warrant arrest

On October 31, 1963, Cleveland police detective Martin McFadden, a 39-year veteran assigned to downtown Cleveland for 30 years, observed John W. Terry and Richard Chilton standing on the corner of Huron Road and Euclid Avenue. McFadden took up a post of observation 300 to 400 feet away. He watched as the two men walked back and forth along Huron Road, pausing repeatedly to look in the window of a store before conferring with each other. This pattern repeated roughly a dozen times over ten to twelve minutes. A third man, Katz, joined them briefly before departing, after which Terry and Chilton followed the same path. By this time McFadden had become thoroughly suspicious that the men were casing the store for a robbery and feared they might be armed. McFadden approached the three men in front of Zucker's store, identified himself as a police officer, and asked their names. When they mumbled responses, he grabbed Terry, spun him around, patted down the outer clothing of his overcoat, and felt a pistol in the left breast pocket. He removed a .38-caliber revolver from Terry's pocket and ordered the men into the store, where he similarly frisked Chilton and discovered another revolver while finding no weapons on Katz. Terry and Chilton were arrested and charged with carrying concealed weapons. Prior to trial they moved to suppress the revolvers as the product of an unlawful search. The trial court denied the motion after hearing McFadden's testimony, finding that the officer had reasonable cause to believe the defendants were acting suspiciously and that the frisk was necessary for his protection. After the denial, Terry and Chilton waived jury trial, were convicted, and sentenced to one to three years in the penitentiary. The Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed, the Supreme Court of Ohio dismissed the appeal, and the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.

In March 1971 respondents Pugh and Henderson were arrested in Dade County, Florida. Each was charged with several offenses under a prosecutor's information. Pugh was denied bail because one of the charges against him carried a potential life sentence. Henderson remained in custody because he was unable to post a $4,500 bond. In Florida, indictments are required only for prosecution of capital offenses. Prosecutors may charge all other crimes by information without a prior preliminary hearing and without obtaining leave of court. At the time respondents were arrested, a Florida rule seemed to authorize adversary preliminary hearings to test probable cause for detention in all cases. The Florida courts had held that the filing of an information foreclosed the suspect's right to a preliminary hearing. They had also held that habeas corpus could not be used, except perhaps in exceptional circumstances, to test the probable cause for detention under an information. The only possible methods for obtaining a judicial determination of probable cause were a special statute allowing a preliminary hearing after 30 days. Arraignment was often delayed a month or more after arrest, as the District Court found. Respondents Pugh and Henderson filed a class action against Dade County officials in the Federal District Court claiming a constitutional right to a judicial hearing on the issue of probable cause and requesting declaratory and injunctive relief. Respondents Turner and Faulk, also in custody under informations, subsequently intervened. Petitioner Gerstein, the State Attorney for Dade County, was one of several defendants. After an initial delay while the Florida Legislature considered a bill that would have afforded preliminary hearings to persons charged by information, the District Court granted the relief sought. The court certified the case as a class action under Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23(b)(2) and ordered the Dade County defendants to give the named plaintiffs an immediate preliminary hearing to determine probable cause for further detention. It also ordered them to submit a plan providing preliminary hearings in all cases instituted by information. The defendants submitted a plan prepared by Sheriff E. Wilson Purdy and the District Court adopted it with modifications. The final order prescribed a detailed post-arrest procedure. Upon arrest the accused would be taken before a magistrate for a first appearance hearing. The magistrate would explain the charges, advise the accused of his rights, appoint counsel if he was indigent, and proceed with a probable cause determination unless either the prosecutor or the accused was unprepared. If either requested more time, the magistrate would set the date for a preliminary hearing. The hearing was to be held within four days if the accused was in custody and within 10 days if he had been released pending trial. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit stayed the District Court's order pending appeal. While the case was awaiting decision, the Dade County judiciary voluntarily adopted a similar procedure of its own. Upon learning of this development, the Court of Appeals remanded the case for specific findings on the constitutionality of the new Dade County system. Before the District Court issued its findings, however, the Florida Supreme Court amended the procedural rules governing preliminary hearings statewide, and the parties agreed that the District Court should direct its inquiry to the new rules rather than the Dade County procedures. Under the amended rules every arrested person must be taken before a judicial officer within 24 hours. This first appearance is similar to the first appearance hearing ordered by the District Court in all respects but the crucial one: the magistrate does not make a determination of probable cause. The rule amendments also changed the procedure for preliminary hearings, restricting them to felony charges and codifying the rule that no hearings are available to persons charged by information or indictment. In a supplemental opinion the District Court held that the amended rules had not answered the basic constitutional objection since a defendant charged by information still could be detained pending trial without a judicial determination of probable cause. The Court of Appeals affirmed, modifying the District Court's decree in minor particulars and suggesting that the form of preliminary hearing provided by the amended Florida rules would be acceptable as long as it was provided to all defendants in custody pending trial. State Attorney Gerstein petitioned for review and the Supreme Court granted certiorari because of the importance of the issue.

On the morning of June 4, 1959, federal narcotics agents in San Francisco arrested Hom Way after six weeks of surveillance and recovered heroin from his possession. Hom Way, who had never before served as an informant, told the agents he had purchased an ounce of heroin the previous night from a man known to him only as "Blackie Toy," the proprietor of a laundry on Leavenworth Street. Later that morning six or seven agents went to Oye's Laundry at 1733 Leavenworth Street, operated by petitioner James Wah Toy. Agent Alton Wong, of Chinese ancestry, rang the bell and told Toy he was calling for laundry and dry cleaning. When Toy replied that the business did not open until 8 a.m. and began to close the door, Wong displayed his badge and identified himself as a federal narcotics agent. Toy immediately slammed the door and ran down the hallway to his living quarters at the rear of the premises, where his wife and child were sleeping in a bedroom. The agents broke open the door, followed Toy into the bedroom, and arrested him after he reached into a nightstand drawer. Toy made oral statements to the agents in the bedroom implicating a man he knew only as Johnny who lived on Eleventh Avenue. The agents went directly to that address, entered the premises, arrested Johnny Yee, and recovered several tubes containing just less than one ounce of heroin from a bureau drawer in the bedroom. Yee told the agents that Toy and another Chinese known to him only as "Sea Dog" had brought the heroin to him four days earlier. The agents then arrested petitioner Wong Sun without a warrant at his residence, relying on the statements obtained from Toy and Yee. Toy, Yee, and Wong Sun were each arraigned before a United States Commissioner on complaints charging violations of 21 U.S.C. § 174 and released on their own recognizance. Several days later Agent William Wong, also of Chinese ancestry, separately interrogated the three men at the Narcotics Bureau office, advised each of his right to counsel and to withhold information, and prepared typewritten statements in English from rough notes of the interviews. Toy read his statement aloud in English, made handwritten corrections, but refused to sign it. Wong Sun, who had difficulty understanding English, had the substance restated to him in Chinese, admitted the accuracy of the contents, but also refused to sign. At the ensuing jury-waived trial in the District Court for the Northern District of California the government introduced Toy's oral bedroom statements, the heroin surrendered by Yee, and the two unsigned statements. The trial court admitted all four items over defense objections that they were inadmissible as fruits of unlawful arrests or of attendant searches. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the convictions.