Bumper v. North Carolina (1967)
- Docket
- 1016
- Decided
- 1967-01-01
Summary
Question: Is a search considered lawful under the Fourth Amendment on the basis of consent when the consent was given only after the police official claimed he had a warrant for said search? Conclusion: No. Justice Potter Stewart delivered the opinion for the 7-2 majority. The Court held that, for a search to be lawful under the Fourth Amendment, the consent must have been freely and voluntarily given. A search that relies on a warrant cannot be justified on the basis of consent if the warrant turns out to be faulty, regardless of the police officer’s knowledge of the faultiness of the warrant. Therefore, the evidence obtained during the search in this case should not have been admitted into evidence. In his concurring opinion, Justice John M. Harlan wrote that, because the introduction of the rifle into evidence was not harmless error in the sense that Bumper’s guilt was not adjudicated based solely on constitutionally admissible evidence, not in the sense that he was improperly convicted. Justice Hugo L. Black wrote a dissent in which he highlighted the fact that Leath testified that her consent “was all [her] own free will.” The fact that the police did not have a warrant does not negate the fact that Mrs. Leath wanted the police to search her premises to show her innocence; therefore, her consent was freely and voluntarily given. Justice Black also argued that, while all evidence found in the illegal search must be thrown out, Bumper should still have been found guilty without a mandatory retrial. In his separate dissent, Justice White dissented and argued that not every search conditionally consented to must be deemed invalid. The fact that the evidence was discovered illegally and without a warrant does not mean that the evidence should not be deemed legal if a valid warrant is eventually presented.