Wheeler v. Goodman

• Decision Date: 11 May 1971
• Docket Number: 2569,2612,2606,2601,Civ. A. No. 2431,2637.
• Citation: 330 F. Supp. 1356
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of North Carolina
• Parties: Mrs. Raymond M. WHEELER et al., Plaintiffs, v. J. C. GOODMAN, Jr., et al., Defendants. Marc MATIGIAN et al., Plaintiffs, v. L. A. KELLY et al., Defendants. Bernice Miller HARRIS et al., Plaintiffs, v. J. C. GOODMAN, Jr., et al., Defendants. James STEELE et al., Plaintiffs, v. J. C. GOODMAN, Jr., et al., Defendants. Mrs. Cornellius Cuthbertson HILL, Plaintiff, v. W. A. ROWLAND et al., Defendants. Hiram Kemp HOLMES, Plaintiff, v. W. A. ROWLAND et al., Defendants.

330 F. Supp. 1356

Mrs. Raymond M. WHEELER et al., Plaintiffs, v. J. C. GOODMAN, Jr., et al., Defendants.

Marc MATIGIAN et al., Plaintiffs, v. L. A. KELLY et al., Defendants.

Bernice Miller HARRIS et al., Plaintiffs, v. J. C. GOODMAN, Jr., et al., Defendants. James STEELE et al., Plaintiffs, v. J. C. GOODMAN, Jr., et al., Defendants.

Mrs. Cornellius Cuthbertson HILL, Plaintiff, v. W. A. ROWLAND et al., Defendants.

Hiram Kemp HOLMES, Plaintiff, v. W. A. ROWLAND et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. Nos. 2431, 2612, 2601, 2606, 2569, 2637.

United States District Court, W. D. North Carolina, Charlotte Division.

May 11, 1971.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

No. 2431

George S. Daly, Jr., and W. Thomas Ray, Charlotte, N. C., for plaintiffs.

Andrew A. Vanore, Jr., Staff Atty., North Carolina Dept. of Justice, Raleigh, N. C., amicus curiae.

W. A. Watts and Henry W. Underhill, Jr., City Attys., G. Patrick Hunter, Jr., and J. Marshall Haywood, Charlotte, N. C., for defendants.

No. 2612

George S. Daly, Jr., Charlotte, N. C., Norman B. Smith, North Carolina Civil Liberties Union, Greensboro, N. C., for plaintiffs.

Henry W. Underhill, Jr., City Atty., John A. Mraz, James O. Cobb, Frank B. Aycock, III, Charlotte, N. C., and L. P. Covington, Staff Atty., North Carolina Dept. of Justice, Raleigh, N. C., for defendants.

No. 2601

Martin J. Miller, Washington, D. C., George S. Daly, Jr., Charlotte, N. C., of counsel, Norman B. Smith, North Carolina Civil Liberties Union, Greensboro, N. C., for plaintiffs.

W. A. Watts and Henry W. Underhill, Jr., City Attys., G. Patrick Hunter, Jr., and Frank B. Aycock, III, Charlotte, N. C., for defendants.

No. 2606

Martin J. Miller, Washington, D. C., George S. Daly, Jr., Charlotte, N. C., and Norman B. Smith, North Carolina Civil Liberties Union, Greensboro, N. C., for plaintiffs.

Frank B. Aycock, III, Henry W. Underhill, Jr., City Atty., and John A. Mraz, Charlotte, N. C., for defendants.

Nos. 2569, 2637

George S. Daly, Jr., Charlotte, N. C., for plaintiffs.

Frank B. Aycock, III, and Henry W. Underhill, Jr., City Atty., Charlotte, N. C., for defendants.

OMNIBUS OPINION

McMILLAN, District Judge.

PRELIMINARY STATEMENT

An order was entered on March 5, 1969, in Wheeler et al. v. Goodman et al., 298 F.Supp. 935 (W.D.N.C., 1969), finding facts about then recent operations of the Charlotte City Police Department, and placing precautionary restraints upon its future operations.

The plaintiffs in Wheeler filed a motion on June 25, 1969, requesting contempt proceedings and requesting the appointment of a special master to administer the vice squad of the Department. In the other five captioned cases, subsequently filed, the plaintiffs request damages, or both damages and injunctive relief. The defendants ask dissolution of the Wheeler injunction.

The week of November 16, 1970, was devoted to a hearing at which evidence was taken bearing upon the Wheeler motions and upon the injunctive relief requested in the other cases. All testimony in all cases will be considered to the extent that it may bear upon the special relief sought in the Wheeler case and upon the alleged violations of the Wheeler order.

This opinion covers all six cases. It will include the court's findings and conclusions in each case. It will also include the disposition of the Wheeler motions and the disposition, pending final trial on the merits, of the motions in the other cases. Separate orders based on this opinion will be entered in each of the cases.

The findings and conclusions in this order will not be binding upon nor considered by the juries in the later jury trial of any issues in these cases; these findings are for purposes of granting or denying temporary relief only.

FOURTH AMENDMENT LAW (Generally)

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States provides:

"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."

* * * * * *

The Supreme Court has said:

"* * * The Fourth Amendment's proscriptions are enforced against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment" and "* * * the standard of reasonableness is the same under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments * * *." Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 33, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 1630, 10 L.Ed.2d 726 (1963); Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961).

The Fourth Amendment's proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures protects people, not places, Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967); and this protection extends "* * * as much to the citizen on the streets of our cities as to the homeowner closeted in his study * * *." Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 9, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1873, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968).

Most decisions interpreting the Fourth Amendment have arisen out of criminal prosecutions. That the questions presented by all the cases now being discussed are not raised in the course of a criminal proceeding is immaterial since the prohibitions of the Fourth Amendment are not limited to searches and seizures resulting in criminal prosecutions. See, Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 12-15, 88 S.Ct. 1868 (1968).

FOURTH AMENDMENT LAW (Searches)

The Fourth Amendment has been interpreted by the United States Supreme Court to require that, except in certain exceptional situations, the police have search warrants to conduct searches.

"This guarantee of protection against unreasonable searches and seizures the Fourth Amendment * * * marks the right of privacy as one of the unique values of our civilization and, with few exceptions, stays the hands of the police unless they have a search warrant issued by a magistrate on probable cause supported by oath or affirmation." McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451, 453, 69 S.Ct. 191, 192, 93 L.Ed. 153 (1948).

* * * * * *

"We are not dealing with formalities. The presence of a search warrant serves a high function. Absent some grave emergency, the Fourth Amendment has interposed a magistrate between the citizen and the police. This was done not to shield criminals nor to make the home a safe haven for illegal activities. It was done so that an objective mind might weigh the need to invade that privacy in order to enforce the law. The right of privacy was deemed too precious to entrust to the discretion of those whose job is the detection of crime and the arrest of criminals. * * * And so the Constitution requires a magistrate to pass on the desires of the police before they violate the privacy of the home. We cannot be true to that constitutional requirement and excuse the absence of a search warrant without a showing by those who seek exemption from the constitutional mandate that the exigencies of the situation made that course imperative." McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451, 455, 456, 69 S.Ct. 191, 193 (1948) (Emphasis added).

"The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime. 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. 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. The right of officers to thrust themselves into a home is also a grave concern, not only to the individual but to a society which chooses to dwell in reasonable security and freedom from surveillance. When the right of privacy must reasonably yield to the right of search is, as a rule, to be decided by a judicial officer, not by a policeman or government enforcement agent.

"There are exceptional circumstances in which, on balancing the need for effective law enforcement against the right of privacy, it may be contended that a magistrate's warrant for search may be dispensed with. * * *" Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-15, 68 S.Ct. 367, 369, 92 L.Ed. 436 (1948) (Emphasis added).

"Belief, however well founded, that an article sought is concealed in a dwelling house furnishes no justification for a search of that place without a warrant. And such searches are held unlawful notwithstanding facts unquestionably showing probable cause." Agnello v. United States, 269 U.S. 20, 33, 46 S.Ct. 4, 6, 70 L.Ed. 145 (1925).

Further treatment of these principles appears in United States v. Jeffers, 342 U.S. 48, 72 S.Ct. 93, 96 L.Ed. 59 (1951); Taylor v. United States, 286 U.S. 1, 52 S.Ct. 466, 76 L.Ed. 951 (1932); United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102, 85 S.Ct. 741, 13 L.Ed.2d 684 (1965); and Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 528-529, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967).

Searches of a hotel room or other rented premises are subject to the same restrictions as searches of homes. See, Stoner v. California, 376 U.S. 483, 84 S.Ct. 889, 11 L.Ed.2d 856 (1964); Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 68 S.Ct. 367, 92 L.Ed. 436 (1948); and McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451, 69 S.Ct. 191, 93 L.Ed. 153 (1948).

The basic rule, then, under which law enforcement officers must operate, as summarized by Justice Stewart in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 514, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967), is that:

"* * * Searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate,

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