Felix Frankfurter

“ The preliminary stages of a criminal prosecution must be pursued in strict obedience to the safeguards and restrictions of the Constitution and laws of the United States. A finding of bad faith is, however, not open to us on this record. What the motive was of the I.N.S. officials who determined to arrest petitioner, and whether the I.N.S. in doing so was not exercising its powers in the lawful discharge of its own responsibilities but was serving as a tool for the F.B.I. in building a criminal prosecution against petitioner, were issues fully canvassed in both courts below. ”

“ The I.N.S., just as certainly, would not have performed its responsibilities had it been deterred from instituting deportation proceedings solely because it became aware of petitioner through the F.B.I., and had knowledge that the F.B.I. suspected petitioner of espionage. The Government has available two ways of dealing with a criminally suspect deportable alien. It would make no sense to say that branches of the Department of Justice may not cooperate in pursuing one course of action or the other, once it is honestly decided what course is to be preferred. ”

“ If anything, we ought to be more vigilant, not less, to protect individuals and their property from warrantless searches made for the purpose of turning up proof to convict than we are to protect them from searches for matter bearing on deportability. According to the uniform decisions of this Court deportation proceedings are not subject to the constitutional safeguards for criminal prosecutions. ”

“ It is to be remembered that an I.N.S. officer may not arrest and search on his own. Application for a warrant must be made to an independent responsible officer, the District Director of the I.N.S., to whom a prima facie case of deportability must be shown. The differences between the procedural protections governing criminal and deportation arrests are not of a quality or magnitude to warrant the deduction of a constitutional difference regarding the right of incidental search. ”

“ An arresting officer is free to take hold of articles which he sees the accused deliberately trying to hide. This power derives from the dangers that a weapon will be concealed, or that relevant evidence will be destroyed. Once this piece of graph paper came into Schoenenberger's hands, it was not necessary for him to return it, as it was an instrumentality for the commission of espionage. This is so even though Schoenenberger was not only not looking for items connected with espionage but could not properly have been searching for the purpose of finding such items. ”

“ Specifically, were the officers of the I.N.S. acting lawfully in this case when, after his arrest, they searched through petitioner's belongings in his hotel room looking for weapons and documents to evidence his 'alienage'? There can be no doubt that a search for weapons has as much justification here as it has in the case of an arrest for crime, where it has been recognized as proper. ”

“ When undertaken in bad faith to avoid constitutional restraints upon criminal law enforcement the evidence must be suppressed. That is not, as we have seen, this case. Individual cases of bad faith cooperation should be dealt with by findings to that effect in the cases as they arise, not by an exclusionary rule preventing effective cooperation when undertaken in entirely good faith. ”

“ The attention of the I.N.S. had first been drawn to petitioner several days earlier when Noto, a Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the I.N.S., was told by a liaison officer of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (hereafter abbreviated as F.B.I.) that petitioner was believed by the F.B.I. to be an alien residing illegally in the United States. Noto was told of the F.B.I.'s interest in petitioner in connection with espionage. ”

“ There is excellent reason for disallowing its use in the case of evidence, though relevant, which is seized by the Government in violation of the Fourth Amendment 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 4th 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.' Weeks v. ”

“ Are there to be permitted incidental to valid administrative arrests, searches as broad in physical area as, and analogous in purpose to, those permitted by the applicable precedents as incidents to lawful arrests for crime? ”

“ The most fundamental of the issues involved and seizures made in petitioner's room and seizures made in petitioner's room in the Hotel Latham. The ground of objection is that a search may not be conducted as an incident to a lawful administrative arrest.
We take as a starting point the cases in this Court dealing with the extent of the search which may properly be made without a warrant following a lawful arrest for crime. The several cases on this subject in this Court cannot be satisfactorily reconciled. ”

“ It § no less important for government officers, acting under established procedure to effect a deportation arrest rather than one for crime, to protect themselves and to insure that their prisoner retains no means by which to accomplish an escape. ”

“ They were all capable of being used to establish and maintain a false identity for petitioner, just as the forged 'Martin Collins' birth certificate, and were seizable for the same reasons.
Items (1) - (5) having come into the Government's possession through lawful searches and seizures connected with an arrest pending deportation, was the Government free to use them as evidence in a criminal prosecution to which they related? We hold that it was. Good reason must be shown for prohibiting the Government from using relevant, otherwise admissible, evidence. ”

“ Items (3) , (4) , and (5) , a birth certificate for 'Emil Goldfus' who died in 1903, a certificate of vaccination for 'Martin Collins,' and a bank book for 'Emil Goldfus' were seized, not in petitioner's hotel room, but in a more careful search at I.N.S. headquarters of the belongings petitioner chose to take with him when arrested. This search was a proper one. The property taken by petitioner to I.N.S. headquarters was all property which, under Harris, was subject to search at the place of arrest. ”