How Probable Is "Probable Cause"?

Supreme Court Is Unsuccessful In Defining “Probable Cause In Belief Of Guilt”

On December 15, 2004, the United States Supreme Court decided a case upholding the police practice of arresting a passenger of a vehicle in which contraband was discovered – contraband neither the passenger nor the driver claimed to own. The case is Maryland v. Pringle, 124 S.Ct. 795 (2003), a unanimous decision of the Court. In the process of deciding this case, the Court reversed a the Maryland highest reviewing court’s decision that had held the police practice to violate the passenger’s constitutional rights.

The case involved one of these unusual situations that criminal procedure instructors delight in presenting to a class in the form of a hypothetical question. If police lawfully stop a car that has multiple occupants in it, and upon a search contraband is discovered in the back, can all occupants of the car be arrested, even though police have no reason to believe more than one person knew about the contraband and they have no idea which person it was? Or a variation of this hypothetical goes like this. Assume police lawfully find evidence of a crime that could only have been committed by one individual. The officers confront six individuals, all of whom deny culpability, and yet police know one of them must have committed the crime. Can all six be arrested when there is no indication as to which specific person is the likely culprit?

The quick and easy answer to these hypotheticals is: it depends on whether the police have “probable cause” to believe a person to be arrested is guilty of a crime. That was, in part, the issue confronting the Supreme Court in the Pringle case. The Court did not answer the hypothetical questions we posed above in a satisfactory manner. It limited itself in addressing the issue of the potential culpability of a car passenger when contraband is discovered in a vehicle occupied by a driver and two passengers.

FACTS IN THE PRINGLE CASE

A Baltimore County police officer stopped a car for speeding, and also because the driver was not wearing a seatbelt. The stop took place in the middle of the night. There were three persons in the vehicle: the driver, who was also the owner of the car, a front seat passenger, and a rear seat passenger. The defendant Pringle was the front seat passenger.

Upon request, the driver of the car produced a valid driver’s license and registration. As he opened the glove box to retrieve the car’s papers, the officer observed a large roll of paper money in the glove compartment. Saying nothing about his observation, the officer took the car and driver documents to his patrol vehicle and checked the computer for violations. None were reported. As the officer returned to the stopped car, he issued a verbal warning to the driver.

Meanwhile, a backup patrol car had arrived. The officer in the backup vehicle asked the driver of the car in which Pringle was riding whether he had any weapons or narcotics in the car. The driver answered in the negative, and gave consent to a search of the car upon the officer’s request. The result? As the Court explained in its opinion: “The search yielded $763 from the glove compartment and five plastic glassine baggies containing cocaine from behind the back-set armrest. When the officer began the search the armrest was in the upright position flat against the rear seat.”

When all three were questioned about the cocaine, the predictable chorus of “it’s not mine,” “not mine either,” and “I know nothing about it” followed. When the officer said he was going to arrest all three if no one admitted ownership of the contraband, the responses remained the same, and the three individuals were taken to the police station.

A CONFESSION IS OBTAINED

Sometime after arriving at the station, Joseph Pringle waived his Miranda rights and, during questioning, acknowledged that the cocaine belonged to him. He said that he and his friends – who did not know the cocaine was in the car – were on their way to a party and that he, Pringle, intended to sell the cocaine or “use it for sex.” The driver and rear seat passenger were thereupon released, and Pringle, understandably, was charged.

When Pringle moved to suppress the evidence, the trial judge denied the motion, finding that the officers had probable cause to arrest all three of the car’s occupants. Pringle was convicted of several charges following a jury trial. The highest appeals court in Maryland reversed the conviction by a divided vote, stating that “the mere finding of cocaine in the back armrest when [Pringle] was a front seat passenger in a car being driven by its owner is insufficient to establish probable cause for an arrest for possession.” On further appeal by the State of Maryland, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, and reversed unanimously.

The Court began its opinion by looking at Maryland’s law of arrest which, as in most if not all jurisdictions, permits a peace officer to make a warrantless arrest for felonies where a peace officer has probable cause to believe that a felony has been committed or is being committed in the officer’s presence. That is a rule of police conduct that has long received Court approval as meeting the Fourth Amendment’s liberty rights afforded to all individuals, and the Court stressed that the right to make a warrantless arrest for misdemeanors or other minor offenses has also been found to be consistent with the Fourth Amendment as long as these offenses are committed in the officer’s presence.

Clearly, once police found five glassine envelopes containing what was reasonably suspected to be cocaine, there was also probable cause to believe that a felony had been committed. Indeed, its mere possession would be a continuing felony offense. The question that the Court had to resolve, however, was how this finding tied in to the culpability of Joseph Pringle – one of three occupants of a car.

FOURTH AMENDMENT RIGHTS EXPLORED

The criminal offense of possession of narcotics, under the Maryland law in effect at that time – and as it is under the law of most if not all jurisdictions, – was defined as “the exercise of actual or constructive dominion or control over a thing by one of more persons.” The issue then becomes to determine whether there was probable cause to believe, at the time when all three were taken to the police station, that Pringle, either by himself or with the others, actually or constructively “possessed” the cocaine. In that regard, the Supreme Court began its analysis by going over familiar ground:

“On many occasions, we have reiterated that the probable cause standard is a practical, nontechnical conception that deals with the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act. Probable cause is a fluid concept – turning on the assessment of probabilities in particular factual contexts – not readily, or even usefully, reduced to a neat set of legal rules.

“The probable cause standard is incapable of precise definition or quantification into percentages because it deals with probabilities and depends on the totality of the circumstances. We have stated, however, that the substance of all the definitions of probable cause is a reasonable ground for belief of guilt, and that the belief of guilt must be particularized with respect to the person to be searched or seized. * * *

“To determine whether an officer had probable cause to arrest an individual, we examine the events leading up to the arrest, and then decide whether these historical facts, viewed from the standpoint of an objectively reasonable police officer, amount to ‘probable cause.’”

These are the basic principles as the Court has enunciated them in a series of decisions mentioned by the Court in its Pringle decision but too numerous to cite here. How do these principles apply to Pringle?

THE FACTS ARE RE-EXAMINED