Arrest warrant

“ The result is that a warrant for arrest is the equivalent of a general search warrant or writ of assistance; as an 'incident' to the arrest, the arresting officers can search the surrounding premises without limitation for the fruits, instrumentalities and anything else connected with the crime charged or with any other possible crime. They may disregard with impunity all the historic principles underlying the Fourth Amendment relative to indiscriminate searches of a man's home when he is placed under arrest. ”

“ The arrest warrant procedure serves to insure that the deliberate, impartial judgment of a judicial officer will be interposed between the citizen and the police, to assess the weight and credibility of the information which the complaining officer adduces as probable cause. ”

“ If circumstances so often require the warrantless arrest that the law generally permits it, the typical situation will find the arresting officers lawfully on the premises without arrest or search warrant. Like the majority, I would permit the police to search the person of a suspect and the area under his immediate control either to assure the safety of the officers or to prevent the destruction of evidence. And like the majority, I see nothing in the arrest alone furnishing probable cause for a search of any broader scope. ”

“ By the common law, a warrant for the arrest of a person charged with crime must truly name him, or describe him sufficiently to identify him. If it does not, the officer making the arrest is liable to an action for false imprisonment; and if, in attempting to make the arrest, the officer is killed, this is only manslaughter in the person whose liberty is invaded. ”

“ It is true that an arrest warrant requirement may afford less protection than a search warrant requirement, but it will suffice to interpose the magistrate's determination of probable cause between the zealous officer and the citizen. If there is sufficient evidence of a citizen's participation in a felony to persuade a judicial officer that his arrest is justified, it is constitutionally reasonable to require him to open his doors to the officers of the law. ”

“ The situation is different, however, if the police are under no circumstances required to obtain an arrest warrant before entering to arrest a person they have probable cause to believe has committed a felony. If no warrant is ever required to legitimate the extremely serious intrusion of a midnight entry to seize the person, then it can be argued plausibly that a warrant should never be required to legitimate a very sweeping search incident to such an entry and arrest. ”

“ The clear-cut issue before us is this: in making a lawful arrest, may arresting officers search without a search warrant not merely the person under arrest or things under his immediate physical control, but the premises where the arrest is made, although there was ample time to secure such a warrant and no danger that the 'papers and effects' for which a search warrant could be issued would be despoiled or destroyed? ”

“ If the police see a crime being committed they can of course seize the culprit. If a person is fleeing the scene of a crime, the police can stop him. And there are the cases of 'hot pursuit' and other instances of probable cause when the police can make an arrest. But normally an arrest should be made only on a warrant issued by a magistrate on a showing of 'probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation,' as required by the Fourth Amendment. ”

“ The statute, we think, makes it essential to the right to arrest the alleged fugitive under a warrant of the executive of the state where the alleged fugitive is found that such executive be furnished, before issuing his warrant, with a copy of an indictment or an affidavit before a magistrate in the demanding state, and charging the fugitive with crime committed by him in such state. ”

“ If no felony has in fact been committed, then the arrest without a warrant is in every case unlawful and may be lawfully resisted. The law does not justify either an officer or a private citizen in arresting for a felony without a warrant on mere suspicion or information that a felony has been committed. If either act without a warrant on groundless suspicion or information on the question of whether a felony has in fact been committed, he acts at his peril. ”

“ Further, police officers will often face the difficult task of deciding whether the circumstances are sufficiently exigent to justify their entry to arrest without a warrant. This is a decision that must be made quickly in the most trying of circumstances. If the officers mistakenly decide that the circumstances are exigent, the arrest will be invalid and any evidence seized incident to the arrest or in plain view will be excluded at trial. ”

“ To which Hexford, looking over his shoulder, added: “I’m sorry to say that we have here the warrant for your arrest. Can I do anything for you?”
“Warrant!” I burst out, “what do you want of a warrant? It is as a witness you seek to detain me, I presume?”
“No,” was his brusque reply. “The charge upon which you are arrested is one of murder. You will have to appear before a magistrate. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but the evidence against you is very strong, and the police must do their duty.” ”

“ His arrest was therefore valid on the theory that he was committing a felony in the discernible presence of an agent of the Alcohol Tax Unit, a peace officer of the United States. The absence of a warrant of arrest, even though there was sufficient time to obtain one, does not destroy the validity of an arrest under these circumstances. Warrants of arrest are designed to meet the dangers of unlimited and unreasonable arrests of persons who are not at the moment committing any crime. ”

“ Appellants counter that careful planning is possible and that the police need not rush to get a warrant, because if an exigency arises necessitating immediate arrest in the course of an orderly investigation, arrest without a warrant is permissible; that the warrant procedure will decrease the likelihood that an innocent person will be arrested ”

“ It is essential to justify such an arrest that the offense committed shall amount to a breach of the peace, that such offense shall have been actually committed or attempted in the presence of the person making the arrest, and that the arrest be made at the time when the offense was committed. No private person has the right to make an arrest for a misdemeanor without a warrant after the event or upon mere information or suspicion. ”

“ Whether or not the requirements of reliability and particularity of the information on which an officer may act are more stringent where an arrest warrant is absent, they surely cannot be less stringent then where an arrest warrant is obtained. Otherwise, a principal incentive now existing for the procurement of arrest warrants would be destroyed. [8] The threshold question in this case, therefore, is whether the officers could, on the information which impelled them to act, have procured a warrant for the arrest of Toy. ”

“ No one can be seized except in order to be brought before the officer of police; and no one can be put under arrest or detained except in virtue of a warrant of arrest from the officers of police or from the Executive Directory, in the case of article 145, or an order of arrest either from a tribunal or the foreman of the jury of accusation, or of a decree of accusation from the legislative body in the case where it has authority to pronounce, or of a judicial judgment of condemnation to prison or correctional detention. ”

“ The possession of a legal warrant by a peace officer on arrest is of great importance in determining whether a person resisting apprehension is justified or not in his resistance. Should the officer attempt to apprehend him on a warrant manifestly illegal on its face, or without a warrant in a case where a warrant is necessary, and be killed in the attempt, the killing would probably be held to be manslaughter and not murder. ”

“ If you had been so honest there would not be in existence now a warrant to arrest you on the charge of stealing them. Things being as they are, it happens that there is."
"It's an impudent lie!"
"Possibly you may believe it to be an impudent lie; still, it is the truth. A warrant for your arrest has been granted to-day to your friend Ireland, of Scotland Yard, on his sworn information. ”

“ Upon the filing of the complaint before a magistrate, what is termed an arrest warrant was issued, directed to Henry E. Valentine, as special constable, commanding him to apprehend the plaintiff in error because of the alleged violation of the agricultural contract, and to bring him before the magistrate, to be dealt with according to law.
As it becomes necessary, in considering the Federal questions raised in the record, to know the facts concerning the homicide, we take occasion to briefly summarize such as are pertinent. ”

“ It is generally not a violation of any constitutional privilege of the accused for a police officer to arrest such accused without a warrant of arrest if the arrest is made at the very moment when the accused is engaged in a violation of law in the presence of the officer. ”

“ J. Beale, Criminal Pleading and Practice §21, p. 20, and n. 7 (1899) (“By statute the power of peace officers to arrest without a warrant is often extended to all misdemeanors committed in their presence.” “Such a statute is constitutional”) ; 1 Bishop, supra, §183, at 103 (“ [T] he power of arrest extends, possibly, to any indictable wrong in [an officer’s] presence... . And statutes and ordinances widely permit these arrests for violations of municipal by-laws”) ”

“ An officer making an arrest under a warrant issued upon a complaint or any person making an arrest without a warrant shall take the arrested person without unnecessary delay before the nearest available commissioner or before any other nearby officer empowered to commit persons charged with offenses against the laws of the United States. ”

“ The large number of warrants issued by the court, by any count, is due exclusively to the fact that the court uses arrest warrants and the threat of arrest as its primary tool for collecting outstanding fines for municipal code violations. ”

“ If the officer acts with probable cause, he is protected even though it turns out that the citizen is innocent. * * * And while a search without a warrant is, within limits, permissible if incident to a lawful arrest, if an arrest without a warrant is to support an incidental search, it must be made with probable cause. ”

“ A warrant of arrest can be based upon an indictment because the grand jury's determination that probable cause existed for the indictment also establishes that element for the purpose of issuing a warrant for the apprehension of the person so charged. Here, in the absence of an indictment, the issue of probable cause had to be determined by the Commissioner, and an adequate basis for such a finding had to appear on the face of the complaint. ”

“ The majority confuses the historically justified right of the police to seize visible evidence of the crime in open view at the scene of arrest with the 'plain view' exception to the requirement of particular description in search warrants. The majority apparently reasons that unless the seizure made pursuant to authority conferred by a warrant is limited to the particularly described object of seizure, the warrant will become a general writ of assistance. ”

“ The authority of officers to search one's house or place of business contemporaneously with his lawful arrest therein upon a valid warrant of arrest certainly is not greater than that conferred by a search warrant issued upon adequate proof and sufficiently describing the premises and the things sought to be obtained. Indeed, the informed and deliberate determinations of magistrates empowered to issue warrants as to what searches and seizures are permissible under the Constitution are to be preferred over the hurried action of officers and others who may happen to make arrests. ”

“ In complete contrast, the record in this case does not contain a single objective fact to support a belief by the officers that the petitioner was engaged in criminal activity at the time they arrested him.
An arrest without a warrant bypasses the safeguards provided by an objective predetermination of probable cause, and substitutes instead the far less reliable procedure on an after-the-event justification for the arrest or search, too likely to be subtly influenced by the familiar shortcomings of hindsight judgment. ”

“ The protective search for weapons, on the other hand, constitutes a brief, though far from inconsiderable, intrusion upon the sanctity of the person. It does not follow that because an officer may lawfully arrest a person only when he is apprised of facts sufficient to warrant a belief that the person has committed or is committing a crime, the officer is equally unjustified, absent that kind of evidence, in making any intrusions short of an arrest. ”

“ We believe, however, that in absence of an applicable federal statute the law of the state where an arrest without warrant takes place determines its validity. By one of the earliest acts of Congress, the principle of which is still retained, the arrest by judicial process for a federal offense must be 'agreeably to the usual mode of process against offenders in such State.' [8] There is no reason to believe that state law is not an equally appropriate standard by which to test arrests without warrant, except in those cases where Congress has enacted a federal rule. ”

“ Justice WHITE that the police may, whenever they have probable cause, make a warrantless entry for the purpose a making an arrest, and that seizures and searches of automobiles are likewise per se reasonable given probable cause, then by the same logic any search or seizure could be carried out without a warrant, and we would simply have read the Fourth Amendment out of the Constitution. ”