Coolidge v. New Hampshire

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 arrest him 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 were to 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, and that seizures and searches of automobiles are likewise per se reasonable given probable cause, then by the same logic any search or seizure could 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 to act 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 felt it should be considered incident to Coolidge's arrest. The subsequent search of 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 car based on probable cause that the vehicle had been used in the commission of a murder. Numerous other cases, such as Ker v. California and Marron v. United States were also mentioned to support the seizure of evidence incident to arrest. It was felt that the seizure of Coolidge's car "was valid under 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 creation of 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 ruling on a case that simply did not merit such a decision.