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any provisions to take care of the consequences of this change upon official observance of Acts of Congress or upon individual liberties. The bill is like a man carrying a ladder down a crowded street, who swings the short end without looking to see where the long end is going.

Therefore, we request your Committee not to recommend the enactment of this bill.

Respectfully submitted,

THE COMMITTEE ON THE BILLS OF RIGHTS, OF THE
AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION

BURTON W. MUSSER, Chairman (of the Utah Bar)

DOUGLAS ARANT

(of the Alabama Bar)

ZECHARIAH CHAFEE, JR.
(of the Rhode Island Bar)

J. A. GOOCH

(of the Texas Bar) GEORGE I. HAIGHT (of the Illinois Bar)

H. AUSTIN HAUXHURST (of the Ohio Bar) MONTE M. LEMANN

(of the Louisiana Bar)

W. E. MORSE

(of the Mississippi Bar)

FRANK B. OBER
(of the Maryland Bar)

BASIL O'CONNOR

(of the New York Bar) MAURICE BOWER SAUL (of the Pennsylvania Bar) JOHN MC I. SMITH

(of the Pennsylvania Bar) LYNN U. STAMBAUGH

(of the North Dakota Bar)

LOYD WRIGHT

(of the California Bar)

MEMORANDUM

ON THE DETENTION OF ARRESTED PERSONS AND THEIR PRODUCTION BEFORE A COMMITTING MAGISTRATE

Transmitted to Sub-committee No. 2 of the Committee on the
Judiciary of the House of Representatives with the
Statement of the Bill of Rights Committee

of the American Bar Association
on H.R. 3690.

Prepared by Some Members of the Bill of Rights Committee

OUTLINE OF MEMORANDUM ON DETENTION AFTER ARREST

THE RELATION OF PROMPT PRODUCTION TO EFFI

CIENT LAW ENFORCEMENT.

Pages 3-9

THE RELATION OF PROMPT PRODUCTION TO PER

SONAL LIBERTY AND OTHER INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS Pages 9-17

THE ONLY EFFECTIVE SANCTION BEHIND THE
EXISTING PROMPT PRODUCTION STATUTES IS
THE MCNABB RULE

Pages 17-19

AN EFFECTIVE SANCTION IS NEEDED.

Pages 19-23

THE PRESENT DISTURBING SITUATION CALLS FOR
COMPREHENSIVE ACTION BY CONGRESS..

Pages 23-28

CONSIDERATIONS ON THE PROPER TIME-LIMIT. . . . .

Pages 28-41

CONSIDERATIONS ON THE PROPER PENALTY FOR

EXCEEDING THE TIME-LIMIT . . . .

Pages 41-45

CONSIDERATIONS ON RELATED ISSUES..

Pages 45-51

THE DETENTION OF ARRESTED PERSONS AND THEIR PRODUCTION BEFORE A

COMMITTING MAGISTRATE

Since the statutory rule requiring the police to bring an arrested person speedily before a magistrate is, like other basic rules of criminal procedure, a compromise between public safety and individual liberty, we shall first discuss the relation of the rule to each of these great policies in turn.

The Relation of Prompt Production to
Efficient Law Enforcement

We start our inquiry with the realization that the task of officers charged with suppressing federal offenses (as distinguished from the metropolitan police problem in Washington) has become very difficult in recent years. They are confronted with the increasingly interstate nature of crime, both in fact and under new Acts of Congress. The agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been forced to deal with desperate gangs, armed with machine-guns and other weapons formerly unknown to offenders, and enabled by automobiles to escape rapidly from the scene of a kidnapping or bank robbery and scatter themselves over half-adozen states without attracting observation. The present war added spy rings and sabotage gangs. Great public dangers, like those caused by the landing of the eight German saboteurs in 1942, have been averted by the skill and energy of the members of this Bureau.

Officers faced with such a hard and dangerous task naturally desire to make use of every resource that is in fact available in order to put public enemies where they can do no more harm. For example, whereas conditions in this country occasionally make it difficult to obtain needed information until somebody is arrested, once a suspect is in custody, much can often be learned from questioning him. The statements thus obtained from the prisoner may serve as confessions to be used at his own trial; or they may give clues leading to the discovery of objective evi

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dence, like the whereabouts of loot or a kidnapped man or dead body; or they may enable the officers to run down the prisoner's associates who are still at large. Such customary interrogation after arrest is considered proper by our courts, so long as there is no coercion or other unlawfulness. But perhaps the desired information is not forthcoming within the brief period before Congress requires the prisoner to be brought to a United States commissioner. Then the officials have a strong practical reason for prolonging his detention until they find out whatever they want to learn.

A second practical reason for prolonged detention is urged by the officers in cases of gang crimes, as described above-the danger that the usual publicity of the committal proceeding will warn the suspect's associates. This may lead to his being kept in close custody long after he has told the officers all he knows. Inasmuch as the very fact of the suspect's sudden disappearance from his customary haunts must often be an alarm-bell to his confederates, we have some difficulty in seeing why he still has to be kept like an official secret. This is a topic which deserves consideration by your Committee, for the danger of a warning was stressed by the Attorney General' and has been forcibly presented by a high official of the Federal Bureau of Investigation as follows:

"Modern criminals seldom operate alone, and this is especially true with regard to the more serious violations of kidnaping, bank robberies and other similar crimes of violence. Immediate arraignment of the first member of a criminal gang who is arrested, with the resultant public record and publicity, would frustrate plans of enforcement officers to apprehend the other individuals and conspirators involved. The result would be a vast additional expenditure of money and the very definite possibility of an increase in the number of law enforcement officers killed by criminals. The situation becomes more aggravated in cases involving spy rings and sabotage gangs. The immediate

1 Admission of Evidence in Certain Cases: Hearings before Subcommittee No. 2 of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, 78th Cong. 1st Sem., on H.R. 3690 (1943) page 35. This is cited hereafter as Hearings.

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