McDonald v. United States (335 U.S. 451)/Concurrence Jackson

Mr. Justice JACKSON, concurring.

I agree with the result and with the opinion of the Court. But it rejects the search which two courts below have sustained without saying wherein it was wrong. It may be helpful to lower courts and to the police themselves to state what appears to some of us as the reason this search is bad.

The police for several weeks had this defendant, McDonald, under surveillance. The United States Commissioner was approached about a search warrant but, for reasons which do not appear, declined to issue it. The only additional information which led the officers to take the law into their own hands and make this search without a warrant was that they heard an adding machine or a typewriter-the witness was not sure which-operating on the premises. Certainly the sound of an adding machine or typewriter, standing alone, is no indication of crime and it could become significant only when weighed in connection with other evidence. A magistrate might either have issued or refused a warrant if request had been made.

However, the officer in charge of the investigation took the matter into his own hands. He neither had nor sought a search warrant or warrant of arrest; he did not then have knowledge of a crime sufficient, even in his own opinion, to justify arrest, and he did not even know that the suspect, McDonald, was in the rooming house at the time. Nevertheless, he forced open the window of the landlady's bedroom and climbed in. He apparently was in plain clothes but showed his badge to the frightened woman, brushed her aside and then unlocked doors and admitted two other officers. They then went to the hall outside the room rented and occupied by defendant. The officer in charge climbed on a chair and looked through a transom. Seeing the defendant McDonald engaged in activity which he considered to be part of the lottery procedure, he arrested him and searched the quarters. The Government argued, and the court below held, that since the forced entry into the building was through the landlady's window, in a room in which the defendant as a tenant has no rights, no objection to this mode of entry or to the search that followed was available to him.

Doubtless a tenant's quarters in a rooming or apartment house are legally as well as practically exposed to lawful approach by a good many persons without his consent or control. Had the police been admitted as guests of another tenant or had the approaches been thrown open by an obliging landlady or doorman, they would have been legally in the hallways. Like any other stranger, they could then spy or eavesdrop on others without being trespassers. If they peeped through the keyhole or climbed on a chair or on one another's shoulders to look through the transom, I should see no grounds on which the defendant could complain. If in this manner they, or any private citizen, saw a crime in the course of commission, and arrest would be permissible.

But it seems to me that each tenant of a building, while he has no right to exclude from the common hallways those who enter lawfully, does have a personal and constitutionally protected interest in the integrity and security of the entire building against unlawful breaking and entry. Here the police gained access to their peeking post by means that were not merely unauthorized but by means that were forbidden by law and denounced as criminal. In prying up the porch window and climbing into the landlady's bedroom, they were guilty of breaking and entering-a felony in law and a crime far more serious than the one they were engaged in suppressing. Having forced an entry without either a search warrant or an arrest warrant to justify it, the felonious character of their entry, it seems to me, followed every step of their journey inside the house and tainted its fruits with illegality. Cf. Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 34 S.Ct. 341, 58 L.Ed. 652, L.R.A. 1915B, 834, Ann.Cas.1915C, 1177; Taylor v. United States, 286 U.S. 1, 52 S.Ct. 466, 76 L.Ed. 951; Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 68 S.Ct. 367.

Even if one were to conclude that urgent circumstances might justify a forced entry without a warrant, no such emergency was present in this case. Thi method of law enforcement displays a shocking lack of all sense of proportion. Whether there is reasonable necessity for a search without waiting to obtain a warrant certainly depends somewhat upon the gravity of the offense thought to be in progress as well as the hazards of the method of attempting to reach it. In this case the police had been over two months watching the defendant McDonald. His criminal operation, while a shabby swindle that the police are quite right in suppressing, was not one which endangered life or limb or the peace and good order of the community even if it continued another day or two; neither was the racket one the defendant was likely to abandon. Conduct of the numbers racket is not a solitary vice, practiced in secrecy and discoverable only by crashing into dwelling houses. The real difficulty is that it is so little condemned by otherwise law-abiding people that it flourishes widely and involves multitudes of people. It is to me a shocking proposition that private homes, even quarters in a tenement, may be indiscriminately invaded at the discretion of any suspicious police officer engaged in following up offenses that involve no violence or threats of it. While I should be human enough to apply the letter of the law with some indulgence to officers acting to deal with threats or crimes of violence which endanger life or security, it is notable that few of the searches found by this Court to be unlawful dealt with that category or crime. Almost without exception, the overzeal was in suppressing acts not malum in se but only malum prohibitum. While the enterprise of parting fools from their money by the 'numbers' lottery is one that ought to be suppressed, I do not think its suppression is more important to society than the security of the people against unreasonable searches and seizures. When an officer undertakes to act § his own magistrate, he ought to be in a position to justify it by pointing to some real immediate and serious consequences if he postponed action to get a warrant.

I am the less reluctant to reach this conclusion because the method of enforcing the law exemplified by this search is one which not only violates legal rights of defendant but is certain to involve the police in grave troubles if continued. That it did not do so on this occasion was due to luck more than to foresight. Many home-owners in this crime-beset city doubtless are armed. When a woman sees a strange man, in plain clothes, prying up her bedroom window and climbing in, her natural impulse would be to shoot. A plea of justifiable homicide might result awkwardly for enforcement officers. But an officer seeing a gun being drawn on him might shoot first. Under the circumstances of this case, I should not want the task of convincing a jury that it was not murder. I have no reluctance in condemning as unconstitutional a method of law enforcement so reckless and so fraught with danger and discredit to the law enforcement agencies themselves.

As to defendant Washington: He was a guest on the premises. He could have no immunity from spying and listening by those rightfully in the house. But even a guest may expect the shelter of the rooftree he is under against criminal intrusion. I should reverse as to both defendants.

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER, having joined in the Court's opinion, also concurs in this opinion.

Mr. Justice BURTON, with whom The CHIEF JUSTICE and Mr. Justice REED join, dissenting.