Pronouncements of the United States Supreme Court Relating to the Criminal Law Field: 1979 - 1980
| Jurisdiction | United States,Federal |
| Citation | Vol. 9 No. 9 Pg. 1786 |
| Pages | 1786 |
| Publication year | 1980 |
1980, September, Pg. 1786. Pronouncements of the United States Supreme Court Relating to the Criminal Law Field: 1979 - 1980
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William H. Erickson, Denver, is Deputy Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court.
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I. Introduction 1789
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The 1979-80 term of the U.S. Supreme Court ended with the usual rush of last-minute decisions and the accompanying fanfare that heralds what are often the most significant decisions of the term. Although the court has completed more than a decade under the leadership of Chief Justice Burger, it has become increasingly difficult to characterize the nature and the temperament of the Burger Court. Perhaps the only consensus commanding wide adherence is that the so-called "Nixon Majority" is far from a monolithic force dedicated to the wholesale reversal of the advances made by the Warren Court.
As an institution, the Court has made manifest its unwillingness to follow the Warren Court's tradition of speaking with one voice on controversial issues. To the contrary, the Burger Court appears reluctant to reach unanimity on any single issue, and most of the Court's major decisions are marked by a plethora of concurring and dissenting opinions. In the Court's last four major decisions of the term, for example, individual justices submitted no less than 22 concurring and dissenting opinions for more than 350 pages of text [see Industrial Union Department, AFL-CIO v. American Petroleum Institute, 48 U.S.L.W. 5022 (July 2, 1980); Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 48 U.S.L.W. 5008 (July 2, 1980); Fullilove v. Kliutznick, 48 U.S.L.W. 4979 (July 2, 1980); Harris v. McRae, 48 U.S.L.W. 4941 (June 30, 1980)]. Of the four opinions announcing the judgment of the Court, only one commanded a majority of five of the justices.
The multiple opinions filed in Richmond Newspapers, Inc. perhaps best illustrates the Court's fractuous and sometimes mercurial nature. That decision, which dealt with the right of the public and the press to attend criminal trials, marked an opportunity for the Court to reexamine the constitutional issues raised just a year before in Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, 443 U.S. 368 (1979). In Gannett, the Court had held that neither the text nor the structure of the Constitution supported the proposition that
In Richmond Newpapers, Inc., the Court took a second look at the Constitution and found a right of public access to criminal proceedings to be implicit in the guarantees of the First Amendment. Setting out the judgment of the Court, Chief Justice Burger cited an unbroken history of open trials in Anglo-American jurisprudence and concluded that a presumption of openness inhered in the very nature of our system of justice. The Chief Justice found a public right of access in the core of the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of communication on matters relating to the functioning of government.
Despite a willingness to reexamine its holding in Gannett only a year after that decision was announced, the Court was unable to reach a consensus on the constitutional underpinnings of the newly declared right of public access to criminal proceedings. The Chief Justice's opinion commanded the votes of only two other members of the Court; fully five other justices filed separate concurrences and one justice dissented. The result, according to some, is a confusing and sometimes rambling exegesis on constitutional principles that may be difficult, if not impossible, for the lower courts to follow.
In the criminal law field, the decisions of the 1979-1980 term reflect an overall balance in favor of the rights of the accused. In sharp contrast to past terms, the Supreme Court has shown a marked willingness to interpret the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution in a way that expands the protected rights of criminal defendants.
The Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures was broadened in both Ybarra v. Illinois, 100 S.Ct. 338 (1979), and Payton v. New York, 100 S.Ct. 1371 (1980). In Ybarra, the Court prohibited the police, who had a search warrant for a tavern, from searching a patron who happened to be in the bar at the time of the search. The patron's mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activities did not establish sufficient probable cause to justify a search of him by the police. In Payton, the majority stated that police could not enter a suspect's house to make a routine felony arrest without an arrest warrant. In holding that such a warrantless and nonexigent entry violated the Fourth Amendment, the Burger Court prohibited a type of police action that the Warren Court and 23 states had found constitutionally acceptable.
The Court also gave an expansive reading to the concept of interrrogation under the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. In Rhode Island v. Innis, 100 S.Ct. 1682 (1980), the Court rejected a rigid definition of interrogation that would have honored the letter of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), while vitiating its spirit. Although Innis' conviction was upheld, the Court emphasized that interrogation refers not only to express questioning, but...
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