OMNIBUS CRIME CONTROL AND SAFE STREETS ACT 92 Stat. 3795 (1968)

The most extensive anticrime legislation in the nation's history, this measure reflected the public's fear of rising crime and its demand for federal protection. Congress enacted a massive and restrictive piece of legislation, called by its critics an invasion of basic civil liberties. Particularly distasteful to President lyndon b. johnson, who signed it with reluctance, were titles permitting broad use of wiretapping in federal and state cases, and a section seeking to overturn controversial Supreme Court rulings on the rights of defendants.

The act authorized law enforcement grants to aid local police departments in planning, training, and research and a block grant procedure whereby funds were given to the states to be allocated to their communities under a statewide plan. It channeled funds to improve techniques for combating organized crime and for preventing and controlling riots. The most controversial provision of the act purported to overturn Supreme Court decisions in Mallory v. United States (1957), miranda v. arizona (1966), and united states v. wade (1967), authorizing greater freedom in police interrogation of suspects accused of crimes against the United States, and in the use of lineups to identify criminals.

The measure specified permissive new conditions under which confessions could be introduced in federal courts. The trial judge was to determine the issue of voluntariness, out of the hearing of the jury, basing that determination on such criteria as time lapse between arrest and arraignment, whether the defendant knew the nature of the charged offense, when the defendant was advised of or knew of the right to remain silent and the right to counsel, and whether the defendant was without assistance of counsel when questioned and giving the confession.

The act's provisions on electronic eavesdropping permitted warrant-approved wiretapping and bugging in investigations of a wide variety of specified crimes, and authorized police to intercept communications for forty-eight hours without a warrant in an "emergency" where organized crime or national security was involved. Further, it authorized any law officer or any other person obtaining information in conformity with such a process to disclose or use it as appropriate. The law forbade the interstate shipment to individuals of pistols and revolvers, and over-the-counter purchase of handguns by individuals who did not live in the dealer's state. But it specifically exempted rifles and shotguns from these controls.

Passed overwhelmingly a few hours after the assassination of robert f. kennedy, the act still drew the opposition of liberals troubled by its criminal law sections and concerned that its permissive wiretap section did not contain proper constitutional safeguards. Constitutional issues aside, the act failed to achieve its objectives.

Paul L. Murphy
(1986)

Bibliography

National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Vio -lence 1970 Law and Order Reconsidered. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.