Miller v. United States

• Decision Date: 23 June 1958
• Docket Number: No. 126,126
• Citation: 2 L.Ed.2d 1332,357 U.S. 301,78 S.Ct. 1190
• Parties: William MILLER, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES of America
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

357 U.S. 301

78 S.Ct. 1190

2 L.Ed.2d 1332

William MILLER, Petitioner,

v UNITED STATES of America.

No. 126.

Argued Jan. 28, 1958.

Decided June 23, 1958.

Mr. De Long Harris, Washington, D.C., for petitioner.

Mr. Leonard B. Sand, Washington, D.C., for respondent.

Mr. Justice BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioner, William Miller, together with Bessie Byrd and her brother, Arthur R. Shepherd, was tried and convicted in the District Court for the District of Columbia for conspiracy to commit violations, and violations, of the federal narcotics laws. 26 U.S.C. (Supp. V) § 4704(a), 26 U.S.C.A. § 4704(a); 21 U.S.C. § 174, 21 U.S.C.A. § 174; 18 U.S.C. § 371, 18 U.S.C.A. § 371. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed, one judge dissenting, 100 U.S.App.D.C. 302, 244 F.2d 750. We granted certiorari, 353 U.S. 957, 77 S.Ct. 867, 1 L.Ed.2d 908, to determine whether evidence seized at the time of petitioner's arrest was properly admitted against the petitioner. The evidence was $100 of marked currency which was seized by the federal officers who arrested the petitioner and Bessie Byrd at their apartment.

On March 25, 1955, at 1:35 a.m., Clifford Reed was arrested, under an arrest warrant, on a washington, D.C., street on suspicion of narcotics offenses. Reed revealed to Wilson, a federal narcotics agent, that he purchased heroin in 100-capsule quantities from the petitioner through Shepherd. Agent Wilson knew of the petitioner as one who had trafficked in narcotics and had been convicted for a narcotics offense in 1953. Reed said that he was to meet Shepherd later that morning to make a purchase. Agent Wilson enlisted his aid to apprehend Shepherd and the petitioner. About 3 a.m. another federal narcotics agent, Lewis, carrying $100 of marked currency, went with Reed in a taxicab to Shepherd's home. Reed introduced Lewis to Shepherd as a buyer. Shepherd accepted the $100 and agreed to secure 100 capsules of heroin from the petitioner and deliver them to Lewis at Reed's apartment. Shepherd proceeded alone in the taxicab to the petitioner's apartment.

The taxicab was followed by agent Wilson, officer Wurms of the Metropolitan Police Department, and other officers in police cars.¹ Shepherd was seen to leave the taxicab in front of the apartment house where the petitioner and Bessie Byrd occupied a two-room-and-bath basement apartment. The taxicab waited. Shepherd entered the basement but agent Wilson, who looked into the basement hall, could not see where he went. Shepherd came out of the basement within a few minutes and reentered the taxicab. The taxicab was proceeding toward Reed's apartment when the officers following in the police cars intercepted it. Shepherd was arrested and searched. He did not have the marked bills on his person but admitted to agent Wilson and officer Wurms that a package of 100 capsules of narcotics found under the taxicab's front seat was put there by him when the police cars stopped the taxicab. He said that he had taken the package from behind a fire extinguisher in the basement hall where he had been sent by a 'fellow' with Reed who had promised him $10 for getting it.

The federal officers returned immediately to the apartment building. About 3:45 a.m. agent Wilson and officer Wurms went to the door of the petitioner's apartment. Officer Wurms knocked and, upon the inquiry from within—'Who's there?'—replied in a low voice, 'Police.' The petitioner opened the door on an attached door chain and asked what the officers were doing there. Before either responded, he attempted to close the door. Thereupon, according to officer Wurms, 'we put our hands inside the door and pulled and ripped the chain off and entered.'² The officers had no arrest or search warrant. They did not expressly demand admission or state their purpose for their presence,³ nor did they place the petitioner under arrest until after they entered the apartment.

Bessie Byrd was also arrested in the apartment and turned over the cash she had in her housecoat. The cash included $34 of the marked currency. After an extended search the remaining $66 of marked currency was found, some in a hatbox in a closet, and the rest within the covers of a bed in the bedroom.

The Government contends that there was probable cause for arresting the petitioner and that the marked cur- rency was properly admitted in evidence because it was seized as an incident to a lawful arrest. Harris v. United States, 331 U.S. 145, 67 S.Ct. 1098, 91 L.Ed. 1399. The petitioner's argument breaks down into three contentions: (1) that the officers had no probable cause to arrest the petitioner without a warrant; (2) that the search was not justified as being an incident of a lawful arrest; (3) that the arrest, and therefore the search, was in any event unlawful because the officers broke the door of petitioner's home without first giving notice of their authority and purpose in demanding admission. If any one of these contentions prevails, it is agreed that the marked money was inadmissible in evidence. In the view we take, we need consider only petitioner's third contention.

The lawfulness of the arrest of petitioner depends upon the power of the arresting officers to 'break' the doors of a home in order to arrest without warrant persons suspected of having committed narcotics offenses. Agent Wilson did not have statutory authority to arrest without a warrant although officer Wurms, as a member of the Metropolitan Police Department, did have such authority.⁴ This Court has said, in the similar circumstance of an arrest for violation of federal law by state peace officers, that the lawfulness of the arrest without warrant is to be determined by reference to state law. United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581, 589, 68 S.Ct. 222, 226, 92 L.Ed. 210; Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 15, 68 S.Ct. 367, 369, 92 L.Ed. 436. By like reasoning the validity of the arrest of petitioner is to be determined by reference to the law of the District of Columbia.

In making reference to that law we are mindful of our policy of not interfering with local rules of law fashioned by the courts of the District of Columbia. Fisher v. United States, 328 U.S. 463, 476, 66 S.Ct. 1318, 1324, 90 L.Ed. 1382; Griffin v. United States, 336 U.S. 704, 715, 69 S.Ct. 814, 819, 93 L.Ed. 993. But the Government agrees with petitioner that the validity of the entry to execute the arrest without warrant must be tested by criteria identical with those embodied in 18 U.S.C. § 3109, 18 U.S.C.A. § 3109, which deals with entry to execute a search warrant.⁵ That section provides that an officer, executing a search warrant, may break open a door only if, 'after notice of his authority and purpose,' he is denied admittance. The Government states in its brief that, 'where an arrest is made on probable cause rather than a warrant, these statutory requirements must be met before an officer can force entry into an apartment.' These statutory requirements are substantially identical to those judicially developed by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in Accarino v. United States, 85 U.S.App.D.C. 394, 403, 179 F.2d 456, 465. Since the rule of Accarino bears such a close relationship to a statute which is not confined in operation to the District of Columbia, we believe that review is warranted here. Cf. Del Vecchio v. Bowers, 296 U.S. 280, 56 S.Ct. 190, 80 L.Ed. 229; Carroll v. United States, 354 U.S. 394, 414, 77 S.Ct. 1332, 1343, 1 L.Ed.2d 1442.

From earliest days, the common law drastically limited the authority of law officers to break the door of a house to effect an arrest.⁶ Such action invades the precious interest of privacy summed up in the ancient adage that a man's house is his castle. As early as the 13th Yearbook of Edward IV (1461—1483), at folio 9, there is a recorded holding that it was unlawful for the sheriff to break the doors of a man's house to arrest him in a civil suit in debt or trespass, for the arrest was then only for the private interest of a party. Remarks attributed⁷ to William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, on the occasion of debate in Parliament on the searches incident to the enforcement of an excise on cider, eloquently expressed the principle:

'The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter; the rain may enter; but the King of England cannot enter—all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement!'

But the common law recognized some authority in law officers to break the door of a dwelling to arrest for felony. The common-law authorities differ, however, as to the circumstances in which this was the case. Hawkins says: 'where one lies under a probable Suspicion only, and is not indicted, it seems the better Opinion at this Day, That no one can justify the Breaking open Doors in Order to apprehend him.' 2 Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown, c. 14, § 7 (1762); see also Foster, Crown Law, (1762) 320—321 (2d ed. 1776). Coke appears to have been of the same view, and to have thought that the breaking of a house was limited to cases in which a writ, now our warrant, had issued. Co. 4th Inst. 177. On the other hand, Hale says that 'A man, that arrests upon suspicion of felony, may break open doors, if the party refuse upon demand to open them * * *.' 1 Hale, Pleas of the Crown, 583 (1736).

Whatever the circumstances under which breaking a door to arrest for felony might be lawful, however, the breaking was unlawful where the officer failed first to state his authority and purpose for demanding admission. The requirement was pronounced in 1603 in Semayne's Case, 5 Coke Co.Rep. 91a, 11 E.R.C. 629, 77 Eng.Repr. 194, at 195: 'In all cases where the King is party, the sheriff (if the doors be not open) may break the party's house, either to arrest him, or to do other execution of the K(ing)'s...