Beck v. Ohio
- Decided
- November 23, 1964
- Docket
- 18
- Status
- Published
- Jurisdiction
- Federal
Cited 5,133 timesNo negative treatment found in this library
What later courts said
- recognizing that probable cause for arrest exists if facts known to officer would warrant belief of prudent person that arrestee had committed crime — Merchant v. Bauer (2012)
- holding that the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibits arrests without probable cause — Crowe v. County of San Diego (2005)
- holding that an officer has probable cause “only when he discovers reasonably reliable information” that a person has committed or is committing a crime — Fisher v. Michigan State Police (2023)
Each line is a later court’s own words about this case, not a summary. Read the opinion before relying on it.
How the opinion begins
Mr. Justice Stewart delivered the opinion of the Court.
On the afternoon of November 10,1961, the petitioner, William Beck, was driving his automobile in the vicinity [*90] of East 115th Street and Beulah Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio. Cleveland police officers accosted him, identified themselves, and ordered him to pull over to the curb. The officers possessed neither an arrest warrant nor a search warrant'. Placing him under arrest, they searched his car but found nothing of interest. They then took him to a nearby police station where they searched his person and found an envelope containing a number of clearing house slips “beneath the sock of his leg.” The petitioner was subsequently charged in the Cleveland Municipal Court with possession of clearing house slips in violation of a state criminal statute.[1] He filed a motion to suppress as evidence the clearing house slips in question, upon the ground that the police had obtained them by means of an unreasonable search and seizure in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. After a hearing the motion was overruled, the clearing house slips were admitted in evidence, and the petitioner was convicted. His conviction was affirmed by an Ohio Court of Appeals, and ultimately by the Supreme Court of Ohio, with two judges dissenting. 175 Ohio St. 73, 191 N. E. 2d 825. We granted certiorari to consider the petitioner’s claim that, under the rule of Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643, the clearing house slips were wrongly ad [*91] mitted in evidence against him because they had been seized by the Cleveland police in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. 376 U. S. 905.
Although the police officers did not obtain a warrant before arresting the petitioner and searching his automobile and his person, the Supreme Court of Ohio found the search nonetheless constitutionally valid as a search incident to a lawful arrest. And it is upon that basis that the Ohio decision has been supported by the respondent here. See Draper v. United States, 358 U. S. 307; Ker v. California, 374 U. S. 23.
Cite this
Beck v. Ohio, 379 U.S. 89 (1964)Read the full opinion
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