## Facts

- Los Angeles police arrested Alfred Baum and Richard Bader for narcotics possession after stopping a car registered to Archie William Hill, Jr.
- A search of the car revealed property taken in a robbery committed the prior day; Baum and Bader admitted involvement and implicated Hill.
- Bader told police he shared an apartment with Hill and that guns used in the robbery and other stolen property were in the apartment.
- Officers corroborated Hill’s association with Bader, address, physical description, and car information, and went to the apartment without warrants, believing they had probable cause to arrest Hill.
- A man matching Hill’s description answered the door; he was Miller, not Hill, but officers reasonably believed he was Hill.
- Officers arrested Miller and conducted a thorough search of the apartment, seizing weapons, items tied to the robbery, rent receipts, and two diary pages attributed to Hill that the prosecution treated as a confession.
- Hill was convicted of robbery largely based on items seized during the apartment search.

## Issues

1. Whether Chimel v. California’s limits on the scope of searches incident to arrest apply to searches conducted before Chimel, when the case is on direct review.
2. Whether an arrest and search incident to arrest are valid under the Fourth Amendment when officers have probable cause to arrest a suspect but reasonably and mistakenly arrest a different person believed to be the suspect.
3. Whether a Fifth Amendment objection to admission of diary pages was properly reviewable when not raised in the state courts.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed Hill’s conviction.
- Chimel’s restrictions were held inapplicable to searches conducted before Chimel, regardless of whether the case was on direct or collateral review.
- The Court held the arrest and resulting search were valid because police had probable cause to arrest Hill and reasonably believed the person arrested was Hill.
- The Court declined to consider the Fifth Amendment claim regarding the diary pages because it was not raised in the courts below.

## Legal Principles

- The Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness standard tolerates reasonable factual mistakes; “sufficient probability, not certainty,” governs.
- When police have probable cause to arrest a particular person and reasonably mistake a second person for that suspect, the arrest of the second person is valid.
- If the mistaken arrest is reasonable and probable cause existed to arrest the intended suspect, officers may conduct the search incident to arrest that would have been permissible had the arrestee actually been the suspect.
- Chimel’s limits on searches incident to arrest do not apply retroactively to searches occurring before Chimel was decided.
- A constitutional claim not raised in the state courts may be treated as not properly preserved for review.

## Conclusion

Hill upheld a warrantless arrest and search incident to arrest based on a reasonable misidentification where officers had probable cause to arrest the intended suspect, and it reaffirmed that Chimel’s search-incident restrictions do not apply to pre-Chimel searches.


Hill v. California, 401 U.S. 797 (1971)