"Charles L. Harness-Probable Cause" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

and that the widow was still receiving a pension from the manager of his immense personal estate. Before
his appointment, he had been a well-known figure on Wall Street. Edmonds admired the man. He found
it incredible that such lucid opinions could flow from such a complicated intellect. It used to bother him,
until he finally concluded that the Chief Justice considered all possible angles, sifted out the major
controlling aspects, weighed them against each other in a multi-dimensional balance, and accepted the
answer. The Pendleton technique involved all factors of legal precedent... stare decisis... logic... the
common law... social needs... and a fine prophetic grasp of the impact of a given decision on future
similar cases. Marshall had been a constitutionalist, Holmes a historian, Brandeis a sociologist, Cardozo a
liberal, and Warren a humanist-- but Pendleton was none of these; for he was all.
The Chief Justice spoke rapidly and concisely. "The first case on our agenda is Frank Tyson,
petitioner, v. New York. Petition is for certiorari to the Court of Appeals of New York. All of you know
what this one is about, so I need restate the facts but briefly. Tyson was indicted, tried, and convicted of
killing our late President Cromway in the entrance of the United Nations Building, with one bullet from a
telescopic-sighted rifle, from a window in an empty room in a nearby building. Tyson's palm-print was
found on the rifle, and ballistics tests showed that the bullet taken from the President's body was fired
from the rifle. An elevator operator named Philip Dopher testified that he saw Tyson leave the room,
carrying something, and hurry down the stairs. Tyson, a porter in the building, contends that he was
supervising a shipment of files to a warehouse for storage, that he heard a shot in the empty room, went
in to investigate, found the rifle, picked it up, then looked out the window, took in the scene instantly, and
realized that he was holding the weapon that had just killed a President of the United States. He
panicked, thinking only to get rid of the rifle. He ran down the side stairs with it and hid it, unobserved, in
a crate of files standing by the freight elevator. Seconds later, the movers took the crate down the
elevator to the van waiting on the other side of the building. And there, in that warehouse, it was
eventually found."
He paused and looked around at the intent faces.
"Thus far, the case does not present a federal question. I want you to ignore the enormity of the crime
and the fact that a President of the United States was murdered. All of us knew him personally, and we
all have an abiding respect and affection for his memory; some of us are here by his appointment. These
aspects standing alone cannot possibly warrant our review. The sole issue of relevance to us, and indeed,
the sole ground urged as basis for reversal, is the alleged violation of the Fourth Amendment to the
Constitution by officers of the State of New York, in that their warrant to search the warehouse was not
issued 'upon probable cause.' Specifically, petitioner contends that the officers hired a clairvoyant, one
Dr. Drago, to read petitioner's mind, without his consent, thereby to visualize the location of the rifle, and
that the New York magistrate issued the warrant to search the warehouse on this so-called information,
and on nothing else. The primary question therefore seems to be, can clairvoyance adequately substitute
for the routine and legally sufficient visual and aural observations as basis for a sworn statement on which
a search warrant may validly issue? If we accept this as the heart of the matter, we may have to consider
ancillary questions. For example, is there actually such a thing as clairvoyance? If we can satisfy ourselves
here and now that there is not, then we would of course have some basis for deciding that the warrant
was not issued on probable cause: and Tyson might be freed. On the other hand, if we can decide here
and now that clairvoyance does exist, we have no escape from the next question: Was the exercise of this
power an unconstitutional invasion of Tyson's right of privacy? If it was not, then he was properly
convicted. But if it was an improper invasion, then of course the evidence developed by it-- the rifle, and
his fingerprints on the rifle-- would be inadmissible under the Fifth Amendment, and again he would go
free."
He shifted restlessly in his chair. "There is more. Mrs. Nord, will you please step to the door and ask
the marshal to bring in Exhibit Q?"
For over a century, no clerks, messengers, or secretaries had been permitted in the room during
conference. The duty of doorman fell to the juniormost appointee.
Helen Nord stepped to the door, waited until the marshal and his assistant had place the object on the