to which people of all conditions
have a right to appeal for the maintenance of such fundamental
rights.
What, then, is the present case? Before answering that inquiry
specifically, it may be well, by a process of exclusion, to state
what it is not. It is not an assertion of the right on the part of
the government always recognized under English and American law to
search the person of the accused when legally arrested, to discover
and seize the fruits or evidences of crime. This right has been
uniformly maintained in many cases. 1 Bishop.Criminal Procedure §
211; Wharton, Crim. Plead. & Practice 8th ed. § 60;
Dillon
v. O'Brien, 16 Cox C.C. 245. Nor is it the case of testimony
offered at a trial where the court is asked to stop and consider
the illegal means by which proofs, otherwise competent, were
obtained -- of which we shall have occasion to treat later in this
opinion. Nor is it the case of burglar's tools or other proofs of
guilt found upon his arrest within the control of the accused.
Page 232 U. S. 393
The case in the aspect in which we are dealing with it involves
the right of the court in a criminal prosecution to retain for the
purposes of evidence the letters and correspondence of the accused,
seized in his house in his absence and without his authority, by a
United States marshal holding no warrant for his arrest and none
for the search of his premises. The accused, without awaiting his
trial, made timely application to the court for an order for the
return of these letters, as well or other property. This
application was denied, the letters retained and put in evidence,
after a further application at the beginning of the trial, both
applications asserting the rights of the accused under the Fourth
and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution. If letters and private
documents can thus be seized and held and used in evidence against
a citizen accused of an offense, the protection of the Fourth
Amendment, declaring his right to be secure against such searches
and seizures, is of no value, and, so far as those thus placed are
concerned, might as well be stricken from the Constitution. The
efforts of the courts and their officials to bring the guilty to
punishment, praiseworthy as they are, are not to be aided by the
sacrifice of those great principles established be years of
endeavor and suffering which have resulted in their embodiment in
the fundamental law of the land. The United States marshal could
only have invaded the house of the accused when armed with a
warrant issued as required by the Constitution, upon sworn
information, and describing with reasonable particularity the thing
for which the search was to be made. Instead, he acted without
sanction of law, doubtless prompted by the desire to bring further
proof to the aid of the government, and, under color of his office,
undertook to make a seizure of private papers in direct violation
of the constitutional prohibition against such action. Under such
circumstances, without sworn information and particular
description, not even an order of court would
Page 232 U. S. 394
have justified such procedure; much less was it within the
authority of the United States marshal to thus invade the house and
privacy of the accused. In
Adams v. New York, 192 U.
S. 585, this court said that the Fourth Amendment was
intended to secure the citizen in person and property against
unlawful invasion of the sanctity of his home by officers of the
law, acting under legislative or judicial sanction. This protection
is equally extended to the action of the government and officers of
the law acting under it. (
Boyd Case, supra) To sanction
such proceedings would be to affirm by judicial decision a manifest
neglect, if not an open defiance, of the prohibitions of the
Constitution, intended for the protection of the people against
such unauthorized action.
The court before which the application was made in this case
recognized the illegal character of the seizure, and ordered the
return of property not in its judgment competent to be offered at
the trial, but refused the application of the accused to turn over
the letters, which were afterwards put in evidence on behalf of the
government. While there is no opinion in the case, the court in
this proceeding doubtless relied upon what is now contended by the
government to be the correct rule of law under such circumstances
-- that the letters having come into the control of the court, it
would not inquire into the manner in which they were obtained, but,
if competent, would keep them and permit their use in evidence.
Such proposition, the government asserts, is conclusively
established by certain decisions of this court, the first of which
is
Adams v. New York, supra. In that case, the plaintiff
in error had been convicted in the Supreme Court of the State of
New York for having in his possession certain gambling
paraphernalia used in the game known as policy, in violation of the
Penal Code of New York. At the trial, certain papers, which had
been seized by police officers executing a search warrant for the
discovery and
Page 232 U. S. 395
seizure of policy slips, and which had been found in addition to
the policy slips, were offered in evidence over his objection. The
conviction was affirmed by the court of appeals of New York (176
N.Y. 351), and the case was brought here for alleged violation of
the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution of the United
States. Pretermitting the question whether these Amendments applied
to the action of the states, this court proceeded to examine the
alleged violations of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and put its
decision upon the ground that the papers found in the execution of
the search warrant, which warrant had a legal purpose in the
attempt to find gambling paraphernalia, was competent evidence
against the accused, and their offer in testimony did not violate
his constitutional privilege against unlawful search or seizure,
for is was held that such incriminatory documents thus discovered
were not the subject of an unreasonable search and seizure, and, in
effect, that the same were incidentally seized in the lawful
execution of a warrant, and not in the wrongful invasion of the
home of a citizen and the unwarranted seizure of his papers and
property. It was further held, approving in that respect the
doctrine laid down in 1 Greenleaf, § 254a, that it was no valid
objection to the use of the papers that they had been thus seized,
and that the courts in the course of a trial would not make an
issue to determine that question, and many state cases were cited
supporting that doctrine.
The same point had been ruled in
People v. Adams, 176
N.Y. 351, from which decision the case was brought to this court,
where it was held that if the papers seized in addition to the
policy slips were competent evidence in the case, as the court held
they were, they were admissible in evidence at the trial, the court
saying (p. 358):
"The underlying principle obviously is that the court, when
engaged in trying a criminal cause, will not take notice of
Page 232 U. S. 396
the manner in which witnesses have possessed themselves of
papers or other articles of personal property which are material
and properly offered in evidence."
This doctrine thus laid down by the New York Court of Appeals
and approved by this Court, that a court will not, in trying a
criminal cause, permit a collateral issue to be raised as to the
source of competent testimony, has the sanction of so many state
cases that it would be impracticable to cite or refer to them in
detail. Many of them are collected in the note to
State v.
Turner, 136 Am. St. Rep. 129, 135
et seq. After
citing numerous cases, the editor says:
"The underlying principle of all these decisions obviously is
that the court, when engaged in the trial of a criminal action,
will not take notice of the manner in which a witness has possessed
himself of papers or other chattels, subjects of evidence which are
material and properly offered in evidence.
People v. Adams,
supra. Such an investigation is not involved necessarily in
the litigation in chief, and to pursue it would be to halt in the
orderly progress of a cause, and consider incidentally a question
which has happened to cross the path of such litigation, and which
is wholly independent thereof."
It is therefore evident that the
Adams Case affords no
authority for the action of the court in this case, when applied to
in due season for the return of papers seized in violation of the
Constitutional Amendment. The decision in that case rests upon
incidental seizure made in the execution of a legal warrant, and in
the application of the doctrine that a collateral issue will not be
raised to ascertain the source from which testimony, competent in a
criminal case, comes.
The government also relies upon
Hale v. Henkel,
201 U. S. 43, in
which the previous cases of
Boyd v. United States, Adams v. New
York, supra; 154 U. S. S.
397� Commerce Commission v. Brimson,
154 U.
S. 447, and Interstate Commerce Commission v.
Baird,
194 U. S. 25, are
reviewed, and wherein it was held that a subpoena duces tecum@
requiring a corporation to produce all its contracts and
correspondence with no less than six other companies, as well as
all letters received by the corporation from thirteen other
companies, located in different parts of the United States, was an
unreasonable search and seizure within the Fourth Amendment, and it
was there stated that (201 U.S. p.
201 U. S.
76)
"an order for the production of books and papers may constitute
an unreasonable search and seizure within the Fourth Amendment.
While a search ordinarily implies a quest by an officer of the law,
and a seizure contemplates a forcible dispossession of the owner,
still, as was held in the
Boyd Case, the substance of the
offense is the compulsory production of private papers, whether
under a search warrant or a subpoena
duces tecum, against
which the person, be he individual or corporation, is entitled to
protection."
If such a seizure under the authority of a warrant supposed to
be legal constitutes a violation of the constitutional protection,
a fortiori does the attempt of an officer of the United
States, the United States marshal, acting under color of his
office, without even the sanction of a warrant, constitute an
invasion of the rights within the protection afforded by the Fourth
Amendment.
Another case relied upon is
American Tobacco Co. v.
Werckmeister, 207 U. S. 284, in
which it was held that the seizure by the United States marshal in
a copyright case of certain pictures under a writ of replevin did
not constitute an unreasonable search and seizure. The other case
from this court relied upon is
Holt v. United States,
218 U. S. 245, in
which it was held that testimony tending to show that a certain
blouse which was in evidence as incriminating him, had been put
upon the prisoner, and fitted him, did not violate his
constitutional right. We
Page 232 U. S. 398
are at a loss to see the application of these cases to the one
in hand.
The right of the court to deal with papers and documents in the
possession of the district attorney and other officers of the
court, and subject to its authority, was recognized in
Wise v.
Henkel, 220 U. S. 556.
That papers wrongfully seized should be turned over to the accused
has been frequently recognized in the early, as well as later,
decisions of the courts. 1 Bishop on Criminal Procedure § 210;
Rex v. Barnett, 3 C. & P. 600;
Rex v. Kinsey,
7 C. & P. 447;
United States v. Mills, 185 Fed. 318;
United States v. McHie, 194 Fed. 894, 898.
We therefore reach the conclusion that the letters in question
were taken from the house of the accused by an official of the
United States, acting under color of his office, in direct
violation of the constitutional rights of the defendant; that,
having made a seasonable application for their return, which was
heard and passed upon by the court, there was involved in the order
refusing the application a denial of the constitutional rights of
the accused, and that the court should have restored these letters
to the accused. In holding them and permitting their use upon the
trial, we think prejudicial error was committed. As to the papers
and property seized by the policemen, it does not appear that they
acted under any claim of Federal authority such as would make the
amendment applicable to such unauthorized seizures. The record
shows that what they did by way of arrest and search and seizure
was done before the finding of the indictment in the Federal court
-- under what supposed right or authority does not appear. What
remedies the defendant may have against them we need not inquire,
as the Fourth Amendment is not directed to individual misconduct of
such officials. Its limitations reach the Federal government and
its agencies.
Boyd case, 116 U.S.,
supra, and see
Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78
Page 232 U. S. 399
It results that the judgment of the court below must be
reversed, and the case remanded for further proceedings in
accordance with this opinion.
Reversed.