Herbert v. State

• Decision Date: 07 October 1970
• Docket Number: No. 570,570
• Citation: 269 A.2d 430,10 Md.App. 279
• Parties: Buford Clayton HERBERT v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 279

10 Md.App. 279

269 A.2d 430

Buford Clayton HERBERT v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 570.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

Oct. 7, 1970.

Henry C. Engel, Jr., and Stephen A. Tarrant, Bel Air, for appellant.

James F. Truitt, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom were Francis B. Burch, Atty. Gen., Edwin H. W. Harlan, Jr., State's Atty., and Donald G. Smith, Asst. State's Atty. for Harford County, on brief, for appellee.

Argued before MURPHY, C. J., and ORTH, and THOMPSON, JJ.

ORTH, Judge.

These two appeals in one record present a question of law: does the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures apply only to governmental

                action?   We find that it does.  This finding poses a question of fact: was the seizure of the challenged evidence in these cases by governmental action?   We find that it was not.  Therefore we hold that the evidence was properly admitted and affirm the judgments
                

THE LAW

Amendment IV to the Constitution of the United States, one of ten amendments proposed by Congress on 25 September 1789 and declared ratified on 15 December 1791, provides 'Security from Unwarrantable Search and Seizure':

'The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.'

It was not until 1914, however, that the Supreme Court, in Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 34 S.Ct. 341, 58 L.Ed. 652, for the first time held that in a federal prosecution the Fourth Amendment barred the use of evidence secured through an illegal search and seizure. But it was no bar to the use of such evidence in state prosecutions and thirty-five years later in Wolf v. People of State of Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 69 S.Ct. 1359, 93 L.Ed. 1782 (1949) the Court still felt and so decided that the exclusionary rule should not be imposed upon the States as 'an essential ingredient of the right.' 338 U.S. at pages 27-29, 69 S.Ct. at page 1362. However, in 1956 in Rea v. United States, 350 U.S. 214, 76 S.Ct. 292, 100 L.Ed. 233 the Court formulated a method to prevent the state use of evidence unconstitutionally seized by federal agents. ¹ And in Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 83 S.Ct. 1437, 4 L.Ed.2d 1669 (1960) it discarded the 'silver platter' doctrine which permitted 'the federal It was early considered by the Supreme Court that the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures applied only to governmental action. Such construction has been consistently followed and is firmly established. The only change, as has been pointed out, was that it was finally decided that the protection applied to state governmental action as well as federal governmental action. The Court put it concisely in Burdeau v. McDowell (1921) 256 U.S. 465 at 475, 41 S.Ct. 574 at 576, 65 L.Ed. 1048:

                government to avail itself of evidence improperly seized by state officers operating entirely on their own account' under the holding in Byars v. United States, (1927) 273 U.S. 28 at 33, 47 S.Ct. 248, 71 L.Ed. 520.  2  Then in 1961 the Court closed 'the only courtroom door remaining open to evidence secured by official lawlessness in flagrant abuse of that basic right (against unreasonable searches and seizures), reserved to all persons as a specific guarantee against that very same unlawful conduct.'  In Mapp v. State of Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 the Court held that 'all evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution, is by that same authority, inadmissible in a state court.'  At 655, 81 S.Ct. at 1691
                

'(The Fourth Amendment's) origin and history clearly show that it was intended as a restraint upon the activities of sovereign authority, and was not intended to be a limitation upon other than governmental agencies; as against such authority it was the purpose of the Fourth Amendment to secure the citizen in the right of unmolested occupation of his dwelling and the possession of his property, subject to the right of seizure by process duly issued.'

The Court traced the history of the Amendment in Boyd '(I)t took its origin in the determination of the framers of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution to provide for that instrument a Bill of Rights, securing to the American people, among other things, those safeguards which had grown up in England to protect the people from unreasonble searches and seizures, such as were permitted under the general warrants issued under authority of the government, by which there had been invasions of the home and privacy of the citizens, and the seizure of their private papers in support of charges, real or imaginary, made against them. Such practices had also received sanction under warrants and seizures under the so-called writs of assistance, issued in the American Colonies.'

v. United States, 116 U.S. 616 at 625, 6 S.Ct. 524 at 529, 29 L.Ed. 746 (1886) observing that 'in order to ascertain[269 A.2d 432] the nature of the proceedings intended by the fourth amendment to the constitution under the terms 'unreasonable searches and seizures', it is only necessary to recall the contemporary or then recent history of the controversies on the subject, both in this country and in England.' Recalling the history, Boyd showed, as stated in Weeks v. United States, supra, 232 U.S. at 390, 34 S.Ct. at 343:

Mr. Justice Bradley concluded in Boyd that the principles embodied in the Fourth Amendment 'apply to all invasions on the part of the government and its employees of the sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life.' At 391, 34 S.Ct. at 344. (emphasis supplied) In Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U.S. 385, 40 S.Ct. 182, 64 L.Ed. 319 (1920) Mr. Justice Holmes in the opinion holding that rights against unlawful search and seizure had there been violated, noted that the case was not that of knowledge acquired through the wrongful act of a stranger, but that the government planned or at all events ratified the whole performance. He said, at 392, 40 S.Ct. at 183: 'If knowledge of them (the facts ascertained from seized documents) is gained from an independent source 'We know of no constitutional principle which requires the government to surrender the papers under such circumstances. Had it learned that such incriminatory papers, tending to show a violation of federal law, were in the hands of a person other than the accused, it having had no part in wrongfully obtaining them, we know of no reason why a subpoena might not issue for the production of the papers as evidence. Such production would require no unreasonable search or seizure, nor would it amount to compelling the accused to testify against himself.

                they may be proved like any others, but the knowledge gained by the Government's own wrong cannot be used by it in the way proposed (to obtain indictments).'  In Irvine v. People of State of Cal., 347 U.S. 128, 74 S.Ct. 381, 98 L.Ed. 561 (1954) the Court said that the decision in Wolf v. Colorado, supra, 'for the first time established that '(t)he security of one's privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police' is embodied in the concept of due process found in the Fourteenth Amendment.'  At 132, 74 S.Ct. at 383 (emphasis supplied) In Elkins v. United States, supra, it was made clear that at that time the limitations of the Fourth Amendment reached only 'the Federal government and its agencies.'  364 U.S. at 210, 80 S.Ct. at 1440.  And when in Mapp v. Ohio, supra, the Fourth Amendment was recognized as reaching through the Fourteenth Amendment, state governments and their agencies as well as the federal government and its agencies, it was nonetheless clear that only government action was encompassed.  '(W)e can no longer permit (the Fourth Amendment) to be revocable at the whim of any police officer who, in the name of law enforcement itself, chooses to suspend its enjoyment.  Our decision, founded on reason and truth, gives to the individual no more than that which the Constitution guarantees him, to the police officer no less than that to which honest law enforcement is entitled, and, to the courts, that judicial integrity so necessary in the true administration of justice.'  367 U.S. at 660, 81 S.Ct. at 1694 (emphasis supplied).  We believe that by history, judicial rule and application, the exclusionary rule as to evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment comes into play only when the evidence is obtained by governmental action.  Whatever wrong is done by the act of one individual in taking the property of another, it is no invasion of the security afforded by the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures.  Burdeau v. McDowell, supra, i56 U.S. at 475, 41 [269 A.2d 433] S.Ct. 574.  3  When an  
                individual obtains incriminatory matter from an accused, no matter how improperly, and such matter comes into the possession of the government without a violation of the accused's rights by governmental authority, the exclusionary rule does not prohibit its use at trial
                

The papers having come into the possession of the government without a violation of petitioner's rights by governmental authority, we see no reason why the fact that individuals, unconnected with the government, may have wrongfully taken them, should prevent them from being held for use in prosecuting an offense where the documents are of an incriminatory character.' Id. at 476, 41 S.Ct. at 576.

Each case must be judged on its own particular facts as to whether or not governmental action played such a part in the seizure of challenged evidence so as to invoke the Fourth Amendment. In Gouled v. United States, 255 U.S. 298, 41 S.Ct. 261, 65 L.Ed. 647 (1921), it was suspected that Gouled and another were conspiring to defraud the government...