LA4: 48 hr PC determination applies to juveniles; he’s ordered immediately released

A juvenile was denied a probable cause determination without a hearing in 48 hours, and he’s ordered immediately released. State ex rel. K.W., 2014 La. App. LEXIS 852 (La. App. 4 Cir. March 28, 2014):

To comply with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment, states must “provide a fair and reliable determination of probable cause as a condition for any significant pretrial restraint of liberty, and this determination must be made by a judicial officer either before or promptly after arrest.” Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 125, 95 S. Ct. 854, 43 L. Ed. 2d 54 (1975). This “promptness” standard emerged from the Supreme Court’s efforts to find a balance between the district attorney’s “strong interest in protecting public safety by taking into custody those persons who are reasonably suspected of having engaged in criminal activity, even when there has been no opportunity for a prior determination of probable cause” and the harms of “prolonged detention based on incorrect or unfounded suspicion.” County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U.S. 44, 52, 111 S. Ct. 1661, 114 L. Ed. 2d 49 (1991).

The Supreme Court, in Riverside, later found “promptness” as a standard to be too vague and lacking in sufficient guidance for proper practices. Id. at 56. In clarifying, the Court held that “a jurisdiction that provides judicial determinations of probable cause within 48 hours of arrest will, as a general matter, comply with the promptness requirement of Gerstein.” Id. “Where an arrested individual does not receive a probable cause determination within 48 hours, the calculus changes, [and] the arrested individual does not bear the burden of proving unreasonable delay. Rather, the burden shifts to the government to demonstrate the existence of a bona fide emergency or other extraordinary circumstance.” Id. at 56-57.

The bedrock constitutional protections contained in the Riverside decision also apply to juveniles in delinquency proceedings. See Application of Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 13, 87 S. Ct. 1428, 18 L. Ed. 2d 527 (1967) (“[N]either the Fourteenth Amendment nor the Bill of Rights is for adults alone.”). See also La. Ch.C. art. 808 (“All rights guaranteed to criminal defendants by the Constitution of the United States or the Constitution of Louisiana, except the right to jury trial, shall be applicable in juvenile court proceedings.”).

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“[I]ndiscriminate searches and seizures conducted under the authority of ‘general warrants’ were the immediate evils that motivated the framing and adoption of the Fourth Amendment.” Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 583, 100 S. Ct. 1371, 63 L. Ed. 2d 639 (1980). “The Fourth Amendment’s requirement that a warrant ‘particularly describe the place to be searched, and the people to be seized,’ repudiated these general warrants and ‘makes general searches impossible and prevents the seizure of one thing under a warrant describing another.'” Berger v. New York, 388 U.S. 41, 58, 87 S. Ct. 1873, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1040 (1967) (internal punctuation omitted). Here, there was no determination by a neutral magistrate as to whether probable cause existed to take K.W. into custody prior to his seizure. The arrest warrant was in effect a “general warrant” to seize an unidentified assailant. Probable cause must be found as to a particular person prior to seizure in order to circumvent the requirements of Gerstein-Riverside.