Stone v. Powell Wolff v. Rice
| Decision Date | 06 July 1976 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 74-1055,74-1222,s. 74-1055 |
| Parties | W. T. STONE, Warden, Petitioner, v. Lloyd Charles POWELL. Charles L. WOLFF, Jr., Warden, Petitioner, v. David L. RICE |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Respondent in No. 74-1055, was convicted of murder in state court, in part on the basis of testimony concerning a revolver found on his person when he was arrested for violating a vagrancy ordinance. The trial court rejected respondent's contention that the testimony should have been excluded because the ordinance was unconstitutional and the arrest therefore invalid. The appellate court affirmed, finding it unnecessary to pass upon the legality of the arrest and search because of the court's conclusion that the error, if any, in admitting the challenged testimony was harmless, beyond a reasonable doubt. Respondent then applied for habeas corpus relief in the Federal District Court, which concluded that the arresting officer had probable cause and that even if the vagrancy ordinance was unconstitutional the deterrent purpose of the exclusionary rule did not require that it be applied to bar admission of the fruits of a search incident to an otherwise valid arrest. The court held, alternatively, that any error in admission of the challenged evidence was harmless. The Court of Appeals reversed, concluding that the ordinance was unconstitutional; that respondent's arrest was therefore illegal; and that, although exclusion of the evidence would serve no deterrent purpose with regard to officers who were enforcing statutes in good faith, exclusion would deter legislators from enacting unconstitutional statutes. The court also held that admission of the evidence was not harmless error. In No. 74-1222, respondent was also convicted of murder in a state court, in part on the basis of evidence seized pursuant to a search warrant which respondent on a suppression motion claimed was invalid. The trial court denied respondent's motion to suppress, and was upheld on appeal. Respondent then filed a habeas corpus petition in Federal District Court. The court concluded that the warrant was invalid, and rejected the State's contention that in any event probable cause justified the search. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Held: Where the State, as in each of these cases, has provided an opportunity for full and fair litigation of a Fourth Amendment claim, a state prisoner may not be granted federal habeas corpus relief on the ground that evidence obtained through an unconstitutional search and seizure was introduced at his trial. In this context the contribution of the exclusionary rule, if any, to the effectuation of the Fourth Amendment is minimal as compared to the substantial societal costs of applying the rule. Pp. 474-495.
(a) Until these cases this Court has had no occasion fully to examine the validity of the assumption made in Kaufman v. United States, 394 U.S. 217, 89 S.Ct. 1068, 22 L.Ed.2d 227, that the effectuation of the Fourth Amendment, as applied to the States through the Fourteenth, requires the granting of habeas corpus relief when a prisoner has been convicted in state court on the basis of evidence obtained in an illegal search or seizure since those Amendments were held in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081, to require exclusion of such evidence at trial and reversal of conviction upon direct review. P. 480-481.
(b) The Mapp majority justified application of the exclusionary rule chiefly upon the belief that exclusion would deter future unlawful police conduct, and though preserving the integrity of the judicial process has been alluded to as also justifying the rule, that concern is minimal where federal habeas corpus relief is sought by a prisoner who has already been given the opportunity for full and fair consideration of his search-and-seizure claim at trial and on direct review. Pp. 484-486.
(c) Despite the broad deterrent purpose of the exclusionary rule, it has never been interpreted to proscribe the introduction of illegally seized evidence in all proceedings or against all persons; in various situations the Court has found the policies behind the rule outweighed by countervailing considerations. Pp. 486-489.
(d) The ultimate question of guilt or innocence should be the central concern in a criminal proceeding. Application of the exclusionary rule, however, deflects the truth-finding process and often frees the guilty. Though the rule is thought to deter unlawful police activity, in part through nurturing respect for Fourth Amendment values, indiscriminate application of the rule may well generate disrespect for the law and the administration of justice. Pp. 489-491.
(e) Despite the absence of supportive empirical evidence, the assumption has been that the exclusionary rule deters law enforce- ment officers from violating the Fourth Amendment by removing the incentives to disregard it. Though the Court adheres to that view applied to the trial and direct-appeal stages, there is no reason to believe that the effect of applying the rule would be appreciably diminished if search-and-seizure claims could not be raised in federal habeas corpus review of state convictions. Even if some additional deterrent effect existed from application of the rule in isolated habeas corpus cases, the furtherance of Fourth Amendment goals would be outweighed by the detriment to the criminal justice system. Pp. 492-494.
No. 74-1055, 507 F.2d 93; No. 74-1222, 513 F.2d 1280, reversed.
Robert R. Granucci, Deputy Atty. Gen. of Cal., Melvin Kent Kammerlohr, Asst. Atty. Gen. of Neb., for petitioners; Evelle J. Younger, Atty. Gen., Jack R. Winkler, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., Edward P. O'Brien, Asst. Atty. Gen., Clifford K. Thompson, Jr., Thomas A. Brady, Ronald E. Niver, Deputy Attys. Gen., Paul L. Douglas, Atty. Gen., on the briefs.
Robert W. Peterson, William C. Cunningham, Santa Clara, Cal., for respondents; J. Patrick Green, Omaha, Neb., on the brief.
Bruce E. Babbitt, Atty. Gen., Shirley H. Frondorf, Frank T. Galati, Asst. Attys. Gen., William J. Schafer, III, Phoenix, Ariz., for Ariz.; Arthur K. Bolton, Atty. Gen., Robert S. Stubbs, II, Chief Deputy Atty. Gen., Richard L. Chambers, Deputy Atty. Gen., G. Thomas Davis, Senior Asst. Atty. Gen., for Ga.; Theodore L. Sendak, Atty. Gen., Donald P. Bogard, Asst. Atty. Gen. of Ind., Richard C. Turner, Atty. Gen. of Iowa, for Ind. and Iowa; Vernon B. Romney, Atty. Gen., William W. Barrett, Asst. Atty. Gen., for Utah; John J. Cleary, San Diego, Cal., for Cal. Public Defenders Assn.; Mary M. Kaufman, San Bernardino, Cal., for Nat. Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression; Henry W. McGee, Jr., Los Angeles, Cal., for Nat. Conference of Black Lawyers; Jonathan M. Hyman, Newark, N. J., for Nat. Lawyers' Guild and others; Theodore A. Gottfried, Robert E. Davison, Springfield, Ill., for Nat. Legal Aid and Defender Assn.; Leon Friedman, Melvin L. Wulf, Joel M. Gora, New York City, for American Civil Liberties Union; Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen., Stephen R. Koons, Asst. Atty. Gen., for Fla.; William F. Hyland, Atty. Gen., David S. Baime, John DeCicco, Daniel Louis Grossman, Deputy Attys. Gen., for N. J.; Louis J. Lefkowitz, Atty. Gen., Samuel A. Hirshowitz, First Asst. Atty. Gen., Lillian Z. Cohen, Asst. Atty. Gen., for N. Y.; Frank Carrington, Evanston, Ill., Fred E. Inbau, Chicago, Ill., Wayne W. Schmidt, Evanston, Ill., James R. Thompson, Chicago, Ill., William K. Lambie, Evanston, Ill., for Americans for Effective Law Enforcement, Inc., and others, amici curiae.
[Amicus Curiae Information from pages 467-468 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice POWELL delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondents in these cases were convicted of criminal offenses in state courts, and their convictions were affirmed on appeal. The prosecution in each case relied upon evidence obtained by searches and seizures alleged by respondents to have been unlawful. Each respondent subsequently sought relief in a Federal District Court by filing a petition for a writ of federal habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The question presented is whether a federal court should consider, in ruling on a petition for habeas corpus relief filed by a state prisoner, a claim that evidence obtained by an unconstitutional search or seizure was introduced at his trial, when he has previously been afforded an opportunity for full and fair litigation of his claim in the state courts. The issue is of considerable importance to the administration of criminal justice.
I
We summarize first the relevant facts and procedural history of these cases.
A.
Respondent Lloyd Powell was convicted of murder in June 1968 after trial in a California state court. At about midnight on February 17, 1968, he and three companions entered the Bonanza Liquor Store in San Bernardino, Cal., where Powell became involved in an altercation with Gerald Parsons, the store manager, over the theft of a bottle of wine. In the scuffling that followed Powell shot and killed Parsons' wife. Ten hours later an officer of the Henderson, Nev., Police Department arrested Powell for violation of the Henderson vagrancy ordinance,1 and in the search incident to the arrest discovered a .38-caliber revolver with six expended cartridges in the cylinder.
Powell was extradited to California and convicted of second-degree murder in the Superior Court of San Bernardo County. Parsons and Powell's accomplices at the liquor store testified against him. A criminologist testified that the revolver found on Powell was the gun that killed Parsons' wife. The trial court rejected Powell's contention that testimony by the Henderson police officer as to the search and the discovery of the revolver should have been excluded because the vagrancy ordinance was unconstitutional. In October 1969, the conviction was affirmed by a California District Court...
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