Wainwright v. City of New Orleans
The Supreme Court dismissed this case without deciding it, ruling that the writ of certiorari had been improvidently granted because the trial record was too thin and confused to answer the constitutional questions at stake.
The case had raised major questions about whether police can stop someone who resembles a crime suspect and whether that person can physically resist an unlawful search, but four separate opinions left those questions unresolved, and two justices dissented, arguing the record was clear enough to decide the case.
“The writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted.”
The Court's entire ruling, declining to decide the case on the merits.
How it got here: Louisiana courts convicted the man of assault and resisting police after finding his arrest lawful; the Louisiana Supreme Court denied review, and he brought the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Case in Depth
What happened
A law student walking at night in New Orleans was stopped by police who thought he resembled a murder suspect with a distinctive forearm tattoo. He gave his name and address but refused to show his forearm or let police search him, was arrested for vagrancy, and later charged with resisting an officer and assaulting police after a scuffle at the station over removing his jacket.
The question before the Court
Could a law student who was stopped, arrested for vagrancy, and searched by New Orleans police be punished for physically resisting the search?
Why it matters
Because the Court walked away without ruling, the underlying questions about when a stop-and-frisk-style arrest is lawful and whether a person may physically resist an unlawful search remained unsettled by this case. The dispute also highlights how police sometimes use minor charges like vagrancy to hold someone for questioning about a more serious crime.
What changes now
Because the writ was dismissed as improvidently granted, the Louisiana courts' rulings against the petitioner stand and no further proceedings in this case are directed by the Supreme Court. The broader legal questions about stop-and-frisk arrests and the right to resist an unlawful search remained open for future cases to address, as reflected in the dissenting justices' concerns about the impact of the recently decided Terry v. Ohio.
What this does not decide
This decision does not resolve whether the police lawfully stopped or arrested the petitioner, whether the later search was lawful, or whether a person may physically resist an unlawful search. The Court expressly avoided ruling on these constitutional questions because it found the trial record too incomplete to decide them.
Concurrences and dissents
How the Justices voted
Separate writings (2). Justice Harlan (author of a concurrence).
Dissent (2). Justice Warren (author).
Concurrence — Justice Harlan
Justice Harlan agreed the case turned on whether the man used unreasonable force in resisting what the record showed was an illegal attempt to search him, but found the record too unclear to decide that question satisfactorily, so he joined the dismissal. Read the full concurrence →
Concurrence — Justice Fortas
Justice Fortas agreed the record was inadequate, but wrote separately to caution against any inference that police cannot stop and question a pedestrian who reasonably matches a murder suspect's description. He stressed the Court should not decide, on this sketchy record, whether the man had a right to resist so forcefully, and did not want the dismissal misread as endorsing his resistance. Read the full concurrence →
Dissent — Justice Warren
Chief Justice Warren argued the record clearly showed the arrest for vagrancy was a pretext to hold the man for murder questioning without probable cause, making the arrest and subsequent search illegal. He would have reversed and sent the case back to let Louisiana courts reconsider state-law self-defense and resistance-to-unlawful-arrest doctrines without reaching the Fourth Amendment resistance question. Read the full dissent →
Dissent — Justice Douglas
“But the principle that a citizen can defy an unconstitutional act is deep in our system.”Douglas's argument that people may resist police actions that violate the Constitution.
Justice Douglas argued the record plainly showed the officers lacked probable cause for the vagrancy arrest and that the man used only minimal, nonviolent resistance. He warned that the Court's recent Terry v. Ohio decision was eroding the traditional right of citizens to resist unconstitutional searches and seizures, and would have decided the case on the merits. Read the full dissent →
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- Several justices concluded that the case turned on whether the arrest and search were lawful, and if not, whether the man used only reasonable force in resisting them — but they found the trial record too incomplete and contradictory to answer either question with confidence.
- One concurring justice reasoned that the record did not show whether police had constitutionally adequate grounds to suspect the man was the murder suspect, so the Court could not determine whether the initial stop was lawful.
- Because the facts needed to resolve these constitutional issues could not be developed further even if the case were sent back for more proceedings, several justices agreed the wisest course was to dismiss the writ rather than rule on an unclear record.
- With the majority declining to reach the merits, the case ended without any binding ruling on whether the stop, arrest, or resistance were lawful under the Fourth Amendment.