Police court

“ No judicial opinion can comprehend the protean variety of the street encounter, and we can only judge the facts of the case before us. Nothing we say today is to be taken as indicating approval of police conduct outside the legitimate investigative sphere. Under our decision, courts still retain their traditional responsibility to guard against police conduct which is over-bearing or harassing, or which trenches upon personal security without the objective evidentiary justification which the Constitution requires. ”

“ We also fully recognize the obligation of all citizens to aid in enforcing the criminal laws. This Court, while protecting individual rights, has always given ample latitude to law enforcement agencies in the legitimate exercise of their duties. The limits we have placed on the interrogation process should not constitute an undue interference with a proper system of law enforcement. As we have noted, our decision does not in any way preclude police from carrying out their traditional investigatory functions. ”

“ Having thus roughly sketched the perimeters of the constitutional debate over the limits on police investigative conduct in general and the background against which this case presents itself, we turn our attention to the quite narrow question posed by the facts before us: whether it is always unreasonable for a policeman to seize a person and subject him to a limited search for weapons unless there is probable cause for an arrest. ”

“ Now, what I saw, dear reader, on that particular Monday in that particular court you may see on any Monday in any of our Metropolitan police courts, and on any other day, only in a less degree. Year in and year out the procession of the sinning and sorrowing passes through all our courts. Prison and death thin the ranks of the procession; but the public-house is a grand recruiting agency, and neither police nor magistrates are likely to be idle, neither is the procession likely to dwindle, or the ‘yell of the trampled wife’ to cease, while the public-house holds its triumphant sway. ”

“ Recognizing the need to protect criminal suspects from all of the dangers which are to be feared when the process of police interrogation is entirely unleashed, legislatures have enacted several kinds of laws designed to curb the worst excesses of the investigative activity of the police. ”

“ The police officer is not entitled to seize and search every person whom he sees on the street or of whom he makes inquiries. Before he places a hand on the person of a citizen in search of anything, he must have constitutionally adequate, reasonable grounds for doing so. ”

“ Upon suspicion that the person may be armed, the police should have the power to 'frisk' him for weapons. If the 'stop' and the 'frisk' give rise to probable cause to believe that the suspect has committed a crime, then the police should be empowered to make a formal 'arrest,' and a full incident 'search' of the person. This scheme is justified in part upon the notion that a 'stop' and a 'frisk' amount to a mere 'minor inconvenience and petty indignity,' [4] which can properly be imposed upon the citizen in the interest of effective law enforcement on the basis of a police officer's suspicion. ”

“ Thus, it is up to the appellate court to reach the legal conclusion whether, under the totality of the circumstances and considering the historical facts as addressed by the circuit court, a reasonably-objective police officer either would have reasonable suspicion that the person stopped has committed, or is about to commit, a criminal act, or would have probable cause to believe that, upon search, contraband or evidence of criminal activity will be found. ”

“ Unquestionably, when a person is lawfully arrested, the police have the right, without a search warrant, to make a contemporaneous search of the person of the accused for weapons or for the fruits of or implements used to commit the crime. ”

“ They may serve, directly or indirectly, to lead the police to other suspects than the persons questioned. Or they may become the means by which the persons questioned are themselves made to furnish proofs which will eventually send them to prison or death. ”

“ Nor can I join in the Court's criticism of the present practices of police and investigatory agencies as to custodial interrogation. The materials it refers to as "police manuals" [1] are, as I read them, merely writings in this field by professors and some police officers. Not one is shown by the record here to be the official manual of any police department, much less in universal use in crime detection. Moreover, the examples of police brutality mentioned by the Court [2] are rare exceptions to the thousands of cases that appear every year in the law reports. ”

“ There is no requirement that police stop a person who enters a police station and states that he wishes to confess to a crime, [47] or a person who calls the police to offer a confession or any other statement he desires to make. ”

“ We cannot say that the requirement that city detectives not in uniform be carried free on street cars when in the discharge of their duties is an arbitrary or unreasonable exercise of the police power. ”

“ A person who has suffered injury from crime lodges his complaint at a police office or with the procurator of any court having jurisdiction over the crime in question. Policemen can arrest an offender whose crime was committed in their presence, or which the complainant avers to have actually seen committed. In all other cases they can arrest by warrant only. Bail is allowed at the discretion of the judge, but only after reference to the procurator who has taken up the case. ”

“ While encouraging police officers to put questions to all possibly informed persons, whether or not suspected, during the early phase of their investigation which aims at discovering who committed the offense, the Rules admonish that so soon as the officers make up their minds to charge a particular person with a crime, they should caution him, first, that he need say nothing and, second, that what he says may be used in evidence, before questioning him or questioning him further. ”

“ But the Constitution has never been construed by this Court to allow the police, in the absence of an emergency, to arrest a person outside his home and then take him inside for the purpose of conducting a warrantless search. ”

“ Of these officials the worst offender was the "vicecomes," the successor to the shire-reeve (i.e. sheriff) , who under the Anglo-Saxon régime had controlled the police administration of the county. [21] [15] The Vicecomes went on circuit each Michaelmas, to hold an ambulatory police court, called the Court of the Tourn, to deal with petty offences in the provinces, to bring capital crimes to the cognisance of the superior courts, and to make an annual revision of the frankpledge, i.e. an inspection of the police societies, with the object of ensuring that all the tythings were full. ”

“ By the law of this country, no person ought to he (sic) made to criminate himself, and no police officer has any right, until there is clear proof of a crime having been committed, to put searching questions to a person for the purpose of eliciting from him whether an offence has been perpetrated or not. If there is evidence of an offence, a police officer is justified, after a proper caution, in putting to a suspected person interrogatories with a view to ascertaining whether nor not there are fair and reasonable grounds for apprehending him. ”

“ The commissioner shall admit the defendant to bail as provided in these rules.'
The scheme for initiating a federal prosecution is plainly defined. The police may not arrest upon mere suspicion but only on 'probable cause.' The next step in the proceeding is to arraign the arrested person before a judicial officer as quickly as possible so that he may be advised of his rights and so that the issue of probable cause may be promptly determined. The arrested person may, of course, be 'booked' by the police. ”

“ There can be no question, however, that a police officer, actually or constructively in charge of one in custody on a suspicion of having committed crime, is a person in authority within the rule; and, as this is so well established, we will not consider the adjudicated cases in order to demonstrate it, but content ourselves with a reference to the statement on the subject made in 3 Russ. ”

“ A regulation of the Metropolitan Police Department requires the officer who takes an impounded vehicle in charge to search the vehicle thoroughly, to remove all valuables from it, and to attach to the vehicle a property tag listing certain information about the circumstances of the impounding. Pursuant to this regulation, and without a warrant, the arresting officer proceeded to the lot to which petitioner's car had been towed, in order to search the vehicle, to place a property tag on it, to roll up the windows, and to lock the doors. ”

“ One general interest is of course that of effective crime prevention and detection; it is this interest which underlies the recognition that a police officer may in appropriate circumstances and in an appropriate manner approach a person for purposes of investigating possibly criminal behavior even though there is no probable cause to make an arrest. ”

“ As we said just last term, 'The abhorrence of society to the use of involuntary confessions * * * also turns on the deep-rooted feeling that the police must obey the law while enforcing the law; ”

“ It appears to me to be an inherent probability that the more successful the police are in solving serious crimes and the more successful they are in apprehending the criminals concerned and securing their convictions, the greater will be the perception of risk for those contemplating such offences. ”

“ In the instant case, there is an analogous interest of the officers in taking steps to assure themselves that the house in which a suspect is being, or has just been, arrested is not harboring other persons who are dangerous and who could unexpectedly launch an attack. The risk of danger in the context of an arrest in the home is as great as, if not greater than, it is in an on-the-street or roadside investigatory encounter. A Terry or Long frisk occurs before a police-citizen confrontation has escalated to the point of 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. ”

“ Without at all subscribing to the generally black picture of police conduct painted by the Court, I think it must be frankly recognized at the outset that police questioning allowable under due process precedents may inherently entail some pressure on the suspect, and may seek advantage in his ignorance or weaknesses. ”

“ Legislation such as this, requiring that the police must with reasonable promptness show legal cause for detaining arrested persons, constitutes an important safeguard-not only in assuring protection for the innocent but also in securing conviction of the guilty by methods that commend themselves to a progressive and self-confident society. ”

“ By holding that no level of suspicion is necessary before the police may stop a car for the purpose of preventing drunken driving, the Court potentially subjects the general public to arbitrary or harassing conduct by the police. ”

“ Domestic affairs are admittedly out of place in a general police court. The unfortunate participants are not in any sense criminals, and yet they are surrounded by thieves, pickpockets, drunkards, disorderly persons,—the regular rabble of the criminal court,—and an outraged self-respect is the consequence of such treatment. The present organization of magistrates' courts contemplates that the magistrate shall sit one-half of the day on the bench and the other half shall be in chambers for the settlement of just such cases as Mr. ”

“ But persons who are suspected of crime will not always be unreluctant to answer questions put by the police. Since under the procedures of Anglo-American criminal justice they cannot be constrained by legal process to give answers which incriminate them, the police have resorted to other means to unbend their reluctance, lest criminal investigation founder. ”

“ Any assumption that evidence sufficient to support a magistrate's disinterested determination to issue a search warrant will justify the officers in making a search without a warrant would reduce the Amendment to a nullity and leave the people's homes secure only in the discretion of police officers. [4] Crime, even in the privacy of one's own quarters, is, of course, of grave concern to society, and the law allows such crime to be reached on proper showing. ”

“ But because it is the courts which are charged, in the ultimate, both with the enforcement of the criminal law and with safeguarding the criminal defendant's rights to procedures consistent with fundamental fairness, the problem of reconciling society's need for police interrogation with society's need for protection from the possible abuses of police interrogation decisively devolves upon the courts, particularly in connection with the rules of evidence which regulate the admissibility of extrajudicial confessions. ”

“ Our evaluation of the proper balance that has to be struck in this type of case leads us to conclude that there must be a narrowly drawn authority to permit a reasonable search for weapons for the protection of the police officer, where he has reason to believe that he is dealing with an armed and dangerous individual, regardless of whether he has probable cause to arrest the individual for a crime. The officer need not be absolutely certain that the individual is armed ”