Case Name: UNITED STATES of America v. Charles M. RUSSELL, Appellant
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Jurisdiction: District of Columbia
Decision Date: 1982-01-22
Citations: 216 U.S. App. D.C. 165
Docket Number: No. 80-1139
Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. Charles M. RUSSELL, Appellant.
Judges: Before ROBINSON, Chief Judge, and WILKEY and GINSBURG, Circuit Judges.
Reporter: United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Volume: 216
Pages: 165–170

Head Matter:
670 F.2d 323
UNITED STATES of America v. Charles M. RUSSELL, Appellant.
No. 80-1139.
United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.
Jan. 22, 1982.
Certiorari Denied June 7, 1982.
See 102 S.Ct. 2909.
Before ROBINSON, Chief Judge, and WILKEY and GINSBURG, Circuit Judges.

Opinion:
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GINSBURG.
Separate statement concurring in the judgment filed by Chief Judge SPOTTSWOOD W. ROBINSON, III.
GINSBURG, Circuit Judge:
INTRODUCTION
In this case, involving two paper bags seized from a car and opened without a warrant, we confront fluid, variously interpreted strands of Fourth Amendment law. The bags were uncovered in the course of a search the police conducted after they had probable cause to believe that drugs were in the car. As described by one of the police officers, the car was a "1979 Mustang, . a hatchback type, in that the trunk area is accessible to the passengers from the rear seat, or if the driver wants to lean over." Suppression Hearing Tr. at 12. In the course of the search, Russell, driver of the car, and the other three occupants were ordered out of the vehicle. Russell was held in custody at the scene and subjected to a personal search by a back-up officer. One of the two paper bags in contention was found under the front seat; it contained a handgun. The other, a large grocery-type bag covered by clothing, was seized from the hatchback; it contained, inter alia, packets of heroin.
In our initial decision, issued May 15, 1981, in response to the government's plea for a "paper bag" or "unworthy container" exception to the warrant requirement, we cited our recent, en banc disposition in United States v. Ross, 655 F.2d 1159 (D.C. Cir.1981), cert. granted, — U.S.-, 102 S.Ct. 386, 70 L.Ed.2d 205 (1981). Ross noted the Supreme Court's admonitions that the reasonableness of a search does not obviate the need for a warrant and that the exceptions to the warrant requirement are few in number and well-contained; the Ross decision held that the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement forbids the warrantless opening of a closed, opaque paper bag to the same extent that it forbids the warrantless opening of other closed, opaque containers, for example, a carryall of leather, nylon, or cotton, a silk purse, a plastic sack. We reasoned in Ross that paper bags or envelopes, whether marked Tiffany's or Five and Dime, could not be set apart from more sturdy or costly containers in a manner that makes either alent of a trunk." Robbins, supra, 101 S.Ct. at 2857 (Stevens, J., dissenting). The Robbins decision held that packages wrapped in opaque plastic and sealed with a tape strip could not be opened without a warrant after seizure from a station wagon luggage compartment. (The police gained access to the compartment by taking the keys from the ignition, opening the tailgate, lifting the floor rug, and pulling up a handle set flush in the deck.) But, as Professor Yale Kamisar points out, items in a hatchback are more accessible than those in the rear of a station wagon: "[M]any, if not most, courts would say they are within 'lunging distance' of even those in the front seats." Y. Kamisar, supra, at 94.
In the case before us, it does not appear that the hatchback was outside the control of the car occupants (as a car trunk or a recessed luggage compartment in the rear of a station wagon would have been) immediately before the process of arrest. See Robbins, supra, 101 S.Ct. at 2848-49 (Powell, J., concurring in the judgment). We therefore conclude, in light of the emphasis the Supreme Court placed in Belton on a workable definition of the area of a car subject to warrantless search in conjunction with a lawful custodial arrest, that a hatchback reachable without exiting the vehicle properly ranks as part of the interior or passenger compartment. On that basis, we hold that the broadened search-incident-to-arrest doctrine declared in Belton covers Russell's case as well.
CONCLUSION
In accordance with the foregoing, we vacate our May 15, 1981, decision to the extent that it reversed in part the judgment of the district court, and hereby affirm the district court's judgment in all respects.
. United States v. Russell, 655 F.2d 1261 (D.C. Cir.1981).
. 655 F.2d at 1168-69.
. 101 S.Ct. at 2863-64.
. Our decision is focused narrowly and specifically on the precise question whether Belton's rule and rationale encompass the hatchback in this case. No other question is framed or answered by the decision. We disavow any design "to lay down . . legal principles," and intend no "expansive declaration of the current status of the law governing searches of containers within vehicles." These broadsides apart, We are in full agreement with the views separately stated by Chief Judge Robinson. We share, particularly, Chief Judge Robinson's emphasis on the need, in this still-evolving area of the law, "for further enlightenment from Higher Authority." See United States v. Martino, 664 F.2d 860, 881 (2d Cir. 1981) (Oakes, J., concurring).