Coolidge v. New Hampshire

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 the police obtained the guns and clothing from his wife (it was later concluded that no police coercion was involved and that she had volunteered her assistance in hopes of clearing her husband of the charges), the primary concern of the 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 charge of the Pamela Mason murder investigation was viewed as a conflict of interest and an infringement on the right to privacy.

. . . it is enough to answer that there could hardly be a more appropriate setting than this for a per se rule of disqualification rather than a case-by-case evaluation of all the circumstances. Without disrespect to the state law enforcement agent here involved, the whole point of the basic rule . . . is that prosecutors and policemen simply cannot be asked to maintain the requisite neutrality with 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 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." The New Hampshire method of issuing search warrants was found to be a violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

The state of New Hampshire developed three theories in an attempt to explain the 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 or control 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 immediate vicinity of the arrest . . . " Coolidge was arrested inside of his house while the Pontiac rested in the driveway--outside. Other cases were cited to back this 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 arrest was "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 covered by a specific warrant. It was deemed that this "automobile exception" was not applicable 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 search was 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 seized because 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 amount of 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 and remanded the case to the New Hampshire Supreme Court.