Coolidge v. New Hampshire

Petitioner
Edward H. Coolidge, Jr.
Respondent
State of New Hampshire
Petitioner's Claim
The petitioner stated that the warrant authorizing the seizure and subsequentsearch of his automobile should be considered invalid on the ground that itwas a violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner
Archibald Cox
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Alexander Kalinski
Justices for the Court
William J. Brennan, Jr., William O. Douglas, John Marshall Harlan II, PotterStewart (writing for the Court), Thurgood Marshall
Justices Dissenting
Hugo Lafayette Black, Harry A. Blackmun, Warren E. Burger, Byron R. White
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
21 June 1971
Decision
The Court determined that the searches and seizures of Coolidge's property were unconstitutional.
Significance
Coolidge v. New Hampshire opened a debate concerning the proper use ofa warrant for search and seizure, as well as what actually constituted "plain view" evidence and the proper means of obtaining evidence that is incidentto an arrest.
The Investigation of a "Particularly Brutal Murder" and the Trial that Followed
On the evening of 13 January 1964, 14-year-old Pamela Mason left her home inManchester, New Hampshire. It was snowing heavily that night and she had received a call from a man in need of a babysitter. Eight days later, her body was found many miles away by the side of a north-south highway. The police immediately began a large-scale investigation into the murder.
Police inquiries led to the questioning of Edward Coolidge. He was cooperative throughout the entire process. When asked if he owned any guns he respondedthat he did and produced three--a rifle and two shotguns. He agreed to participate in a polygraph test the following Sunday, his day off from work. Coolidge's wife was present for the entire interview.
Police contacted Coolidge the following Sunday and asked him to come to the police station where he would be taken to Concord, New Hampshire for the lie-detector test. That evening, as Mrs. Coolidge waited with her mother-in-law for her husband to return, two plainclothes policemen called on the Coolidge residence. It is important to note that these were not the same officers who had questioned Coolidge in front of his wife earlier in the week; indeed theseofficers were not even aware that Coolidge had readily provided three guns for inspection to the previous officers. The plainclothes policemen stated thather husband was in "serious trouble" and would not be returning home that night. Coolidge was being held in jail overnight for an unrelated charge; during the polygraph test he had confessed to stealing money from his employer. They then asked the mother-in-law to leave and began questioning Mrs. Coolidge.At one point during the questioning they asked to see Coolidge's guns and the clothes that Mrs. Coolidge believed her husband had been wearing on the night of Pamela Mason's disappearance. Mrs. Coolidge produced four guns (not three) and the clothing in question.
The state used the next two-and-a-half weeks to gather evidence supporting the theory that Coolidge had murdered Pamela Mason. On 19 February 1964 the results of the investigation were exhibited to the state attorney general--who had not only taken charge of the case, but would later also act as chief prosecutor at the trial. It was decided that the murder charge, along with a search of his residence and two cars, would provide enough evidence to support thearrest of Coolidge. The chief of the Manchester police applied, under oath,for arrest and search warrants, which were subsequently signed and issued bythe attorney general himself--in the role of acting justice of the peace. Theprocedure allowing a justice of the peace to authorize and issue search warrants was allowed under New Hampshire law at the time of this case.
The police wasted no time in arresting Coolidge on the same day that the warrant was issued. Mrs. Coolidge was told that she could not stay in the house and that the police would provide transportation for her as they were impounding both of Coolidge's vehicles. It is extremely important to note that the vehicles were parked in Coolidge's driveway in plain sight from both the streetand the inside of the house.
Several items of evidence were presented in Coolidge's murder trial to indicate that he was guilty. The New Hampshire Supreme Court turned down motions tosuppress all evidence. Vacuum sweepings from one of his vehicles included particles of gunpowder. The gun, not presented by Coolidge during the initial police interview, was a .22-caliber Mossberg rifle--claimed by the prosecutionto be the murder weapon (although ballistics tests were conflicting). The prosecution then attempted to show via microscopic analysis that there was a strong chance that the clothes obtained at Coolidge's residence had been in contact with the body of Pamela Mason. The jury found Coolidge guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The New Hampshire Supreme Court confirmed the judgement.
The Improper Use of a Warrant
At this point the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to take into account a multitude of constitutional issues raised by the admission of the evidence against Coolidge. Although Coolidge challenged the manner in which thepolice obtained the guns and clothing from his wife (it was later concludedthat no police coercion was involved and that she had volunteered her assistance in hopes of clearing her husband of the charges), the primary concern ofthe Supreme Court stemmed from the manner in which the search warrant was issued and used.
Primarily, the justices delved into the determination of probable cause--ascertained by none other than the state attorney general. While this in itself was not considered a problem, the fact that the same individual was in chargeof the Pamela Mason murder investigation was viewed as a conflict of interestand an infringement on the right to privacy.

. . . it is enoughto answer that there could hardly be a more appropriate setting than this fora per se rule of disqualification rather than a case-by-case evaluation of all the circumstances. Without disrespect to the state law enforcementagent here involved, the whole point of the basic rule . . . is that prosecutors and policemen simply cannot be asked to maintain the requisite neutralitywith regard to their own investigations--the "competitive enterprise" that must rightly engage their single-minded attention.

Justice Robert H. Jackson (in Johnson v. United States [1948]) summarized this type of situation quite succinctly: "When the right of privacy mustreasonably 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." The New Hampshire method of issuing search warrants was found to be a violation of theFourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
The state of New Hampshire developed three theories in an attempt to explainthe warrant's validity, or at least to cover the legal issues involving a warrantless search. The first theory stated that the search and seizure of Coolidge's automobile were "incident" to the arrest. In order for this to have been the case, it would have been necessary for Coolidge to be in possession orcontrol of the vehicle. As noted in United States v. Rabinowitz, a search could be considered incident to an arrest " . . . only if it is substantially contemporaneous with the arrest and is confined to the immediatevicinity of the arrest . . . " Coolidge was arrested inside of his house while the Pontiac rested in the driveway--outside. Other cases were cited to backthis contention, including Vale v. Louisiana, Shipley v. California, Stoner v. California, and Agnello v. United States. It was also noted in Rabinowitz that even after an accused person is arrested and in police custody, a search of the person's property after the arrestwas "simply not incident to the arrest."
The second theory postulated by the state maintained that probable cause allowed for a warrantless search of an automobile. As stated in previous cases (primarily involving the transportation of contraband), there was a considerable difference between the search of a house or a store and the search of a vehicle simply because a vehicle could be moved out of the jurisdiction coveredby a specific warrant. It was deemed that this "automobile exception" was notapplicable to the Coolidge case. Coolidge was arrested without resistance in his own house; the car remained untouched throughout this event, as he made no attempt to escape. Since the police had suspected the role of the car in the crime for some time, it became apparent that the warrantless searchwas illegal due to the lack of exigent circumstances.
The state's final theory supporting a warrantless seizure and search relied on the Pontiac as being an "instrumentality of the crime" that could be seizedbecause it was in plain view. However, an item of evidence discovered in plain view could not be considered as such unless it was discovered while the search was in progress--and the discovery itself must be considered inadvertent. The Supreme Court rightly believed that the police had a sufficient amountof time in which to obtain a valid warrant as the description and the location of the Pontiac were known in advance of the arrest.
None of these theories validated the warrant provided by the state attorney general; nor did they justify a warrantless search. It was found that the seizure and subsequent search of Coolidge's automobile was unconstitutional. As the evidence obtained in this search was permitted at the murder trial, the U.S. Supreme Court deemed that the judgement of this trial must be reversed andremanded the case to the New Hampshire Supreme Court.
Incident to Arrest or Breach of the Fourth Amendment?
Although this case was reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court, many of the justices expressed dissenting opinions concerning specific issues. Justice White strongly argued that a warrantless entry into a man's house in order to arresthim is a legitimate enough cause for search and seizure of the man's property. In examining this argument and cases in which this issue had arisen before(such as Chimel v. California [1969] and Trupiano v. United States [1948]) the Court came to a disturbing conclusion.

If we wereto agree with Mr. Justice White that the police may, whenever they have probable cause, make a warrantless entry for the purpose of making an arrest, andthat seizures and searches of automobiles are likewise per se reasonable given probable cause, then by the same logic any search or seizurecould be carried out without a warrant, and we would simply have read the Fourth Amendment out of the Constitution.

Chief Justice Burger and Justice Black concurred on the overall ruling, but dissented on the grounds that the Fourth Amendment did not contain any statement that would quantify the disqualification of the state attorney general toact as a magistrate. They also believed that the seizure and search of the automobile were constitutional for a variety of reasons. Since the automobile was visible not only from outside of the house, but inside as well, they feltit should be considered incident to Coolidge's arrest. The subsequent searchof the Pontiac could be justified by citing Chambers v. Maroney in which it was held legal for the police to seize and search the petitioner's carbased on probable cause that the vehicle had been used in the commission of amurder. Numerous other cases, such as Ker v. California and Marronv. United States were also mentioned to support the seizure of evidenceincident to arrest. It was felt that the seizure of Coolidge's car "was validunder the well-established right of the police to seize evidence in plain view at the time and place of the arrest."
Chief Justice Burger stated that the Coolidge case was an excellent example of what happens when the legal system traps itself in its own creationof an "exclusionary rule"--in this case the nuances of plain view and the definition of evidence that is incident to arrest. He felt that the Court was able to distort rules as a result of this, and therefore could reverse a rulingon a case that simply did not merit such a decision.
Impact
The Coolidge v. New Hampshire case clearly demonstrated the gray areathat exists in the use of warrants and the acts of search and seizure, as shown by the multiple opinions expressed by many of the justices. The proper issuance and use of search warrants with respect to the Fourth Amendment remainsa topic of great concern to law officials. As late as 1987, in Arizona v.Hicks, the definition of plain view and the questioning of warrant validity were once again brought before the U.S. Supreme Court. It seems that thecontradictions argued in Coolidge still allow for varying interpretations of what, in many respects, can be viewed as the same scenario of "warrantless" search and seizure.
Related Cases

• Agnello v. United States, 269 U.S. 20 (1925).
  
• Marron v. United States, 275 U.S. 192 (1927).
  
• Trupiano v. United States, 334 U.S. 699 (1948).
  
• Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23 (1963).
  
• Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967).
  
• Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 (1969).
  
• Arizona v. Hicks, (1987).