JONES v. UNITED STATES
No. 331
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 7-8, 1958. Decided June 30, 1958.
357 U.S. 493
Eugene L. Grimm argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Rankin, Acting Assistant Attorney General Foley and Beatrice Rosenberg.
After a trial without a jury in the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, petitioner was found guilty of various violations of the federal liquor laws, stemming from and including the possession of an unregistered still. See
Federal alcohol agents received information on April 30, 1956, that petitioner‘s farmhouse near Dawsonville, Georgia, was the site of an illicit distillery in current operation. Investigating this lead, the agents discovered spent mash, a product resulting from the distilling of alcohol out of mash, in a hollow behind petitioner‘s house. The running mash emerged from a concealed rubber hose which, when traced as far as was consistent with caution, led close to petitioner‘s home. On May 1, four federal agents and one state officer returned to this vicinity. The officers observed mash still emerging from the hose, detected the distinctive odor of hot mash from the direction of the house, and heard coming from within the house the sounds of voices and of a blower burner, commonly used in that area to heat distilleries.
At 2 a. m. on May 2, the officers abandoned their watch and returned to the nearby city of Gainesville. During the day, Federal Agent Langford obtained from the United States Commissioner there a daytime search warrant for petitioner‘s house on the basis of an affidavit
About 9 p. m., after darkness had set in, a truck entered petitioner‘s yard and retreated out of the officers’ sight behind the house. Loud noises were heard, and when the truck shortly thereafter sought to regain the public road in front of the house, it became stuck in petitioner‘s driveway. The officers arrested the two men in the truck and seized what turned out to be 413 gallons of nontaxpaid liquor. At that time a passenger car carrying petitioner‘s wife and children drove into the yard. The wife rushed to the house and reached the doorway before the federal officers who were then advancing towards it. She sought to block entry by placing her arms across the door, and when informed by Langford of his identity as a federal officer, she demanded to see his search warrant. Langford said that a warrant was not required, and the officers brushed past Mrs. Jones into the house, seizing from the hands of her young boy a shotgun which he was brandishing in an apparent effort to prevent entry.
In the house at that time, in addition to Mrs. Jones and the children, were petitioner‘s father and brother. The officers did not arrest any of them, but immediately engaged in a general search of the house. The evidence later admitted against petitioner at the trial, including a boiler, fuel burner, and 15 barrels, was seized in rear rooms and in the attic. Petitioner was arrested when he returned to his house about one hour after the search had been completed.
“The court finds that the facts and circumstances within the knowledge of the officers were sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution
in the belief that an offense was being committed and therefore the Court finds that probable cause for the search existed at the time the search was made.”
Since this was so, and since “... a cautious man [would have been warranted] in the belief that [petitioner] was guilty of the offense of operating an illicit distillery in his home ...,” the court deemed the search reasonable, and hence justified, despite the failure of the officers to obtain a nighttime warrant, and despite their ability, under the circumstances, to have sought such a warrant before entering the house. In so holding, the District Court relied upon United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U. S. 56. The Court of Appeals affirmed on the basis of the findings of the district judge. 245 F. 2d 32.
Although it must be recognized that the basis of the two lower court decisions is not wholly free from ambiguity, a careful consideration of the record satisfies us that the search and seizure were considered to have been justified because the officers had probable cause to believe that petitioner‘s house contained contraband materials which were being utilized in the commission of a crime, and not because the search and seizure were incident to petitioner‘s arrest. So viewed the judgments below cannot be squared with the
It is settled doctrine that probable cause for belief that certain articles subject to seizure are in a dwelling cannot of itself justify a search without a warrant. Agnello v.
The facts of this case impressively bear out these observations, for it is difficult to imagine a more severe invasion of privacy than the nighttime intrusion into a private home that occurred in this instance. The Criminal Rules specifically deal with searches of this character by restricting nighttime warrants to situations where the affidavits upon which they are issued “... are positive that the property is ... in the place to be searched ....”
The case of United States v. Rabinowitz, supra, upon which the District Court relied, has no application here. There federal agents, without a search warrant, explored the office of the defendant and thereby obtained evidence used against him at trial. But immediately after entering the office and before their search, the agents executed a warrant they had previously obtained for the defendant‘s arrest. The Court stressed that the legality of the search was entirely dependent upon an initial valid arrest. 339 U. S., at 60. The exceptions to the rule that a search must rest upon a search warrant have been jealously and carefully drawn, and search incident to a valid arrest is among them. See, e. g., United States v. Jeffers, 342 U. S. 48, 51; Brinegar v. United States, 338 U. S. 160; Johnson v. United States, supra, at 14-15. None of these exceptions obtains in this case.
The Government, however, for the first time now maintains that the search and seizure were justifiable as incident to petitioner‘s lawful arrest. Its argument is: The federal agents involved in this search had authority under federal law to arrest without a warrant upon probable cause to believe that a person had committed a felony. From the record it is “rational” to infer that the federal agents entered petitioner‘s house with the purpose of arresting him, upon probable cause to believe that he was guilty of a felony and that he was then in the house. Consequently, the agents’ entry was justified and, once in the house, while searching for petitioner, they could properly seize all contraband material in plain sight. The fact that petitioner was not found should not vitiate the legality of the seizures.
These contentions, if open to the Government here, would confront us with a grave constitutional question, namely, whether the forceful nighttime entry into a
Since the evidence obtained through this unlawful search was admitted at the trial, the judgment of the Court of Appeals must be
Reversed.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK concurs in the result.
MR. JUSTICE CLARK, with whom MR. JUSTICE BURTON concurs, dissenting.
Although there are many ways to kill a cat, drowning remains the most favored. The Court applies that method to this conviction—drowning it by watering down the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law. By attributing to them a diluted meaning, the judgments of the District Court and the Court of Appeals are rendered insupportable.
The District Court found that the officers in this moonshine liquor case received information that petitioner, previously known to them as a liquor law violator, was operating an illicit distillery in his home. In the course of an investigation the officers (1) found “spent mash” flowing from a hose which was traced to within 75 yards
From these findings common sense would seem to dictate the conclusion that the officers, not believing the statement of petitioner‘s wife that he was not there, entered the house to find and arrest petitioner. It was his house, he was known as a prior offender, and it was he who was implicated by the tip which launched the investigation. The district judge, in fact, concluded that “the officers had reasonable ground of suspicion supported by circumstances sufficiently strong in themselves to warrant a cautious man in the belief that Roy Jones was guilty of the offense of operating an illicit distillery in his home ....”
It is our duty, when the meaning of the findings is somewhat doubtful, to so construe them as to conform with and uphold the judgment. Cf. Larkin v. Upton, 144 U. S. 19, 21 (1892); Loring v. Frue, 104 U. S. 223, 224 (1881). This the Court has not done. The Court‘s construction is all the more surprising because it places the judgments below in direct conflict with an elementary rule of hornbook law, namely, that officers may not search a dwelling without a warrant “notwithstanding facts unquestionably showing probable cause.” Agnello v. United States, 269 U. S. 20, 33 (1925). I feel certain the four learned judges on the two lower courts were well acquainted with the Agnello rule, and that they used the words “probable cause” as referring not ultimately to the search of the premises, but instead to the arrest of petitioner and any others violating the law within the house. This is borne out by the definition with which the trial judge introduced the crucial paragraph of his Conclusions of Law: “Probable cause is reasonable ground of suspicion supported by circumstances sufficiently strong in themselves to warrant a cautious man in the belief that the party is guilty of the offense with which he is charged.” Furthermore, the trial judge relied on United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U. S. 56 (1950), a case where the legality of a search hinged on the legality of an arrest. The majority, noting the judge‘s use of Rabinowitz, would have us believe that the case “has no application here“; on the contrary, it would appear that the majority
I submit that the officers had authority to enter the house, arrest any persons engaged in the illicit operation, and, not finding petitioner, arrest him upon his return to the scene. Under the law as I have always understood it, an officer, even over protest, may enter a house to make an arrest where he has probable cause to believe that a felony is being or has been committed and that the perpetrators are in the house. Mullaney v. United States, 82 F. 2d 638; Appell v. United States, 29 F. 2d 279; Mattus v. United States, 11 F. 2d 503; 1 Wharton, Criminal Procedure (10th ed.), § 51; Wilgus, Arrest Without a Warrant, 22 Mich. L. Rev. 541, 798, 800-807. Cf. Taylor v. United States, 286 U. S. 1, 6 (1932); Agnello v. United States, supra, at 30. There being probable cause here to believe that a felon was within the house, the entry of the officers was lawful, even though after a complete search the belief was found to be incorrect. Love v. United States, 170 F. 2d 32, 33. Such a circumstance “cannot be distinguished on any reasonable basis from the search of the premises of an accused as an incident to the lawful arrest of his person ....” Martin v. United States, 183 F. 2d 436, 439.
Since the entry of petitioner‘s home was lawful, the officers had a right to seize the contraband property. The only test is the lawfulness of the officers’ activity when they come upon the offending property. If the seizure follows a lawful entry to effect an arrest, as here, then it is valid. See Harris v. United States, 331 U. S. 145 (1947), seizure during lawful search incident to arrest for another crime; Steele v. United States, 267 U. S. 498 (1925), seizure during execution of warrant for different property.
I believe that these principles control here, and would, therefore, affirm.