One 1958 Plymouth Sedan v. Pennsylvania/Opinion of the Court

At approximately 6:30 a.m. on December 16, 1960, two law enforcement officers of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board stationed near Camden, New Jersey, at the approach to the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, observed a 1958 Plymouth sedan bearing Pennsylvania license plates proceeding toward the bridge in the direction of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The officers, noting that '(t)he car was low in the rear, quite low,' followed it across the bridge into Philadelphia. They stopped the automobile a short distance within the city, identified themselves and questioned the owner, George McGonigle. The officers then searched the car and, in the rear and the trunk, found 31 cases of liquor not bearing Pennsylvania tax seals. The car and liquor were seized and McGonigle was arrested and charged with violation of Pennsylvania law. The officers did not have either a search or arrest warrant.

Pursuant to a Pennsylvania statute the Commonwealth filed a petition for forfeiture of the automobile. At the hearing, McGonigle, by timely objection, sought dismissal of the forfeiture petition on the ground that the forfeiture of the automobile depended upon the admission of evidence illegally obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution as applied to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment. The trial court sustained this position and dismissed the forfeiture petition. In doing so, the trial judge made a specific finding that '(t)he seizure was founded upon evidence illegally obtained, since under the particular circumstances the officers acted without probable cause.' The Superior Court of Pennsylvania, an intermediate appellate court, by a 4-to-3 decision reversed the order dismissing the petition and directed that the automobile be forfeited. 199 Pa.Super. 428, 186 A.2d 52. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the order of the Superior Court, one judge dissenting. 414 Pa. 540, 201 A.2d 427.

The basis of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision was that the exclusionary rule, which this Court in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 657, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 1693, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081, held 'is an essential part of both the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments,' applies only to criminal prosecutions and is not applicable in a forfeiture proceeding which the Pennsylvania court deemed civil in nature. In light of this disposition of the case, the State Supreme Court did not review the trial court's finding of lack of probable cause, stating:

'The thrust of the arguments, both of the appellant and the     Commonwealth, is directed to the validity and propriety of      the search and the subsequent seizure by the officers of this      Plymouth automobile. In our view, such arguments are beyond     the point. By reason of the nature of the present proceeding,     i.e., a forfeiture procedure, we consider it unnecessary to      determine the propriety and validity of the search and the      seizure of this automobile.' 414 Pa., at 542; 201 A.2d, at      429.

We granted certiorari, 379 U.S. 927, 85 S.Ct. 323, 13 L.Ed.2d 340, to consider the important question of whether the constitutional exclusionary rule enunciated in Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 34 S.Ct. 341, 58 L.Ed. 652, and Mapp applies to forfeiture proceedings of the character involved here-a question on which there has been conflict in both state and federal decisions. For the reasons set forth below, we hold that the constitutional exclusionary rule does apply to such forfeiture proceedings and consequently reverse the judgment of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

As this Court has acknowledged, '(t)he leading case on the subject of search and seizure is Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 6 S.Ct. 524, 29 L.Ed. 746.' Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 147, 45 S.Ct. 280, 283, 69 L.Ed. 543. See Mapp v. Ohio, supra, 367 U.S. at 646-647, 81 S.Ct. at 1686-1687. Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 6 S.Ct. 524, 29 L.Ed. 746, itself was not a criminal case but was a proceeding by the United States to forfeit 35 cases of plate glass which had allegedly been imported without payment of the customs duty. The District Judge in the case entered an order compelling the owners of the plate glass to produce certain record which would aid the United States in proving its case for forfeiture. The question before the Court in Boyd was whether the compulsory production of a man's private papers for their evidentiary use against him in a proceeding to forfeit his property for alleged fraud against the revenue laws constituted an unreasonable search and seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. In holding that the Fourth Amendment applied and barred such attempted seizure, Mr. Justice Bradley, for the Court stated:

'We are also clearly of opinion that proceedings instituted     for the purpose of declaring the forfeiture of a man's      property by reason of offenses committed by him, though they      may be civil in form, are in their nature criminal. In this     very case the ground of forfeiture as declared in the twelfth      section of the act of 1874, on which the information is      based, consists of certain acts of fraud committed against      the public revenue in relation to imported merchandise, which      are made criminal by the statute; and it is declared, that      the offender shall be fined not exceeding $5,000, nor less      than $50, or be imprisoned not exceeding two years, or both;      and in addition to such fine such merchandise shall be      forfeited. These are the penalties affixed to the criminal     acts, the forfeiture sought by this suit being one of them. If an indictment had been presented against the claimants,     upon conviction the forfeiture of the goods could have been      included in the judgment. If the government prosecutor elects     to waive an indictment, and to file a civil information      against the claimants,-that is, civil in form,-can he by this      device take from the proceeding its criminal aspect and      deprive the claimants of their immunities as citizens, and      extort from them a production of their private papers, or, as      an alternative, a confession of guilt? This cannot be. The     information, though technically a civil proceeding, is in      substance and effect a criminal one. * *  * As, therefore,      suits for penalties and forfeitures incurred by the      commission of offenses against the law, are of this quasi      criminal nature, we think that they are within the reason of      criminal proceedings for all the purposes of the fourth amendment of the constitution *  *      * .' Boyd v. United States, supra, 116 U.S. at 633-634, 6      S.Ct. at 534.

This authoritative statement and the holding by the Court in Boyd that the Government could not seize evidence in violation of the Fourth Amendment for use in a forfeiture proceeding would seem to be dispositive of this case. The Commonwealth, however, argues that Boyd is factually distinguishable as it involved a subpoena sought by the Government for the production of evidence whereas the issue here is the admissibility of illegally seized evidence already in the Government's possession. Although there is this factual difference between Boyd and the case at bar, nevertheless the basic holding of Boyd applies with equal, if not greater, force to the case before us. In both the Boyd situation and here the essential question is whether evidence-in Boyd the books and records, here the results of the search of the car-the obtaining of which violates the Fourth Amendment may be relied upon to sustain a forfeiture. Boyd holds that it may not.

The Commonwealth further argues that Boyd's unequivocal statement that the Fourth Amendment applies to forfeiture proceedings as well as criminal prosecutions has been undermined by the statements of this Court in United States v. Jeffers, 342 U.S. 48, 54, 72 S.Ct. 93, 96, 96 L.Ed. 59, and Trupiano v. United States, 334 U.S. 699, 710, 68 S.Ct. 1229, 1234-1235, 92 L.Ed. 1663. Jeffers and Trupiano, unlike Boyd, were not forfeiture cases. They were federal criminal prosecutions. In both cases the Court held that evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment was not admissible notwithstanding the fact that the evidence involved was contraband. By way of dictum, however, since the point was not before it, the Court stated in these cases that its ruling that the contraband was excludable as illegally seized did not mean that the Government was required to return the illegally imported narcotics to Jeffers or the unregistered still, alcohol and mash to Trupiano.

The nature of the contraband involved in these cases clearly explains these statements of the Court. Both Trupiano and Jeffers concerned objects the possession of which, without more, constitutes a crime. The repossession of such per se contraband by Jeffers and Trupiano would have subjected them to criminal penalties. The return of the contraband would clearly have frustrated the express public policy against the possession of such objects. See United States v. Jeffers, supra, 342 U.S. at 53 54, 72 S.Ct. at 96.

It is apparent that the nature of the property here, though termed contraband by Pennsylvania, is quite different. There is nothing even remotely criminal in possessing an automobile. It is only the alleged use to which this particular automobile was put that subjects Mr. McGonigle to its possible loss. And it is conceded here that the Commonwealth could not establish an illegal use without using the evidence resulting from the search which is challenged as having been in violation of the Constitution. Furthermore, the return of the automobile to the owner would not subject him to any possible criminal penalties for possession or frustrate any public policy concerning automobiles, as automobiles. This distinction between what has been described as contraband per se and only derivative contraband has indeed been recognized by Pennsylvania itself in its requirement of mandatory forfeiture of illegal liquor, and stills, and only discretionary forfeiture of such things as automobiles illegally used. See Purdon's Pa.Stat.Ann., Tit. 47, § 6-602(e) (1964 Cum.Supp.). We, therefore, do not have a case before us in any way analogous to the contraband involved in Jeffers and Trupiano and these cases can in no way be deemed to impair the continued validity of Boyd which, like this case, involved property not intrinsically illegal in character.

Finally as Mr. Justice Bradley aptly pointed out in Boyd, a forfeiture proceeding is quasi-criminal in character. Its object, like a criminal proceeding, is to penalize for the commission of an offense against the law. In this case McGonigle, the driver and owner of the automobile, was arrested and charged with a criminal offense against the Pennsylvania liquor laws. The record does not disclose which particular offense or offenses he was charged with committing. If convicted of any one of the possible offenses involved, however, he would be subject, if a first offender, to a minimum penalty of a $100 fine and a maximum penalty of a $500 fine. In this forfeiture proceeding he was subject to the loss of his automobile, which at the time involved had an estimated value of approximately $1,000, a higher amount than the maximum fine in the criminal proceeding. It would be anomalous indeed, under these circumstances, to hold that in the criminal proceeding the illegally seized evidence is excludable, while in the forfeiture proceeding, requiring the determination that the criminal law has been violated, the same evidence would be admissible. That the forfeiture is clearly a penalty for the criminal offense and can result in even greater punishment than the criminal prosecution has in fact been recognized by the Pennsylvania courts. In Commonwealth v. One 1959 Chevrolet Impala Coupe, involving a forfeiture in 1962, the Pennsylvania Superior Court in affirming the exercise of discretion to waive a forfeiture following a criminal prosecution, stated:

'It seemed to the court below that to make this man pay the     sum of $500.00 in fines, together with the costs of the      proceeding and the storage cost for the automobile, was      sufficient punishment under all the circumstances. To forfeit     a 1959 Chevrolet Impala coupe in addition to the above seemed      to the court below to be entirely out of proportion to the      crime involved. We cannot say that the court below abused its     discretion in so acting.' 201 Pa.Super. 145, 150, 191 A.2d     717, 719.

In sum, we conclude that the nature of a forfeiture proceeding, so well described by Mr. Justice Bradley in Boyd, and the reasons which led the Court to hold that the exclusionary rule of Weeks v. United States, supra, is obligatory upon the States under the Fourteenth Amendment, so well articulated by Mr. Justice Clark in Mapp, support the conclusion that the exclusionary rule is applicable to forfeiture proceedings such as the one involved here. This being the case, the judgment of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court must be reversed. Our holding frees the Pennsylvania court on remand to review the trial court's finding that the officials did not in this case have probable cause for the search involved, a question which it previously did not consider necessary to decide.

The judgment of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania is reversed and the cause is remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Reversed and remanded.