Williams v. United States (401 U.S. 646)/Opinion of the Court

Mr. Justice WHITE announced the judgment of the Court and an opinion in which THE CHIEF JUSTICE, Mr. Justice STEWART, and Mr. Justice BLACKMUN join.

The principal question in these cases is whether Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969), should be applied retroactively either to the direct review of petitioner Williams' conviction or in the collateral proceeding initiated by petitioner Elkanich.

* In No. 81, federal agents on March 31, 1967, secured a warrant to arrest petitioner Williams on charges of selling narcotics in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 174. Williams was arrested at his home that night. A quantity of heroin was discovered and seized in the course of a search incident to the arrest. The trial court sustained the search and the heroin was introduced in evidence. Williams was convicted and sentenced to a 10-year prison term. The judgment of conviction was affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Williams v. United States, 418 F.2d 159 (CA9 1969). That court held: (1) that our intervening decision in Chimel v. California, supra, was not retroactive and did not govern searches carried out prior to June 23, 1969, the date of that decision; and (2) that the search was valid under pre-Chimel law evidenced by United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 70 S.Ct. 430, 94 L.Ed. 653 (1950), and Harris v. United States, 331 U.S. 145, 67 S.Ct. 1098, 91 L.Ed. 1399 (1947). The Court of Appeals also rejected a claim that the search was invalid because the arrest was a mere pretext for an unwarranted search. We granted certiorari. 397 U.S. 986, 90 S.Ct. 1120, 25 L.Ed.2d 396 (1970).

In No. 82, petitioner Elkanich was convicted on three counts of selling narcotics in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 174. He was sentenced to three concurrent 10-year sentences. The evidence introduced included marked bills given by federal agents to an intermediary to use in purchasing narcotics. The bills were seized during a search of petitioner's apartment following his arrest there. The search was challenged at trial on the ground that the arrest was invalid. Both the arest and the incident search were upheld at trial and on direct appeal. Elkanich v. United States, 327 F.2d 417 (CA9 1964), as well as by the District Court and the Court of Appeals in subsequent proceedings brought by petitioner under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. We granted the petition for certiorari to consider the effect, if any, of our Chimel decision, which intervened when the appeal from denial of petitioner's § 2255 application was pending in the Court of Appeals. 396 U.S. 1057, 90 S.Ct. 760, 24 L.Ed.2d 757 (1970). We affirm the judgments in both cases.

Aside from an insubstantial claim by Williams that his arrest was invalid, neither petitioner in this Court suggests that his conviction was unconstitutionally obtained; no evidence and no procedures were employed at or before trial that violated any then-governing constitutional norms. Concededly, the evidence seized incident to the arrest of both petitioners was both properly seized and admitted under the Fourth Amendment as construed and applied in Harris in 1947 and Rabinowitz in 1950. Both Harris and Rabinowitz, however, were disapproved by Chimel. That case considerably narrowed the permissible scope of searches incident to arrest, and petitioners argue that the searches carried out in these cases, if judged by Chimel standards, were unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment and the evidence seized inadmissible at trial. However, we reaffirm our recent decisions in like situations: Chimel is not retroactive and is not applicable to searches conducted prior to the decision in that case. Desist v. United States, 394 U.S. 244, 89 S.Ct. 1030, 22 L.Ed.2d 248 (1969).

In Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 85 S.Ct. 1731, 14 L.Ed.2d 601 (1965), we declined to give complete retroactive effect to the exclusionary rule of Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961). Relying on prior cases, we firmly rejected the idea that all new interpretations of the Constitution must be considered always to have been the law and that prior constructions to the contrary must always be ignored. Since that time, we have held to the course that there is no inflexible constitutional rule requiring in all circumstances either absolute retroactivity or complete prospectivity for decisions construing the broad language of the Bill of Rights. Nor have we accepted as a dividing line the suggested distinction between cases on direct review and those arising on collateral attack. Rather we have proceeded to 'weigh the merits and demerits in each case by looking to the prior history of the rule in question, its purpose and effect, and whether retrospective operation will further or retard its operation.' Linkletter, supra, 381 U.S. at 629, 85 S.Ct. at 1738.

Where the major purpose of new constitutional doctrine is to overcome an aspect of the criminal trial that substantially impairs its truth-finding function and so raises serious questions about the accuracy of guilty verdicts in past trials, the new rule has been given complete retroactive effect. Neither good-faith reliance by state or federal authorities on prior constitutional law or accepted practice, nor severe impact on the administration of justice has sufficed to require prospective application in these circumstances.

It is quite different where the purpose of the new constitutional standard proscribing the use of certain evidence or a particular mode of trial is not to minimize or avoid arbitrary or unreliable results but to serve other ends. In these situations the new doctrine raises no question about the guilt of defendants convicted in prior trials. Mapp v. Ohio cast no doubt on the relevance or probity of illegally seized evidence but excluded it from criminal trials to deter official invasions of individual privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967), overruled Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 48 S.Ct. 564, 72 L.Ed. 944 (1928), and Goldman v. United States, 316 U.S. 129, 62 S.Ct. 993, 86 L.Ed. 1322 (1942), and gave expanded Fourth Amendment protection against nonconsensual eavesdropping. It followed that evidence obtained by nontrespassory electronic surveillance of a public telephone booth became subject to the exclusionary rule, which had been fashioned by the Court to exact compliance with the Amendment rather than to protect defendants from conviction on untrustworthy evidence. Thus the Court, when it came to consider the retroactivity of Mapp and Katz, was dealing with cases quite different from those situations where emerging constitutional doctrine casts such doubt upon the soundness of some aspect of prior trials that State and Federal Governments were disentitled from further pursuing the goals of their criminal law against defendants convicted in such prior trials.

The petitioners in both Linkletter and Desist were convicted in proceedings that conformed to all then-applicable constitutional norms. In both cases the government involved had a concededly guilty defendant in custody and substantial unsatisfied interests in achieving with respect to such defendant whatever deterrent and rehabilitative goals underlay its criminal justice system. Each defendant, Linkletter by the habeas corpus route, and Desist on direct appeal, claimed the benefit of a later decided case and demanded a new trial. But ordering new trials would have involved not only expense and effort but the inevitable risk of unavailable witnesses and faulty memories; the authorities might not have had the evidence they once had and might have been foreclosed from obtaining other evidence they might have secured had they known the evidence they were using was constitutionally suspect. Moreover, it was not essential to the deterrent purpose of the exclusionary rule that Mapp and Katz be given retroactive effect; indeed that purpose would have been only marginally furthered by extending relief to Linkletter, Desist, and all others in comparable situations. In these circumstances, we found no constitutional warrant for setting aside either conviction.

Considering that Desist represents the sound approach to retroactivity claims in Fourth Amendment cases, we are confident that we are not constitutionally bound to apply the standards of Chimel to the cases brought here by Elkanich and Williams. Both petitioners were duly convicted when judged by the then-existing law; the authorities violated neither petitioner's rights either before or at trial. No claim is made that the evidence against them was constitutionally insufficient to prove their guilt. And the Chimel rule will receive sufficient implementation by applying it to those cases involving the admissibility of evidence seized in searches occurring after Chimel was announced on June 23, 1969, and carried out by authorities who through mistake or ignorance have violated the precepts of that decision.

Both from the course of decision since Linkletter and from what has been said in this opinion, it should be clear that we find no constitutional difference between the applicability of Chimel to those prior convictions that are here on direct appeal and those involving collateral proceedings. Nor in constitutional terms is there any difference between state and federal prisoners insofar as retroactive application to their cases is concerned.

We accept Mr. Justice HARLAN'S truism, stated in dissent, that our task is to adjudicate cases and the issues they present, including constitutional questions where necessary to dispose of the controversy. Hence, we must resolve the Fourth Amendment issues raised by Elkanich and Williams. But this leaves the question of how those issues should be resolved. Assuming that neither has a colorable claim under the pre-Chimel law but both would be entitled to relief if Chimel is the governing standard, which constitutional standard is to rule these cases? This is the unavoidable threshold issue-as Mr. Justice HARLAN describes it in discussing cases before us on collateral review, a 'choice of law problem.' Post, at 1175.

The opinions filed in these cases offer various answers to the question. We would judge the claims in both Williams and Elkanich by the law prevailing when petitioners were searched. Surely this resolution is no more legislative, and no less judicial, than that of Mr. Justice HARLAN. He feels compelled to apply new overruling decisions to cases here on direct review but deems himself free, with some vague and inscrutable exceptions, to refuse the benefits of new decisions to those defendants who collaterally attack their convictions. The latter judgment seems to rest chiefly on his own assessment of the public interest in achieving finality in criminal litigation. The former is not explained at all except by repeated assertions that cases here on direct review are different. But we have no authority to upset criminal convictions at will. Does the Constitution compel us to apply Chimel retroactively and set aside Williams' conviction when he was convicted on sound evidence secured in conformity with the then-applicable constitutional law as announced by this Court? As we have said, we think not-no more so than it compels applying the teachings of Chimel in reviewing the denial of Elkanich's petition for collateral relief. Other than considering it inherent in the process of judicial review, Mr. Justice HARLAN does not directly address the question. Nor does he purport to explain how the purpose of the exclusionary rule fashioned by this Court as a Fourth Amendment mechanism will be at all furthered by mechanically affording Williams the benefit of Chimel.

We are also unmoved by the argument that since the petitioners in cases like Mapp, Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 20 L.Ed.2d 491 (1968), and Katz have been given relief, when it was only by chance that their cases first brought those issues here for decision, it is unfair to deny relief to others whose cases are as thoroughly deserving. It would follow from this argument that all previous convictions that would be vulnerable if they occurred today would be set aside. Surely this is the tail wagging the dog. The argument was fairly met and adequately disposed of in Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 301, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 1972, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967). We see no reason to repeat or reconsider what we said in that case.

It is urged that the prevailing approach to retroactivity involves confusing problems of identifying those 'new' constitutional interpretations that so change the law that prospectivity is arguably the proper course. But we have no such problems in these cases since to reach the result it did the Court in Chimel found it necessary to disapprove Harris and Rabinowitz and under those cases the search in Chimel and the searches now before us would ahve been deemed reasonable for Fourth Amendment purposes. Moreover, the idea that circumstances may require prospectivity for judicial decisions construing the Constitution is an old one; it is not a new problem for the courts. It has not proved unmanageable and we doubt that courts and judges have suddenly lost the competence to deal with the problems that it may present.

The judgments are affirmed.

Affirmed.

While joining the plurality opinion, Mr. Justice STEWART would also affirm the judgment in No. 82, Elkanich v. United States, on the alternative ground that the issue presented is not one cognizable in a proceeding brought under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. See Harris v. Nelson, 394 U.S. 286, 307, 89 S.Ct. 1082, 1094, 22 L.Ed.2d 281 (dissenting opinion); Kaufman v. United States, 394 U.S. 217, 242, 89 S.Ct. 1068, 1082, 22 L.Ed.2d 227 (dissenting opinion); Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 54, 90 S.Ct. 1975, 1983, 26 L.Ed.2d 419 (concurring opinion).

Mr. Justice BLACK, while adhering to his opinion in Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 640, 85 S.Ct. 1731, 1743, 14 L.Ed.2d 601 (1965), concurs in the result on the ground that he believes that Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969), was wrongly decided.

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.