MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER delivered the opinion of the Court.
These two cases present variants of the same problem: the appealability of an order granting or denying a pretrial motion to suppress the evidentiary use in a federal criminal trial of material allegedly procured through
On October 15, 1958, a warrant was issued by a United States Commissioner in the Eastern District of New York for the arrest of Mario DiBella upon a complaint charging unlawful sales of narcotics. The warrant was executed on March 9, 1959, in DiBella's apartment, and was followed by seizure of the drugs, equipment, and cash now in question. DiBella was arraigned and released under bail the next day. On June 17, 1959, a motion to suppress was filed on his behalf with the District Court for the Eastern District of New York, and hearing was scheduled for July 6. Several continuances followed, and before the hearing was held, on August 25, an indictment against DiBella was returned in the same district. The motion was ultimately denied, without prejudice to renewal at trial. 178 F.Supp. 5. The Court of Appeals
The motion in the companion case, on behalf of Daniel Koenig, was likewise filed before indictment, and this time in a district other than that of trial. Koenig had been arrested on September 22, 1959, in the Southern District of Florida on the basis of a complaint charging robbery of a federally insured bank in the Southern District of Ohio. His motion to suppress and for return of property seized during that arrest was filed in the Florida federal court on October 12, three days after the local United States Commissioner had held a final hearing on the Ohio complaint and two days before he recommended a warrant of removal. On October 16, an indictment against Koenig was returned in the Southern District of Ohio. After three hearings on the motion, the Florida District Court entered its order on December 18, granting suppression but denying return without prejudice to renewal of the motion in the trial court. The Government's appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction on the ground that, following recent decisions of that court, the order was interlocutory in a criminal case. 290 F.2d 166. We granted certiorari in the two cases, 365 U.S. 809 and 368 U.S. 812, respectively, to resolve a conflict among the circuits.
The settled view of the Second Circuit, that a ruling on a pre-indictment motion invariably lays the basis for immediate appellate review, in that it constitutes a "final decision" under 28 U. S. C. § 1291, even though an indictment intervenes, has not been squarely passed upon by this Court. We have denied appealability from orders on post-indictment motions to both the Government, Carroll v. United States, 354 U.S. 394, and the defendant,
The general principle of federal appellate jurisdiction, derived from the common law and enacted by the First Congress, requires that review of nisi prius proceedings await their termination by final judgment. First Judiciary Act, §§ 21, 22, 25, 1 Stat. 73, 83, 84, 85 (1789); see McLish v. Roff, 141 U.S. 661. This insistence on finality and prohibition of piecemeal review discourage undue litigiousness and leaden-footed administration of justice, particularly damaging to the conduct of criminal cases. See Cobbledick v. United States, 309 U.S. 323, 324-326.
Since the procedural aspects of law deal with the practical affairs of men and do not constitute an abstract system of doctrinaire notions, Congress has recognized the need of exceptions for interlocutory orders in certain types of proceedings where the damage of error unreviewed before the judgment is definitive and complete, see Collins v. Miller, 252 U.S. 364, 370, has been deemed greater than the disruption caused by intermediate appeal.
Moreover, the concept of finality as a condition of review has encountered situations which make clear that it need not invite self-defeating judicial construction. Thus, acceptance of appeal from orders definitively directing an immediate transfer of property, although an accounting remains, Forgay v. Conrad, 6 How. 201, has been justified as "review of the adjudication which is concluded because it is independent of, and unaffected by, another litigation with which it happens to be entangled." Radio Station WOW v. Johnson, 326 U.S. 120, 126.
Despite these statutory exceptions to, and judicial construction of, the requirement of finality, "the final judgment rule is the dominant rule in federal appellate practice." 6 Moore, Federal Practice (2d ed. 1953), 113. Particularly is this true of criminal prosecutions. See, e. g., Parr v. United States, 351 U.S. 513, 518-521. Every statutory exception is addressed either in terms or by necessary operation solely to civil actions. Moreover, the delays and disruptions attendant upon intermediate appeal are especially inimical to the effective and fair administration of the criminal law. The Sixth Amendment guarantees a speedy trial. Rule 2 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure counsels construction of the Rules "to secure simplicity in procedure, fairness in administration and the elimination of unjustifiable expense and delay"; Rules 39 (d) and 50 assign preference to criminal cases on both trial and appellate dockets.
Again, the decisions according finality to civil orders in advance of an ultimately concluding judgment have rested on finding a particular claim to be independent, because
The precise question before us has been much canvassed in the lower courts. It has not only produced a conflict among the circuits, but has provoked practical difficulties in the administration of criminal justice and caused expressions of dissatisfaction even in courts that have sustained an appeal. Although only the Fourth and Fifth Circuits have clearly departed from the Second Circuit's view,
We should decide the question here—we are free to do so—with due regard to historic principle and to the practicalities in the administration of criminal justice. An order granting or denying a pre-indictment motion to suppress does not fall within any class of independent proceedings otherwise recognized by this Court, and there is every practical reason for denying it such recognition. To regard such a disjointed ruling on the admissibility of a potential item of evidence in a forthcoming trial as the termination of an independent proceeding, with full panoply of appeal and attendant stay, entails serious disruption to the conduct of a criminal trial.
In the Narcotic Control Act of 1956, § 201, 70 Stat. 567, 573, 18 U. S. C. § 1404, Congress did grant the Government the right to appeal from orders granting pretrial motions to suppress the use of seized narcotics as
We hold, accordingly, that the mere circumstance of a pre-indictment motion does not transmute the ensuing evidentiary ruling into an independent proceeding begetting finality even for purposes of appealability. Presentations before a United States Commissioner, Go-Bart Co. v. United States, 282 U.S. 344, 352-354, as well as before a grand jury, Cobbledick v. United States, 309 U.S. 323, 327, are parts of the federal prosecutorial system leading to a criminal trial. Orders granting or denying suppression in the wake of such proceedings are truly interlocutory, for the criminal trial is then fairly in train. When at the time of ruling there is outstanding a complaint, or a detention or release on bail following arrest, or an arraignment, information, or indictment—in each such case the order on a suppression motion must be treated as "but a step in the criminal case preliminary to the trial thereof." Cogen v. United States, 278 U.S. 221, 227. Only if the motion is solely for return of property
An alternative ground for appealability in the Koenig case, likewise culled from dicta in some of our decisions, would assign independence to the suppression order because rendered in a different district from that of trial. Dier v. Banton, 262 U.S. 147, the only holding pointed to, is clearly inapposite; it allowed an appeal from an order by a federal bankruptcy court permitting delivery of a bankrupt's papers to state prosecuting officials. Cf. Rea v. United States, 350 U.S. 214; Wilson v. Schnettler, 365 U.S. 381. There is a decision in the Second Circuit, United States v. Klapholz, 230 F.2d 494 (1956), allowing the Government an appeal from an order granting a post-indictment motion to suppress, apparently for the single reason that the motion was filed in the district of seizure rather than of trial; but the case was soon thereafter taken by a District Court to have counseled declining jurisdiction of such motions for reasons persuasive against allowing the appeal: "This course will avoid a needless duplication of effort by two courts and provide a more expeditious resolution of the controversy besides avoiding the risk of determining prematurely and inadequately the admissibility of evidence at the trial. . . . A piecemeal adjudication such as that which would necessarily follow from a disposition of the motion here might conceivably result in prejudice either to the Government or the defendants, or both." United States v. Lester, 21 F. R. D. 30, 31 (D. C. S. D. N. Y. 1957). Rule 41 (e), of course, specifically provides for making of the motion in the district of seizure. On a summary hearing, however, the ruling there is likely always to be tentative.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals in No. 21 is vacated and the cause is remanded with instructions to dismiss the appeal. In No. 93, the judgment is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
THE CHIEF JUSTICE, MR. JUSTICE BLACK and MR. JUSTICE STEWART concur in the result.
MR. JUSTICE WHITTAKER took no part in the disposition of these cases.
FootNotes
"A person aggrieved by an unlawful search and seizure may move the district court for the district in which the property was seized for the return of the property and to suppress for use as evidence anything so obtained on the ground that (1) the property was illegally seized without warrant, or (2) the warrant is insufficient on its face, or (3) the property seized is not that described in the warrant, or (4) there was not probable cause for believing the existence of the grounds on which the warrant was issued, or (5) the warrant was illegally executed. The judge shall receive evidence on any issue of fact necessary to the decision of the motion. If the motion is granted the property shall be restored unless otherwise subject to lawful detention and it shall not be admissible in evidence at any hearing or trial. The motion to suppress evidence may also be made in the district where the trial is to be had. The motion shall be made before trial or hearing unless opportunity therefore did not exist or the defendant was not aware of the grounds for the motion, but the court in its discretion may entertain the motion at the trial or hearing."
Fifth Circuit: Zacarias v. United States, 261 F.2d 416 (1958); Saba v. United States, 282 F.2d 255 (1960).
In the District of Columbia Circuit, the decisions appear to have inverted the Second Circuit rule: pre-indictment motions have been held interlocutory, Nelson v. United States, 93 U. S. App. D. C. 14, 24-26, 208 F.2d 505, 515-517 (1953), while post-indictment motions have been treated as independent, United States v. Cefaratti, 91 U. S. App. D. C. 297, 202 F.2d 13 (1952). But see United States v. Stephenson, 96 U. S. App. D. C. 44, 223 F.2d 336 (1955).
Second Circuit: United States v. Poller, 43 F.2d 911 (1930); In re Milburne, 77 F.2d 310 (1935); United States v. Edelson, 83 F.2d 404 (1936); Cheng Wai v. United States, 125 F.2d 915 (1942); Lagow v. United States, 159 F.2d 245 (1946); In re Fried, 161 F.2d 453 (1947); Lapides v. United States, 215 F.2d 253 (1954); Russo v. United States, 241 F.2d 285 (1957); Carlo v. United States, 286 F.2d 841 (1961); Grant v. United States, 291 F.2d 227 (1961); Greene v. United States, 296 F.2d 841 (1961).
Third Circuit: In re Sana Laboratories, 115 F.2d 717 (1940); United States v. Bianco, 189 F.2d 716, 717 n. 2 (1951); United States v. Sineiro, 190 F.2d 397 (1951); United States v. Murphy, 290 F.2d 573 (1961).
Sixth Circuit: Benes v. Canary, 224 F.2d 470 (1955).
Seventh Circuit: Socony Mobil Oil Co. v. United States, 275 F.2d 227 (1960) (by implication) (semble).
Eight Circuit: Goodman v. Lane, 48 F.2d 32 (1931).
Ninth Circuit: Freeman v. United States, 160 F.2d 69 (1946); Weldon v. United States, 196 F.2d 874, 875 (1952); Hoffritz v. United States, 240 F.2d 109 (1956). But see Rodgers v. United States, 158 F.Supp. 670 (D. C. S. D. Cal.), mandamus and prohibition denied in id., at 684 note (C. A. 9th Cir. 1958).
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