Substantive Law Study Support

Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961)

All evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the federal Constitution is inadmissible in a criminal trial in a state court. Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, overruled insofar as it holds to the contrary.
Held: Reversed and remanded for further proceedings.

Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967)

Petitioner was convicted under an indictment charging him with transmitting wagering information by telephone across state lines in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1084. Evidence of petitioner’s end of the conversations, overheard by FBI agents who had attached an electronic listening and recording device to the outside of the telephone booth from which the calls were made, was introduced at the trial. The court of appeals affirmed the conviction, finding that there was no Fourth Amendment violation because there was “no physical entrance into the area occupied by” petitioner.
Held: 1. The government’s eavesdropping activities violated the privacy upon which petitioner justifiably relied while using the telephone booth and thus constituted a “search and seizure” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. 2. Although the surveillance in this case may have been so narrowly circumscribed that it could constitutionally have been authorized in advance, it was not in fact conducted pursuant to the warrant procedure that is a constitutional precondition of such electronic surveillance. Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806 (1996)
Plainclothes policemen patrolling a “high drug area” in an unmarked vehicle observed a truck driven by petitioner Brown waiting at a stop sign at an intersection for an unusually long time; the truck then turned suddenly, without signaling, and sped off at an “unreasonable” speed. The officers stopped the vehicle, assertedly to warn the driver about traffic violations, and upon approaching the truck observed plastic bags of crack cocaine in petitioner Whren’s hands. Petitioners were arrested. Prior to trial on federal drug charges, they moved for suppression of the evidence, arguing that the stop had not been justified by either a reasonable suspicion or probable cause to believe petitioners were engaged in illegal drug-dealing activity and that the officers’ traffic-violation ground for approaching the truck was pretextual. The motion to suppress was denied, petitioners were convicted, and the court of appeals affirmed.
Held: The temporary detention of a motorist upon probable cause to believe that he has violated the traffic laws does not violate the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable seizures, even if a reasonable officer would not have stopped the motorist absent some additional law enforcement objective.

Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966)

In each of these cases the defendant while in police custody was questioned by police officers, detectives, or a prosecuting attorney in a room in which he was cut off from the outside world. None of the defendants was given a full and effective warning of his rights at the outset of the interrogation process. In all four cases the questioning elicited oral admissions, and, in three of them, signed statements as well, which were admitted at their trials. All defendants were convicted, and all convictions, except one, were affirmed on appeal.
Held: 1. The prosecution may not use statements, whether exculpatory or inculpatory, stemming from questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way, unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the Fifth Amendment’s privilege against self-incrimination. 2. The limitations on the interrogation process required for the protection of the individual’s constitutional rights should not cause an undue interference with a proper system of law enforcement, as demonstrated by the procedures of the FBI and the safeguards afforded in other jurisdictions. 3. In each of these cases the statements were obtained under circumstances that did not meet constitutional standards for protection of the privilege against self- incrimination.

Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428 (2000)
In the wake of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, in which the Court held that certain warnings must be given before a suspect’s statement made during custodial interrogation could be admitted in evidence, id., at 479, Congress enacted 18 U.S.C. §3501, which in essence makes the admissibility of such statements turn solely on whether they were made voluntarily. Petitioner, under indictment for bank robbery and related federal crimes, moved to suppress a statement he had made to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, on the ground he had not received “Miranda warnings” before being interrogated. The district court granted his motion, and the government took an interlocutory appeal. In reversing, the Fourth Circuit acknowledged that petitioner had not received Miranda warnings, but held that §3501 was satisfied because his statement was voluntary. It concluded that Miranda was not a constitutional holding and that, therefore, Congress could by statute have the final say on the admissibility question.
Held: Miranda and its progeny in this Court govern the admissibility of statements made during custodial interrogation in both state and federal courts.

Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963)
Charged in a Florida State Court with a noncapital felony, petitioner appeared without funds and without counsel and asked the Court to appoint counsel for him; this was denied on the ground that the state law permitted the appointment of counsel for indigent defendants in capital cases only. Petitioner conducted his own defense about as well as could be expected of a layman, but he was convicted and sentenced to imprisonment. Subsequently, he applied to the State Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus, on the ground that his conviction violated his rights under the federal Constitution. The State Supreme Court denied all relief.
Held: The right of an indigent defendant in a criminal trial to have the assistance of counsel is a fundamental right essential to a fair trial, and petitioner’s trial and conviction without the assistance of counsel violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455, overruled.

Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510 (2003)

In 1989, petitioner Wiggins was convicted of capital murder by a Maryland judge and subsequently elected to be sentenced by a jury. His public defenders, Schlaich and Nethercott, moved to bifurcate the sentencing, representing that they planned to prove that Wiggins did not kill the victim by his own hand and then, if necessary, to present a mitigation case. The court denied the motion. At sentencing, Nethercott told the jury in her opening statement that they would hear, among other things, about Wiggins’ difficult life, but such evidence was never introduced. Before closing arguments and outside the presence of the jury, Schlaich made a proffer to the court to preserve the bifurcation issue for appeal, detailing the mitigation case counsel would have presented. Schlaich never mentioned Wiggins’ life history or family background. The jury sentenced Wiggins to death, and the Maryland Court of Appeals affirmed. Represented by new counsel, Wiggins sought postconviction relief, arguing that his trial counsel had rendered ineffective assistance by failing to investigate and present mitigating evidence of his dysfunctional background. He presented expert testimony by a forensic social worker about the severe physical and sexual abuse he had suffered at the hands of his mother and while under the care of a series of foster parents. Schlaich testified that he did not remember retaining a forensic social worker to prepare a social history before sentencing, even though state funds were available for that purpose, and explained that he and Nethercott had decided to focus on retrying the factual case and disputing Wiggins’ direct responsibility for the murder.
Held: The performance of Wiggins’ attorneys at sentencing violated his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel.

Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387 (1977)

Respondent was arrested, arraigned, and committed to jail in Davenport, Iowa, for abducting a 10-year-old girl in Des Moines, Iowa. Both his Des Moines lawyer and his lawyer at the Davenport arraignment advised respondent not to make any statements until after consulting with the Des Moines lawyer upon being returned to Des Moines; the police officers who were to accompany respondent on the automobile drive back to Des Moines agreed not to question him during the trip. During the trip, respondent expressed no willingness to be interrogated in the absence of an attorney but instead stated several times that he would tell the whole story after seeing his Des Moines lawyer. However, one of the police officers, who knew that respondent was a former mental patient and was deeply religious, sought to obtain incriminating remarks from respondent by stating to him during the drive that he felt they should stop and locate the girl’s body because her parents were entitled to a Christian burial for the girl who was taken away from them on Christmas Eve. Respondent eventually made several incriminating statements in the course of the trip and finally directed the police to the girl’s body. Respondent was tried and convicted of murder, over his objections to the admission of evidence relating to or resulting from any statements he made during the automobile ride. The Iowa Supreme Court affirmed, holding, as did the trial court, that respondent had waived his constitutional right to the assistance of counsel. Respondent then petitioned for habeas corpus in federal district court, which held that the evidence in question had been wrongly admitted at respondent’s trial on the ground, inter alia, that he had been denied his constitutional right to the assistance of counsel and further ruled that he had not waived that right. The court of appeals affirmed. Petitioner warden claims that the district court in making its findings of fact disregarded 28 U.S.C. 2254 (d), which provides that, subject to certain exceptions, federal habeas corpus courts shall accept as correct the factual determinations made by state courts.
Held: 1. The district court correctly applied 28 U.S.C. 2254 (d) in its resolution of the disputed evidentiary facts, where it appears that it made no findings of fact in conflict with those of the Iowa courts and that its additional findings of fact based upon its examination of the state-court record were conscientiously and carefully explained and were approved by the court of appeals as being supported by the record. 2. Respondent was deprived of his constitutional right to assistance of counsel. 3. The circumstances of record provide, when viewed in light of respondent’s assertions of his right to counsel, no reasonable basis for finding that respondent waived his right to the assistance of counsel, the record falling far short of sustaining the state’s burden to prove “an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege.” Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464.

Skilling v. U.S., 561 U.S. (2010)

Skilling’s fair-trial claim raised two distinct questions. First, did the district court err by failing to move the trial to a different venue based on a presumption of prejudice? Second, did actual prejudice contaminate Skilling’s jury ?
There were important differences that separated Skilling’s prosecution from previous cases in which the Court presumed juror prejudice. First, the Court emphasized in prior decisions the size and characteristics of the community in which the crime occurred. At the time of Skilling’s trial, there were more than 4.5 million individuals eligible for jury duty that resided in the Houston area. Secondly, although news stories about Skilling were not kind, they contained no confession or other blatantly prejudicial information of the type readers or viewers could not reasonably be expected to shut from sight. Third, unlike cases in which the trial swiftly followed a widely reported crime, over four years elapsed between Enron’s bankruptcy and Skilling’s trial. Finally, Skilling’s jury acquitted him of nine insider-trading counts. Similarly, earlier instituted Enron- related prosecutions yielded no overwhelming victory for the government.

The Court next considered whether actual prejudice infected Skilling’s jury and determined Skilling failed to establish that a presumption of prejudice arose or that actual bias infected the jury that tried him.
Held: The Court affirmed the Fifth Circuit’s ruling that Skilling received a fair trial.

Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972)
Petitioner in No. 69-5003 was convicted of murder in Georgia and was sentenced to death. Petitioner in No. 69-5030 was convicted of rape in Georgia and was sentenced to death. Petitioner in No. 69-5031 was convicted of rape in Texas and was sentenced to death. Certiorari was granted limited to the following question: “Does the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty in these cases constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments?” The Court holds that the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty in these cases constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Held: The judgment in each case is therefore reversed insofar as it leaves undisturbed the death sentence imposed, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings.

Something to Consider

The Court states that the decision to require the exclusionary rule in state criminal proceedings is based on “reason and truth.” Do you agree with this? Is it reasonable to allow guilty persons to go free? (Follows Mapp v. Ohio)
Reread the Fourth Amendment. What provisions of that amendment were violated by the police officers in the Katz case? (Follows Katz v. United States)

Read the case of Chavez v. Martinez decided in 2003. Do you think this decision reflects a change of the Court’s view that Miranda is a constitutional rule that cannot be changed by the legislature? (Follows Dickerson v. United States)