Per Curiam.
The petitioner was convicted in California of robbery in the first degree, and the conviction was affirmed by the Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District. The California Supreme Court denied review. The petitioner seeks reversal of the judgment below on the ground that evidence introduced at his trial was seized in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Since we agree with the petitioner that the evidence was taken in the course of an unconstitutional search of his home, the judgment of the California Court of Appeal must be reversed. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643.
Informed that the petitioner had been involved in a robbery, police officers went to his residence. The petitioner was not at home, but a 15-year-old girl who identified herself as the petitioner’s wife allowed the officers to enter and search her belongings. When several rings taken by the robbers were found, the officers “staked out” the house and awaited the petitioner’s return. Upon his arrival late that night, he was immediately arrested as he alighted from his car. The officers searched the petitioner and the car, and then again entered and searched the house, where they discovered under a couch a jewelry case stolen in the robbery. The car was parked outside the house and 15 or 20 feet away from it, and the officers did not request permission to conduct the second search of the house. No warrant was ever obtained. The trial court nevertheless upheld the second search on the ground that it was incident to the petitioner’s arrest, and the Court of Appeal agreed, holding that the area searched was “under the [petitioner’s] effective control” at the time of the arrest.
Under our decision today in Chimel v. California, ante, p. 752, the search clearly exceeded Fourth Amendment limitations on searches incident to arrest. But even if Chimel were to have no retroactive application — a question which we reserve for a case which requires its resolution — there is no precedent of this Court that justifies the search in this case. The Court has consistently held that a search “can be incident to an arrest only if it is substantially contemporaneous with the arrest and is confined to the immediate vicinity of the arrest.” Stoner v. California, 376 U. S. 483, 486. (Emphasis supplied.) At the very most, police officers have been permitted to search a four-room apartment in which the arrest took place. Harris v. United States, 331 U. S. 145. See also United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U. S. 56. But the Constitution has never been construed by this Court to allow the police, in the absence of an emergency, to arrest a person outside his home and then take him inside for the purpose of conducting a warrantless search. On the contrary, “it has always been assumed that one’s house cannot lawfully be searched without a search warrant, except as an incident to a lawful arrest therein.” Agnello v. United States, 269 U. S. 20, 32. (Emphasis supplied.) And in James v. Louisiana, 382 U. S. 36, the Court held that the search of the petitioner’s home after his arrest on the street two blocks away “cannot be regarded as incident to his arrest.” Id., at 37. Since the thorough search of the petitioner’s home extended without reasonable justification beyond the place in which he was arrested, it cannot be upheld under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments as incident to his arrest.
Accordingly, the motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for a writ of certiorari are granted, the judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Black concurs in granting certiorari but dissents from the reversal and remand of the judgment without a hearing.
Because of our disposition of the case on this ground, we find it unnecessary to consider the contentions of the petitioner that his “wife” did not voluntarily consent to the first search, and that the officers lacked probable cause to arrest the petitioner.
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine whether the decision of the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed was itself liberal or conservative. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. The lower court's decision direction is unspecifiable if the manner in which the Supreme Court took jurisdiction is original or certification; or if the direction of the Supreme Court's decision is unspecifiable and the main issue pertains to private law or interstate relations