Frank v. Maryland/Opinion of the Court

Acting on a complaint from a resident of the 4300 block of Reisterstown Road, Baltimore, Maryland, that there were rats in her basement, Gentry, an inspector of the Baltimore City Health Department, began an inspection of the houses in the vicinity looking for the source of the rats. In the middle of the afternoon of February 27, 1958, Gentry knocked on the door or appellant's detached frame home at 4335 Reisterstown Road. After receiving no response he proceeded to inspect the area outside the house. This inspection revealed that the house was in an 'extreme state of decay,' and that in the rear of the house there was a pile later identified as 'rodent feces mixed with straw and trash and debris to approximately half a ton.' During this inspection appellant came around the side of the house and asked Gentry to explain his presence. Gentry responded that he had evidence of rodent infestation and asked appellant for permission to inspect the basement area. Appellant refused. At no time did Gentry have a warrant authorizing him to enter. The next forenoon Gentry, in the company of two police officers, returned to appellant's house. After receiving no response to his knock, he reinspected the exterior of the premises. He then swore out a warrant for appellant's arrest alleging a violtio n of § 120 of Art. 12 of the Baltimore City Code. That section provides:

'Whenever the Commissioner of Health shall have cause to     suspect that a nuisance exists in any house, cellar or      enclosure, he may demand entry therein in the day time, and      if the owner or occupier shall refuse or delay to open the      same and admit a free examination, he shall forfeit and pay      for every such refusal the sum of Twenty Dollars.' Appellant was arrested on March 5, and the next day was found guilty of the offense alleged in the warrant by a Police Justice for the Northern District of Baltimore and fined twenty dollars. On appeal, the Criminal Court of Baltimore, in a de novo proceeding, also found appellant guilty. The Maryland Court of Appeals denied certiorari. The case came here under a challenge, 28 U.S.C. § 1257(2), to the validity of § 120, to determine whether appellant's conviction for resisting an inspection of his house without a warrant was obtained in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Health Code of the City of Baltimore, of which § 120 is an important part, deals with many of the multiform aspects of hygiene in modern urban areas. A vital portion concerns the hygiene of housing. Typical of the content and method of enforcing its provisions is the section requiring that '(e)very dwelling and every part thereof shall be kept clean and free from any accumulation of dirt, filth, rubbish, garbage or similar matter, and shall be kept free from vermin or rodent infestation.' Baltimore City Code, Art. 12, § 112. If the occupant of a building fails to meet this standard, he is notified by the Commissioner of Health to abate the substandard conditions. Failure to remove these hazards to community health gives rise to criminal prosecution. Ibid. The attempted inspection of appellant's home was merely to ascertain the existence of evils to be corrected upon due notification or, in default of such correction, to be made the basis of punishment.

We have said that (t)he security of one's privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police' is fundamental to a free society and as such protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 27, 69 S.Ct. 1359, 1361, 93 L.Ed. 1782. Application of the broad restraints of due process compels inquiry into the nature of the demand being made upon individual freedom in a particular context and the justification of social need on which the demand rests.

The history of the constitutional protection against official invasion of the citizen's home makes explicit the human concerns which it was meant to respect. In years prior to the Revolution leading voiced in England and the Colonies protested against the ransacking by Crown officers of the homes of citizens in search of evidence of crime or of illegally imported goods. The vivid memory by the newly independent Americans of these abuses produced the Fourth Amendment as a safeguard against such arbitrary official action by officers of the new Union, as like provisions had already found their way into State Constitutions.

In 1765, in England, what is properly called the great case of Entick v. Carrington, 19 Howell's State Trials, col. 1029, announced the principle of English law which became part of the Bill of Rights and whose basic protection has become imbedded in the concept of due process of law. It was there decided that English law did not allow officers of the Crown to break into a citizen's home, under cover of a general executive warrant, to search for evidence of the utterance of libel. Among the reasons given for that decision were these:

'It is very certain, that the law obligeth no man to accuse     himself; because the necessary means of compelling      self-accusation, falling upon the innocent as well as the      guilty, would be both cruel and unjust; and it should seem,      that search for evidence is disallowed upon the same pinc      iple. There too the innocent would be confounded with the     guilty.' Id., at col. 1073.

There were not novel pronouncements to the colonists. A few years earlier, in Boston, revenue officers had been authorized to sue Writs of Assistance, empowering them to search suspected places, including private houses, for smuggled goods. In 1761 the validity of the use of the Writs was contested in the historic proceedings in Boston. James Otis attacked the Writ of Assistance because its use placed' the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer.' His powerful argument so impressed itself first on his audience and later on the people of all the Colonies that President Adams was in retrospect moved to say that 'American Independence was then and there born.' Many years later this Court, in Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 6 S.Ct. 524, 29 L.Ed. 746, carefully reviewed this history and pointed out, as did Lord Camden in Entick v. Carrington, that

' * *  * the 'unreasonable searches and seizures' condemned in      the fourth amendment are almost always made for the purpose      of compelling a man to give evidence against himself, which in criminal cases is      condemned in the fifth amendment; and compelling a man 'in a      criminal case to be a witness against himself,' which is      condemned in the fifth amendment, throws light on the      question as to what is an 'unreasonable search and seizure'      within the meaning of the fourth amendment.' 116 U.S. at page      633, 6 S.Ct. at page 534.

Against this background two protections emerge from the broad constitutional proscription of official invasion. The first of these is the right to be secure from intrusion into personal privacy, the right to shut the door on officials of the state unless their entry is under proper authority of law. The second, and intimately related protection, is self-protection: the right to resist unauthorized entry which has as its design the securing of information to fortify the coercive power of the state against the individual, information which may be used to effect a further deprivation of life or liberty or property. Thus, evidence of criminal action may not, save in very limited and closely confined situations, be seized without a judicially issued search warrant. It is this aspect of the constitutional protection to which the quoted passages from Entick v. Carrington and Boyd v. United States Refer. Certainly it is not necessary to accept any particular theory of the interrelationship of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to realize what history makes plain, that it was on the issue of the right to be secure from searches for evidence to be used in criminal prosecutions or for forfeitures that the great battle for fundamental liberty was fought. While these concerns for individual rights were the historic impulses behind the Forth Amendment and its analogues in state constitutions, the application of the Fourth Amendment and the extent to which the essential right of privacy is protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment are of course not restricted within these historic bounds.

But giving the fullest scope to this constitutional right to privacy, its protection cannot be here invoked. The attempted inspection of appellant's home is merely to determine whether conditions exist which the Baltimore Health Code proscribes. If they do appellant is notified to remedy the infringing conditions. No evidence for criminal prosecution is sought to be seized. Appellant is simply directed to do what he could have been ordered to do without any inspection, and what he cannot properly resist, namely, act in a manner consistent with the maintenance of minimum community standards of health and well-being, including his own. Appellant's resistance can only be based, not on admissible self-protection, but on a rarely voiced denial of any official justification for seeking to enter his home. The constitutional 'liberty' that is asserted is the absolute right to refuse consent for an inspection designed and pursued solely for the protection of the community's health, even when the inspection is conducted with due regard for every convenience of time and place.

The power of inspection granted by the Baltimore City Code is strictly limited, more exacting than the analogous provisions of many other municipal codes. Valid grounds for suspicion of the existence of a nuisance must exist. Certainly the presence of a pile of filth in the back yard combined with the rundown condition of the house gave adequate grounds for such suspicion. The inspection must be made in the day time. Here was no midnight knock on the door, but an orderly visit in the middle of the afternoon with no suggestion that the hour was inconvenient. Moreover, the inspector has no power to force entry and did not attempt it. A fine is imposed for resistance, but officials are not authorized to break past the unwilling occupant.

Thus, not only does the inspection touch at most upon the periphery of the important interests safeguarded by the Fourteenth Amendment's protection against official intrusion, but it is hedged about with safeguards designed to make the least possible demand on the individual occupant, and to cause only the slightest restriction on his claims of privacy. Such a demand must be assessed in the light of the needs which have produced it.

Inspection without a warrant, as an adjunct to a regulatory scheme for the general welfare of the community and not as a means of enforcing the criminal law, has antecedents deep in our history. For more than 200 years Maryland has empowered its officers to enter upon ships, carriages, shops, and homes in the service of the common welfare. In pre-revolutionary days trade, on which the viability of the struggling Colonies depended, was of primary concern. Thus, at a time when the tobacco trade was a vital part of Maryland's economy, inspections of ships and carriages without a warrant could be made to enforce uniform standards for packing and shipping tobacco. Similarly, suspected evasion of import duties on liquor and other goods could be found out by inspection of stores and homes. Generally the power of entry was carefully limited, requiring that ground for suspicion must exist and that the inspection be conducted between 'the rising and the setting of the sun.'

In 1776 the newly independent State of Maryland incorporated, as part of its basic Declaration of Rights, the principle

'That all warrants, without oath or affirmation, to search     suspected places, or to seize any person or property, are      grievious and oppressive; and all general warrants-to search      suspected places, or to apprehend suspected persons, without      naming or describing the place, or the person in special-are      illegal, and ought not to be granted.' See 3 Thorpe, Federal      and State Constitutions (1909), 1688.

This provision was a product of the same history of abuse and protest that gave birth to the Fourth Amendment. It remains today as an essential part of Maryland's Constitution. Yet, the years following its proclamation saw not a decline but a marked increase in statutory authorization for inspection of the citizen's home. Not only were the old regulations continued, but the power of inspection was extended to new community concerns. In 1782, Commissioners were empowered to 'enter upon the lots, grounds, and possessions, of any person or persons * *  * ' in order to regulate and keep in repair the common sewerage systems. Five years later similar entries on private property were allowed for the purpose of keeping the public roads in repair. Typical of the regulatory statutes enacted in this period was an act permitting the clerk of the market 'to examine and weigh all such bread, and to seize, for the use of the poor of the county, all such as they shall find deficient in weight or fineness, and not baked or marked as aforesaid * *  * .' The penalty for resisting the entry of the clerk was 'five pounds current money.' And so, when, in 1801, the power of inspection without a warrant became an instrument of the enforcement of the Baltimore health laws, no novel or untried procedures were being invoked. The ordinance now challenged derives from this 1801 ordinance. It provided:

'And be it enacted and ordained, That when, and as often as     the said commissioners of health, or any of them, shall have      cause to suspect a nuisance dangerous to the health of the      city exists in any house, cellar or inclosure shut up from      public view, they, or any one of them, may demand entry      therein in the day time for the purpose of examining the      same, and if the owner or occupier thereof shall refuse or      delay to open the same and to admit a free examinatio, h e shall      forfeit and pay for every such refusal the sum of twenty      dollars, for the use of the corporation.'

From the passage of this ordinance to the present the prevention and abatement of 'nuisances' on private property has been one of the chief concerns of the Baltimore City Health Department. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, in the years following the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, thousands upon thousands of inspections were made under authority of this ordinance. Thus the system of inspection here under attack, having its beginning in Maryland's colonial history, has been an integral part of the enforcement of Baltimore's health laws for more than a century and a half. The legal significance of such a long and consistent history of state practice has been illuminated for us by Mr. Justice Holmes:

'The Fourteenth Amendment, itself a historical product, did     not destroy history for the States and substitute mechanical      compartments of law all exactly alike. If a thing has been     practised for two hundred years by common consent, it will      need a strong case for the Fourteenth Amendment to affect it,      *  *  * .' Jackman v. Rosenbaum Co., 260 U.S. 22, 31, 43 S.Ct. 9, 67 L.Ed. 107. (As to the constitutional significance of a     'time-honored procedure' see Den ex dem Murray v. Hoboken      Land and Improvement Co., 18 how. 272, 15 L.Ed. 372, and      Ownbey v. Morgan, 256 U.S. 94, 41 S.Ct. 433, 65 L.Ed. 837.) Of course, this wise reminder, that what free people have found consistent with their enjoyment of freedom for centuries is hardly to be deemed to violate due process, does not freeze due process within the confines of historical facts or discredited attitudes. 'It is of the very nature of a free society to advance in its standards of what is deemed reasonable and right. Representing as it does a living principle, due process is not confined within a permanent catalogue of what may at a given time be deemed the limits or the essentials of fundamental rights.' Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 27, 69 S.Ct. 1359, 1361.

The power here challenged rests not only on a long history of its exercise. It is a power which was continually strengthened and applied to wider concerns through those very years when the right of individuals to be free from peremptory official invasion received increasing legislative and judicial protection. Nor is this a situation where a new body of knowledge displaces previous premises of action. There is a total want of important modification in the circumstances or the structure of society which calls for a disregard of so much history. On the contrary, the problems which gave rise to these ordinances have multiplied manifold, as have the difficulties of enforcement. The need to maintain basic, minimal standards of housing, to prevent the spread of disease and of that pervasive breakdown in the fiber of a people which is produced by slums and the absence of the barest essentials of civilized living, has mounted to a major concern of American government. The growth of cities, the crowding of populations, the increased awareness of the responsibility of the state for the living conditions of its citizens, all have combined to create problems of the enforcement of minimum standards of far greater magnitude than the writers of these acie nt inspection laws ever dreamed. Time and experience have forcefully taught that the power to inspect dwelling places, either as a matter of systematic area-by-area search or, as here, to treat a specific problem, is of indispensable importance to the maintenance of community health; a power that would be greatly hobbled by the blanket requirement of the safeguards necessary for a search of evidence of criminal acts. The need for preventive action is great, and city after city has seen this need and granted the power of inspection to its health officials; and these inspections are apparently welcomed by all but an insignificant few. Certainly, the nature of our society has not vitiated the need for inspections first thought necessary 158 years ago, nor has experience revealed any abuse or inroad on freedom in meeting this need by means that history and dominant public opinion have sanctioned.

That there is 'a total unlikeness' between 'official acts and proceedings,' Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 624, 6 S.Ct. 524, 529, for which the legal protection of privacy requires a search warrant under the Fourteenth Amendment, and the situation now under consideration is laid bare by the suggestion that the kind of an inspection by a health official with which we are concerned may be satisfied by what is, in effect, a synthetic search warrant, an authorization 'for periodic inspections.' If a search warrant be constitutionally required, the requirement cannot be flexibly interpreted to dispense with the rigorous constitutional restrictions for its issue. A loose basis for granting a search warrant for the situation before us is to enter by way of the back door to a recognition of the fact that by reason of their intrinsic elements, their historic sanctions, and their safeguards, the Maryland proceedings requesting permission to make a search without intruding when permission is denied, do not offend the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In light of the long history of this kind of inspection and of modern needs, we cannot say that the carefully circumscribed demand which Maryland here makes on appellant's freedom has deprived him of due process of law.

Affirmed.