U.S. Supreme Court

Stoner v. California,376U.S. 483 (1964)Stoner v. California

No. 209

Argued February 25,1964

Decided arch 23, 1964

376U.S. 483

CERTIORARI TO THE DISTRICT COURT OFAPPEAL OF CALIFORNIA,

SECOND APPELLATEDISTRICT

Syllabus

Police developed a lead near the scene of a robbery whichultimately led them to a hotel where, without a warrant, theysearched petitioner's room in his absence, having been given accessthereto by a hotel clerk. There they found articles like thoseassociated with the crime by an eyewitness. Petitioner was arrestedtwo days later in another State, and, following a trial in whichthe articles were used as evidence, was convicted.

Held:

1. A search without a warrant can be justified as incident toarrest only if substantially contemporaneous and confined to theimmediate vicinity of arrest.Agnello v. United States,269 U. S. 20,followed. Pp.376 U. S.484-487.

2. A hotel guest is entitled to the constitutional protectionagainst unreasonable searches and seizures. The hotel clerk had noauthority to permit the room search, and the police had no basis tobelieve that petitioner had authorized the clerk to permit thesearch. Pp.376 U. S.488-490.

205 Cal. App.2d 108, 22 Cal. Rptr. 718, reversed.

Page 376 U. S. 484

MR. JUSTICE STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court.

The petitioner was convicted of armed robbery after a jury trialin the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, California. At thetrial, several articles which had been found by police officers ina search of the petitioner's hotel room during his absence wereadmitted into evidence over his objection. A District Court ofAppeal of California affirmed the conviction, [Footnote 1] and the Supreme Court of Californiadenied further review. [Footnote2] We granted certiorari, limiting review "to the question ofwhether evidence was admitted which had been obtained by anunlawful search and seizure." 374 U.S. 826. For the reasons whichfollow, we conclude that the petitioner's conviction must be setaside.

The essential facts are not in dispute. On the night of October25, 1960, the Budget Town Food Market in Monrovia, California, wasrobbed by two men, one of whom was described by eyewitnesses ascarrying a gun and wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a grey jacket.Soon after the robbery, a checkbook belonging to the petitioner wasfound in an adjacent parking lot and turned over to the police. Twoof the stubs in the checkbook indicated that checks had been drawnto the order of the Mayfair Hotel in Pomona, California. Pursuingthis lead, the officers learned from the Police Department ofPomona that the petitioner had a previous criminal record, and theyobtained from the Pomona police a photograph of the petitioner.They showed the photograph to the two eyewitnesses to the robbery,who both stated that the picture looked like the man who hadcarried the gun. On the basis of this information, the officerswent to the Mayfair Hotel in Pomona at about 10

Page 376 U. S. 485

o'clock on the night of October 27. They had neither search norarrest warrants. There then transpired the following events, aslater recounted by one of the officers:

"We approached the desk, the night clerk, and asked him if therewas a party by the name of Joey L. Stoner living at the hotel. Hechecked his records and stated, 'Yes, there is.' And we asked himwhat room he was in. He stated he was in Room 404, but he was outat this time."

"We asked him how he knew that he was out. He stated that thehotel regulations required that the key to the room would be placedin the mail box each time they left the hotel. The key was in themail box, that he therefore knew he was out of the room."

"We asked him if he would give us permission to enter the room,explaining our reasons for this."

"Q. What reasons did you explain to the clerk?"

"A. We explained that we were there to make an arrest of a manwho had possibly committed a robbery in the City of Monrovia, andthat we were concerned about the fact that he had a weapon. Hestated 'In this case, I will be more than happy to give youpermission, and I will take you directly to the room.'"

"Q. Is that what the clerk told you?"

"A. Yes, sir."

"Q. What else happened?"

"A. We left one detective in the lobby, and Detective Oliver,Officer Collins, and myself, along with the night clerk, got on theelevator and proceeded to the fourth floor, and went to Room 404.The night clerk placed a key in the lock, unlocked the door, andsays, 'Be my guest.'"

The officers entered, and made a thorough search of the room andits contents. They found a pair of horn-rimmed

Page 376 U. S. 486

glasses and a grey jacket in the room, and a .45-caliberautomatic pistol with a clip and several cartridges in the bottomof a bureau drawer. The petitioner was arrested two days later inLas Vegas, Nevada. He waived extradition, and was returned toCalifornia for trial on the charge of armed robbery. The gun, thecartridges and clip, the horn-rimmed glasses, and the grey jacketwere all used as evidence against him at his trial.

The search of the petitioner's room by the police officers wasconducted without a warrant of any kind, and it therefore

"can survive constitutional inhibition only upon a showing thatthe surrounding facts brought it within one of the exceptions tothe rule that a search must rest upon a search warrant.Jonesv. United States,357 U. S. 493,357 U. S.499;United States v. Jeffers,342 U. S.48,342 U. S. 51."

Rios v. United States,364 U.S. 253,364 U. S. 261.The District Court of Appeal thought the search was justified as anincident to a lawful arrest. [Footnote 3] But a search can be incident to an arrest onlyif it is substantially contemporaneous with the arrest, and isconfined to the immediate vicinity of the arrest.Agnello v.United States,269 U. S. 20.[Footnote 4]

Page 376 U. S. 487

Whatever room for leeway there may be in these concepts,[Footnote 5] it is clear thatthe search of the petitioner's hotel room in Pomona, California, onOctober 27 was not incident to his arrest in Las Vegas, Nevada, onOctober 29. The search was completely unrelated to the arrest, bothas to time and as to place.See Preston v. United States,decided this day,ante, p.376 U. S. 364.

In this Court, the respondent has recognized that the reasoningof the California District Court of Appeal cannot be reconciledwith our decision inAgnello, nor, indeed, with the mostrecent California decisions. [Footnote 6] Accordingly, the respondent has made noargument that the search can be justified as an incident to thepetitioner's arrest. Instead, the argument is made that the searchof the hotel room, although conducted without the petitioner'sconsent, was lawful because it was conducted

Page 376 U. S. 488

with the consent of the hotel clerk. We find this argumentunpersuasive.

Even if it be assumed that a state law which gave a hotelproprietor blanket authority to authorize the police to search therooms of the hotel's guests could survive constitutional challenge,there is no intimation in the California cases cited by therespondent that California has any such law. [Footnote 7] Nor is there any substance to theclaim that the search was reasonable because the police, relyingupon the night clerk's expressions of consent, had a reasonablebasis for the belief that the clerk had authority to consent to thesearch. Our decisions make clear that the rights protected by theFourth Amendment are not to be eroded by strained applications ofthe law of agency or by unrealistic doctrines of "apparentauthority." As this Court has said,

"it is unnecessary and ill-advised to import into the lawsurrounding the constitutional right to be free from unreasonablesearches and seizures subtle distinctions, developed and refined bythe common law in evolving the body of private property law which,more than almost any other branch of law, has been shaped bydistinctions whose validity is largely historical. . . . [W]e oughtnot to bow to them in the fair administration of the criminal law.To do so would not comport with our justly proud claim of theprocedural protections accorded to those charged with crime."

Jones v. United States,362 U.S. 257,362 U. S.266-267.

Page 376 U. S. 489

It is important to bear in mind that it was the petitioner'sconstitutional right which was at stake here, and not the nightclerk's nor the hotel's. It was a right, therefore, which only thepetitioner could waive by word or deed, either directly or throughan agent. It is true that the night clerk clearly and unambiguouslyconsented to the search. But there is nothing in the record toindicate that the police had any basis whatsoever to believe thatthe night clerk had been authorized by the petitioner to permit thepolice to search the petitioner's room.

At least twice this Court has explicitly refused to permit anotherwise unlawful police search of a hotel room to rest uponconsent of the hotel proprietor.Lustig v. United States,338 U. S. 74;United States v. Jeffers,342 U. S.48. InLustig, the manager of a hotel allowedpolice to enter and search a room without a warrant in theoccupant's absence, and the search was held unconstitutional. InJeffers, the assistant manager allowed a similar search,and that search was likewise held unconstitutional.

It is true, as was said inJeffers, that, when a personengages a hotel room, he undoubtedly gives "implied or expresspermission" to "such persons as maids, janitors or repairmen" toenter his room "in the performance of their duties." 342 U.S. at342 U. S. 51.But the conduct of the night clerk and the police in the police inthe present case was of an entirely different order. In a closelyanalogous situation, the Court has held that a search by policeofficers of a house occupied by a tenant invaded the tenant'sconstitutional right, even though the search was authorized by theowner of the house, who presumably had not only apparent, butactual, authority to enter the house for some purposes, such as to"view waste."Chapman v. United States,365 U.S. 610. The Court pointed out that the officers' purposein entering was not to view waste, but to search for distillingequipment, and concluded that to uphold such a search without awarrant would leave

Page 376 U. S. 490

tenants' homes secure only in the discretion of theirlandlords.

No less than a tenant of a house, or the occupant of a room in aboarding house,McDonald v. United States,335 U.S. 451, a guest in a hotel room is entitled toconstitutional protection against unreasonable searches andseizures.Johnson v. United States,333 U. S.10. That protection would disappear if it were left todepend upon the unfettered discretion of an employee of the hotel.It follows that this search without a warrant was unlawful. Sinceevidence obtained through the search was admitted at the trial, thejudgment must be reversed.Mapp v. Ohio,367 U.S. 643. [Footnote8]

It is so ordered.

[Footnote 1]

205 Cal. App.2d 108, 22 Cal. Rptr. 718.

[Footnote 2]

205 Cal. App. 2d at 116, 22 Cal. Rptr. 718.

[Footnote 3]

The court reasoned that the officers had probable cause toarrest the petitioner prior to their entry into the hotel room;that they were not obliged to accept as true the night clerk'sstatement that the petitioner was not in his room; that "it may bereasonably inferred that they entered his room for the purpose ofmaking an arrest;" that their observation of the glasses in plainsight reasonably led them to a further search; and that in thecircumstances the arrest and the search and seizure were "part ofthe same transaction."205 Cal. App.2d 108, 113, 22 Cal. Rptr. 718, 722.

[Footnote 4]

"The right without a search warrant contemporaneously to searchpersons lawfully arrested while committing crime and to search theplace where the arrest is made in order to find and seize thingsconnected with the crime as its fruits or as the means by which itwas committed, as well as weapons and other things to effect anescape from custody, is not to be doubted.See Carroll v.United States,267 U. S. 132,267 U. S.158,Weeks v. United States,232 U. S.383,232 U. S. 392. . . . But theright does not extend to other places."

Id. at269 U. S. 30.See also Ker v. California,374 U. S.23,374 U. S. 42, n.13;Lustig v. United States,338 U. S.74,338 U. S.79-80.

[Footnote 5]

Although some members of this Court have expressed the view thatthe statement inAgnello defining the permissible boundsof a search incident to arrest went too far,see, e.g., Harrisv. United States,331 U. S. 145,331 U. S. 155,331 U. S. 183,331 U. S. 195(dissenting opinions);United States v. Rabinowitz,339 U. S. 56,339 U. S. 68(dissenting opinion), theAgnello holding as to what maynot be searched -- a house substantially removedgeographically from the place of arrest at a time not substantiallycontemporaneous with the arrest -- has never been questioned inthis Court.

[Footnote 6]

"[T]he search cannot be justified as incident to the arrest 'forit was at a distance from the place thereof and was notcontemporaneous therewith.' (Castaneda v. Superior Court,59 A.C. 456, 459, 30 Cal. Rptr. 1, 3; 380 P.2d 641, 643;Tompkins v. Superior Court, 59 A.C. 75, 77, 27 Cal. Rptr.889, 378 P.2d 113;People v. Gorg, 45 Cal. 2d776, 781, 291 P.2d 469.)"

People v. King, 60 Cal. 2d308, 311, 32 Cal. Rptr. 825, 826, 384 P.2d 153, 155.

[Footnote 7]

See Roberts v. Casey, 36 Cal.App. 2d Supp. 767, 93 P.2d 654;Fox v. Windemere Hotel Apt.Co., 30 Cal. App. 162, 157 P. 820;People v.Vaughan, 65 Cal. App.2d Supp. 844, 150 P.2d 964.

"The mere fact that a person is a hotel manager does not importan authority to permit the police to enter and search the rooms ofher guests."

People v. Burke, 208 Cal. App.2d 149, 160, 24 Cal. Rptr. 912, 919.

[Footnote 8]

The respondent has argued that the case should be remanded tolet the California District Court of Appeal decide whether theadmission of this evidence was harmless error. But the convictiondepended in large part upon the jury's resolution of the questionof the credibility of witnesses, and that determination must almostcertainly have been influenced by the incriminating nature of thephysical evidence illegally seized and erroneously admitted. Thereis thus at least "a reasonable possibility that the evidencecomplained of might have contributed to the conviction."Fahyv. Connecticut,375 U. S. 85,375 U. S.86.

MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, concurring in part and dissenting inpart.

I entirely agree with the Court's opinion, except as to itsdisposition of the case. I would remand the case to the CaliforniaDistrict Court of Appeal so that it may consider whether or notadmission of the illegally seized evidence was harmless error.Fahy v. Connecticut,375 U. S. 85, doesnot require or justify the course which the Court takes. InFahy, Connecticut at least had had the opportunity todecide the question of harmless error with respect to the illegallyseized evidence there involved;

Page 376 U. S. 491

here California has had no such opportunity.* For thisCourt to decide that question as an original matter is, in myopinion, incompatible with proper federal-state relations.

Accordingly, I would vacate the judgment below and remand thecase to the California courts for further appropriateproceedings.

* The evidence against the accused included a confession of thecrime charged. This Court refused to review the claim, contained inthe petition for certiorari, that this confession had beeninvoluntarily made. 374 U.S. 826,ante, p.376 U. S.484.