Mincey v. Arizona

1978

Venue: SCOTUS
Facts: Mincey is suspected of dealing heroin. A police task force barges into his apartment as part of a sting operation. Mincey apparently shoots one of them and injures someone else. Mincey himself is shot, but he survives. While he is in the hospital on all sorts of drugs and machines, he is extensively interviewed by police, in spite of his requests not to be questioned without a lawyer. In the meantime, the police execute a four-day-long search of his apartment, and find all kinds of stuff.
Posture: Convicted of narcotics, murder, and assault charges at trial. Murder charge reversed on appeal. Mincey claims 4A and 5A violations.
Issue: Two of them:
  1. Was the search of the apartment permissible?
  2. Were Mincey's statements under interrogation voluntary?
Holding: No, and no.
Rule:
  1. Searches conducted without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable, absent one of the specifically established exceptions; the "murder scene" exception posited by the AZ SC is not one of them.
  2. If a statement isn't "the produce of a rational intellect and a free will," it can't be used.
Reasoning: First, the search. Four days. Really? Calling something a "murder-scene exception" presumes there has been a murder, and we haven't even had a trial yet. And there's nothin here that would justify a warrantless search: the apartment was secured, time wasn't a factor, etc. Just go get a warrant.

As for the statements, this is not actual torture, but it is pretty extreme. Plus he explicitly asked for counsel.

Dicta: Marshall (concurring): We had to take this case because we couldn't have heard the 4A claim on habeas grounds, and there is nonuniformity between jurisdictions, which we need to stomp out. Our prior precedent, eliminating the habeas avenue should be reconsidered.

Rhenquist (dissenting): We got the 4A part right, but we shouldn't have done the 5A part. We weren't obligated to do it, because the murder conviction was overturned in AZ, and we really just substituted our judgment for the trial court's.