U.S. Supreme Court DAVIS v. MISSISSIPPI, 394 U.S. 721 (1969) 394 U.S. 721

[Page 394 U.S. 721, 723]

to the victim in her hospital room. A police officer testified that these confrontations were for the purpose of sharpening the victim's description of her assailant by providing "a gauge to go by on size and color." The victim did not identify petitioner as her assailant at any of these confrontations.

On December 12, the police drove petitioner 90 miles to the city of Jackson and confined him overnight in the Jackson jail. The State conceded on oral argument in this Court that there was neither a warrant nor probable cause for this arrest. The next day, petitioner, who had not yet been afforded counsel, took a lie detector test and signed a statement.[Footnote 1] He was then returned to and confined in the Meridian jail. On December 14, while so confined, petitioner was fingerprinted a second time. That same day, these December 14 prints, together with the fingerprints of 23 other Negro youths apparently still under suspicion, were sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington, D.C., for comparison with the latent prints taken from the window of the victim's house. The FBI reported that petitioner's prints matched those taken from the window. Petitioner was subsequently indicted and tried for the rape, and the fingerprint evidence was admitted in evidence at trial over petitioner's timely objections that the fingerprints should be excluded as the product of an unlawful detention. The Mississippi Supreme Court sustained the admission of the fingerprint evidence and affirmed the conviction. 204 So.2d 270 (1967). We granted certiorari. 393 U.S. 821 (1968). We reverse.

[Page 394 U.S. 721, 724]

Amendments.[Footnote 2] Our decisions recognize no exception to the rule that illegally seized evidence is inadmissible at trial, however relevant and trustworthy the seized evidence may be as an item of proof. The exclusionary rule was fashioned as a sanction to redress and deter overreaching governmental conduct prohibited by the Fourth Amendment. To make an exception for illegally seized evidence which is trustworthy would fatally undermine these purposes. Thus, in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 655 (1961), we held that "all evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution is, by that same authority, inadmissible in a state court." (Italics supplied.) Fingerprint evidence is no exception to this comprehensive rule. We agree with and adopt the conclusion of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Bynum v. United States, 104 U.S. App. D.C. 368, 370, 262 F.2d 465, 467 (1958):

[Page 394 U.S. 721, 725]

person in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The opinion of the Mississippi Supreme Court proceeded on the mistaken premise that petitioner's prints introduced at trial were taken during his brief detention on December 3. In fact, as both parties before us agree, the fingerprint evidence used at trial was obtained on December 14, while petitioner was still in detention following his December 12 arrest. The legality of his arrest was not determined by the Mississippi Supreme Court. However, on oral argument here, the State conceded that the arrest on December 12 and the ensuing detention through December 14 were based on neither a warrant nor probable cause and were therefore constitutionally invalid. The State argues, nevertheless, that this invalidity should not prevent us from affirming petitioner's conviction. The December 3 prints were validly obtained, it is argued, and "it should make no difference in the practical or legal sense which [fingerprint] card was sent to the F. B. I. for comparison."[Footnote 3] It may be that it does make a difference in light of the objectives of the exclusionary rule, see Bynum v. United States, supra, at 371-372, 262 F.2d, at 468-469,[Footnote 4] but we need not decide the question since we have concluded that the prints of December 3 were not validly obtained.

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The State makes no claim that petitioner voluntarily accompanied the police officers to headquarters on December 3 and willingly submitted to fingerprinting. The State's brief also candidly admits that "[a]ll that the Meridian Police could possibly have known about petitioner at the time . . . would not amount to probable cause for his arrest . . . ."[Footnote 5] The State argues, however, that the December 3 detention was of a type which does not require probable cause. Two rationales for this position are suggested. First, it is argued that the detention occurred during the investigatory rather than accusatory stage and thus was not a seizure requiring probable cause. The second and related argument is that, at the least, detention for the sole purpose of obtaining fingerprints does not require probable cause.

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be termed "arrests" or "investigatory detentions."[Footnote 6] We made this explicit only last Term in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 19 (1968), when we rejected "the notions that the Fourth Amendment does not come into play at all as a limitation upon police conduct if the officers stop short of something called a `technical arrest' or a `full-blown search.'"

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unnecessary expansion of the Amendment, the Court is compelled to put its chief reliance on a Court of Appeals decision, Bynum v. United States, 104 U.S. App. D.C. 368, 262 F.2d 465. I think it is high time this Court, in the interest of the administration of criminal justice, made a new appraisal of the language and history of the Fourth Amendment and cut it down to its intended size. Such a judicial action would, I believe, make our cities a safer place for men, women, and children to live.

I dissent from this reversal.

[Footnote *] See, e. g., Bumper v. North Carolina, - another rape case; Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410; Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108; Recznik v. City of Lorain, 393 U.S. 166; and Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479.

MR. JUSTICE STEWART, dissenting.

I do not disagree with the Court's conclusion that the petitioner was arrested and detained without probable cause. But it does not follow that his fingerprints were inadmissible at the trial.

Fingerprints are not "evidence" in the conventional sense that weapons or stolen goods might be. Like the color of a man's eyes, his height, or his very physiognomy, the tips of his fingers are an inherent and unchanging characteristic of the man. And physical impressions of his fingertips can be exactly and endlessly reproduced.

We do not deal here with a confession wrongfully obtained or with property wrongfully seized - so tainted as to be forever inadmissible as evidence against a defendant. We deal, instead, with "evidence" that can be identically reproduced and lawfully used at any subsequent trial.*

I cannot believe that the doctrine of Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, requires so useless a gesture as the reversal of this conviction.

[Footnote *] At the original trial the victim of the rape, under oath, positively identified the petitioner as her assailant. There now exists, therefore, ample probable cause to detain him and take his fingerprints.

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