arrest warrant

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 December 24, 1968, ten-year-old Pamela Powers disappeared from a YMCA building in Des Moines, Iowa, where she had accompanied her parents to watch an athletic contest. Williams was seen leaving the YMCA carrying a large bundle wrapped in a blanket. A fourteen-year-old boy who helped open his car door reported seeing two skinny white legs inside it. Williams' car was found the next day 160 miles east in Davenport, Iowa. Items of the child's clothing along with an army blanket were recovered at a rest stop on Interstate 80 near Grinnell between Des Moines and Davenport. A warrant issued for Williams' arrest. On December 26 the Iowa Bureau of Criminal Investigation organized a search with two hundred volunteers divided into teams that began twenty-one miles east of Grinnell and moved westward through Poweshiek County into Jasper County. Searchers checked all roads, ditches, culverts, abandoned farm buildings, and other places where a small child's body could be hidden. The search area was marked off in grids on highway maps. Williams surrendered to police in Davenport and was arraigned. After his attorneys arranged for no questioning during transport, two Des Moines detectives took him into custody for the return drive. During the trip Detective Leaming spoke to Williams about predicted snow and the parents' right to a Christian burial. Williams then directed the officers to the child's shoes, the blanket, and ultimately the body itself. The body lay next to a culvert in a ditch beside a gravel road in Polk County. It was roughly two and one-half miles from where one search team had stopped when the search was suspended at 3 p.m. Williams was indicted for first-degree murder. At his first trial the evidence of the body was admitted over objection. He was convicted. The Iowa Supreme Court affirmed. The United States Supreme Court reversed in Brewer v. Williams on the ground that the statements were obtained in violation of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. At the second trial in 1977 the prosecution introduced evidence of the condition of the body, articles and photographs of clothing, and autopsy results without offering Williams' statements or showing that he had directed police to the body. The trial court found by a preponderance of the evidence that the body would have been discovered within a short time in essentially the same condition by the continuing search. The Iowa Supreme Court affirmed. On federal habeas corpus the District Court denied relief after an independent review. The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

John Harris, Jr., was indicted in a California state court charged with violation of the California Penal Code §§ 11400 and 11401, known as the Criminal Syndicalism Act. He then filed a complaint in the Federal District Court asking that court to enjoin District Attorney Evelle J. Younger of Los Angeles County from prosecuting him. Harris alleged that the prosecution and the presence of the Act inhibited him in the exercise of his rights of free speech and press guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Jim Dan and Diane Hirsch, members of the Progressive Labor Party, intervened as plaintiffs claiming that the prosecution of Harris would inhibit them from peacefully advocating the program of their party to replace capitalism with socialism. Farrell Broslawsky, an instructor in history at Los Angeles Valley College, also intervened claiming that the prosecution made him uncertain whether he could teach about the doctrines of Karl Marx or read from the Communist Manifesto as part of his classwork. None of the intervenors had been indicted, arrested, or threatened with prosecution. A three-judge Federal District Court convened pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2284 held that it had jurisdiction and power to restrain the District Attorney from prosecuting. The court held that the State's Criminal Syndicalism Act was void for vagueness and overbreadth in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. It accordingly restrained the District Attorney from further prosecution of the pending action against Harris, as reported at 281 F. Supp. 507 (1968). Younger appealed directly to the Supreme Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1253. At the time the federal suit was filed, Harris was actually being prosecuted by California for a violation of the Criminal Syndicalism Act. The intervenors claimed only that they felt inhibited by the Act and the pending prosecution of Harris, without alleging any threat of prosecution against themselves.