Mincey v. Arizona

Petitioner
Rufus Junior Mincey
Respondent
The State of Arizona
Petitioner's Claim
That a search of his home conducted by police officers who did not first obtain a search warrant violated his Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches, and therefore his criminal conviction based on evidence seizedduring the search was invalid.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner
Richard Oseran
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Galen H. Wilkes
Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Warren E. Burger, Thurgood Marshall, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William H. Rehnquist (writing for the Court), JohnPaul Stevens, Potter Stewart, Byron R. White
Justices Dissenting
None
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
21 June 1978
Decision
That there is no "murder scene" exception to the requirement that police obtain a warrant before searching someone's home, and thus the appellant's conviction was invalid because it was based on evidence seized by the police duringa warrantless search of his home.
Significance
The Court severely limited the ability of police officers to conduct searchesof murder scenes without first obtaining a search warrant.
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution provides that the government may notsubject a person to an unreasonable search or seizure of their "persons, houses, papers, and effects." Generally, to be reasonable, a search must be based on "probable cause," that is, the police officers must have some reason tobelieve that the search will find contraband, evidence of a crime, or similaritems. Also, prior to conducting a search, the police generally have to obtain a warrant from a judge authorizing the search. The requirements are strictly applied to cases in which police officers enter a private home. In certainsituations, however, the Supreme Court has determined that the police do notneed to obtain a warrant to conduct a search supported by probable cause. These situations, referred to as exceptions to the warrant requirement, typically involve scenarios where the police do not have time to obtain a warrant, or where obtaining a warrant would be useless. One such situation in which police officers are justified in conducting a search without a warrant is whereso-called "exigent," or emergency, circumstances exist. The most important exigent circumstance is where a search is necessary to find an injured person or to otherwise prevent the death or injury of a person.
In the case of Mincey v. Arizona, the state of Arizona asked the Supreme Court to recognize a new category of exigent circumstances for which a search warrant is not required. On 28 October 1978, undercover police officers in Tucson, Arizona, conducted a raid at an apartment occupied by Rufus Mincey.Shots were fired by Mincey, and one officer was killed. Mincey was also wounded in the exchange. Police officers rushed into the apartment to search forother possibly injured people. They conducted a quick search of the living room, bedroom, and bedroom closet, but refrained from conducting any further investigation. However, about ten minutes later homicide detectives arrived onthe scene and conducted a thorough, four-day search of the apartment.
Mincey was charged in the Arizona state trial court with the murder of the police officer, assault, and possession of narcotics. Mincey filed a motion inthe trial court to exclude the evidence seized by the homicide officers during the search of his apartment. He claimed that the officers should have obtained a warrant to search the premises. The trial court disagreed and allowed the prosecution to introduce the evidence. Mincey was convicted, and he raisedthe same argument on appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court. The Arizona Supreme Court concluded that the search was valid based on a so-called "murder scene" exception to the warrant requirement. According to the Arizona Supreme Court, the search did not violate the Fourth Amendment because police officers may search the scene of a homicide without a warrant as long as the search is"limited to determining the circumstances of death."
Mincey then sought to appeal his conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court througha procedure known as a petition for writ of certiorari. The Court granted the petition and heard the case on 21 February 1978.
The Court unanimously rejected the argument that the search was proper because of the injured victims, concluding that the four-day search conducted by the homicide officers exceeded the scope of the emergency. The Court also rejected Arizona's request that the Court recognize a murder scene exception to the warrant requirement. According to Arizona, such an exception was necessarydue to the public's interest in quickly investigating and solving murder cases. The Court found this argument unpersuasive:

[T]he State pointsto the vital public interest in the prompt investigation of the extremely serious crime of murder. No one can doubt the importance of this goal. But the public interest in the investigation of other serious crimes is comparable. Ifthe warrantless search of a homicide scene is reasonable, why not the warrantless search of the scene of a rape, a robbery, or a burglary?

Mincey was retried in the Arizona courts and was convicted despite the fact that the prosecution was unable to introduce the evidence seized in Mincey's apartment. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Court's decision in Mincey did have a rather profound impact on the ability of police to conduct a warrantless search of a murder scene. Up to the time of the decision, most lower courts had allowed the police to conduct such searches without a warrant. Following Mincey, however, the police may do no more than searchfor possible victims at the scene until they have obtained a search warrant.
Related Cases

• United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56 (1950).
  
• Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961).
  
• Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23 (1963).
  
• Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 (1969).
  
• Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573 (1980).