Cite as: 532 U. S. 318 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
warrantless intrusions at all in the Fourth Amendment or in the earlier state provisions; thus, they never anticipated that 'unreasonable' might be read as a standard for warrantless intrusions").
The evidence of actual practice also counsels against Atwater's position. During the period leading up to and surrounding the framing of the Bill of Rights, colonial and state legislatures, like Parliament before them, supra, at 333-335, regularly authorized local peace officers to make warrantless misdemeanor arrests without conditioning statutory authority on breach of the peace. See, e. g., First Laws of the State of Connecticut 214-215 (Cushing ed. 1982) (1784 compilation; exact date of Act unknown) (authorizing warrantless arrests of "all Persons unnecessarily travelling on the Sabbath or Lord's Day"); id., at 23 ("such as are guilty of Drunkenness, profane Swearing, Sabbath-breaking, also vagrant Persons [and] unseasonable Night-walkers"); Digest of the Laws of the State of Georgia 1755-1800, p. 411 (H. Marbury & W. Crawford eds. 1802) (1762 Act) (breakers of the Sabbath laws); id., at 252 (1764 Act) (persons "gaming . . . in any licensed public house, or other house selling liquors"); Colonial Laws of Massachusetts 139 (1889) (1646 Act) ("such as are overtaken with drink, swearing, Sabbath breaking, Lying, vagrant persons, [and] night-walkers"); Laws of the State of New Hampshire 549 (1800) (1799 Act) (persons "travelling unnecessarily" on Sunday); Digest of the Laws of New Jersey 1709-1838, pp. 585-586 (L. Elmer ed. 1838) (1799 Act) ("vagrants or vagabonds, common drunkards, common night-walkers, and common prostitutes," as well as fortune-tellers and other practitioners of "crafty science"); Laws of the State of New York, 1777-1784, pp. 358-359 (1886) (1781 Act) ("hawker[s]" and "pedlar[s]"); Earliest Printed Laws of New York, 1665-1693, p. 133 (J. Cushing ed. 1978) (Duke of York's Laws, 1665-1675) ("such as are overtaken with Drink, Swearing, Sabbath breaking, Vagrant persons or night walkers"); 3 Laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 177-183
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