United States v. Kelly
83 A.L.R. 122, 1932 U.S. App. LEXIS 3696, 55 F. 2d 67 (1932)
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Rule of Law:
Law enforcement officials have the authority under the common law to take the fingerprints of an individual lawfully arrested for a crime, including a misdemeanor, as a standard means of identification, even in the absence of a specific authorizing statute.
Facts:
- Prohibition agents arrested Mortimer Kelly on a charge of selling one quart of gin to them.
- After the arrest but before Kelly was brought before a court official, the agents informed him that his fingerprints must be taken for the Bureau of Prohibition.
- The agents threatened to use force to take the fingerprints if Kelly did not consent.
- Under the threat of force, Kelly submitted and allowed his fingerprints to be taken.
Procedural Posture:
- After his arrest and fingerprinting, Mortimer Kelly filed a petition in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
- The petition asked the court to order the government to return his fingerprints.
- The District Court (the court of first instance) granted Kelly's petition, ordering the United States attorney and prohibition administrator to return the fingerprints.
- The United States appealed the District Court's order to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
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Issue:
Does the taking of an arrested person's fingerprints by law enforcement officials, prior to conviction and in the absence of a specific authorizing statute, constitute an unlawful infringement of the individual's rights?
Opinions:
Majority - Augustus N. Hand
No. The taking of an arrested person's fingerprints by law enforcement officials, prior to conviction and without a specific authorizing statute, does not constitute an unlawful infringement of the individual's rights. The court reasoned that fingerprinting is a modern, reliable, and widely practiced extension of identification methods long used in criminal law enforcement. The court balanced the government's strong interest in identifying criminals, detecting repeat offenders, and preventing escape against the individual's rights, finding the 'slight interference' of fingerprinting to be a burden that 'must be borne in the common interest.' It analogized the practice to other permissible intrusions like searches incident to arrest and compelling a suspect to try on clothing, citing the principle from Holt v. United States that the Fifth Amendment prohibits compelled testimonial communication, not the use of the body as physical evidence. The court also rejected any meaningful distinction between felonies and misdemeanors for identification purposes, concluding that the practice is a reasonable and justifiable tool for law enforcement.
Analysis:
This decision established significant federal precedent affirming the authority of law enforcement to fingerprint arrestees as a routine identification measure without needing explicit statutory permission. It solidified the legal distinction between testimonial self-incrimination, which is protected by the Fifth Amendment, and the collection of physical, non-communicative evidence like fingerprints, which is not. By applying this rule to misdemeanors as well as felonies, the court broadly expanded the accepted scope of police booking procedures, helping to normalize fingerprinting as a standard practice for all arrests across the United States.
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