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.
Pursuant to a Pennsylvania statute
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, 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:
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." Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 147. See Mapp v. Ohio, supra, at 646-647. Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 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 records 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
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, and Trupiano v. United States, 334 U.S. 699, 710. 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
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.
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
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.
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.
It is so ordered.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK, concurring.
The language of the Fourth Amendment forbids "unreasonable searches and seizures" but it does not expressly or by implication provide that evidence secured in such a way cannot be used in a prosecution against an accused. Congress could, of course, pass a law to preclude the use of evidence so secured in the federal courts, but I do not believe this Court or any other has constitutional power to pass such a law itself. See Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 39 (concurring opinion). For these reasons I cannot agree that because we ourselves might believe the practice of obtaining evidence in that manner "shocks the conscience" or is "shabby" or "arbitrary," we are commanded or even authorized by the Constitution to prevent its use as evidence. That seems to me to be amending the Constitution, which is the business of the people, not interpreting it, which is the business of the courts. But the Fifth Amendment does specifically provide that "No person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself," and this Court held in Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 634-635, that "a compulsory production of the private books and papers of the owner of goods sought to be forfeited in . . . a suit is compelling him to be a witness against himself, within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, and is the equivalent of a search and seizure—and an unreasonable search and seizure—within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment." Boyd therefore stands for the constitutional principle that evidence secured by unreasonable search and seizure is compelled
This Court in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 646, recognized as the Court had in Boyd that "the Fourth and Fifth Amendments run almost into each other." 116 U. S., at 630. At the very outset of its opinion in Mapp this Court relied on and quoted at length from the opinion in the Boyd case, which had relied on the Fourth and Fifth Amendments together to forbid the use in court of evidence obtained through an unreasonable search or seizure. 367 U. S., at 646-647. Use of such evidence, the Court said in Mapp, would be "tantamount to coerced testimony." 367 U. S., at 656. And we said last Term in Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 8:
It was because of the Court's reliance on the Boyd doctrine —which held that the Fourth and Fifth Amendments together barred use of unreasonably seized evidence— that I joined the Court's opinion in Mapp. See 367 U.S. 643, 661 (concurring opinion). And for that same reason I agree with the Court today that the Fourth Amendment's protection against unlawful search and seizure and
I also agree with the Court that our remand expresses no view as to whether the trial court was correct in its ruling on the issue of probable cause, and that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania is free on remand to review the trial court's finding, and that of course, as declared in Mapp, the standard of probable cause is the same in the state courts as in the federal courts.
FootNotes
"No property rights shall exist in any liquor, alcohol or malt or brewed beverage illegally manufactured or possessed, or in any still, equipment, material, utensil, vehicle, boat, vessel, animals or aircraft used in the illegal manufacture or illegal transportation of liquor, alcohol or malt or brewed beverages, and the same shall be deemed contraband and proceedings for its forfeiture to the Commonwealth may, at the discretion of the board, be instituted in the manner hereinafter provided."
"The exclusion of evidence obtained by an unlawful search and seizure stands on a different ground. If the search and seizure are unlawful as invading personal rights secured by the Constitution those rights would be infringed yet further if the evidence were allowed to be used."
"Any person who shall violate any of the provisions of this article, except as otherwise specifically provided, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof, shall be sentenced to pay a fine of not less than one hundred dollars ($100), nor more than five hundred dollars ($500), and on failure to pay such fine, to imprisonment for not less than one month, nor more than three months, and for any subsequent offense, shall be sentenced to pay a fine not less than three hundred dollars ($300), nor more than five hundred dollars ($500), and to undergo imprisonment for a period not less than three months, nor more than one year."
"[A]lthough the owner of goods, sought to be forfeited by a proceeding in rem, is not the nominal party, he is, nevertheless, the substantial party to the suit; he certainly is so, after making claim and defence; and, in a case like the present, he is entitled to all the privileges which appertain to a person who is prosecuted for a forfeiture of his property by reason of committing a criminal offence."
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