Court Opinion

ID: 9446154
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:47:38.73748+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:32.520230
License: Public Domain

BAZELON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The crucial evidence upon which appellant was convicted was his admission to the police that he had sold narcotics to Hayden. The police obtained the admission by questioning appellant in his dwelling1 after they had illegally en*760tered it. I would reverse the conviction because the evidence, being the fruit of the illegal entry, should have been excluded. Nueslein v. District of Columbia, 1940, 73 App.D.C. 85, 115 F.2d 690.2
From the proposition that the common law authorizes a policeman to arrest a person on reasonable cause to believe he has committed a felony, the majority proceeds to the conclusion that the policeman may legally invade the person’s home to make the arrest without a warrant of any kind. But that conclusion does not always follow. It does not follow in the circumstances of this case.
The common law seeks to interpose between the policeman and the suspect an impartial magistrate who shall decide whether there is probable cause to abridge the suspect’s liberty by arresting him. It has always been held, however, that circumstances of necessity may justify arresting a suspect without a warrant. In the development of the common law of arrest the basic assumption was that arrests would generally be made on the basis of warrants, the warrantless arrest being the occasional exception.3 In police practice, however, the exception has swallowed the rule. In reeent years, most- — almost all — arrests have been made without warrants.4 The mere number of warrantless arrests, as compared with warranted ones, suggests that, in dispensing with warrants, the police are not depending upon exigent circumstances, but are rather arrogating to themselves the migistrates’ function of determining whether there is probable cause to arrest. Since the law allows the police, as an incident to a lawful arrest, to search the arrested person and the place where the arrest is made,5 there is temptation to dispense with warrants thereby obtaining maximum flexibility in picking the time and place of the arrest.
When the police use this do-it-yourself flexibility to arrest in his home a suspect whom they could have arrested earlier elsewhere, the law draws a line. It holds such an arrest and any search incident to it illegal. McKnight v. United States, 1950, 87 U.S.App.D.C. 151, 183 F.2d 977.
Where it does not appear that the police could have made the arrest earlier elsewhere, my brothers’ present view would seem to be that an invasion of the suspect’s home to make a warrantless arrest and search is valid, even absent any *761critical necessity to dispense with a warrant. But that view, I think, misconstrues the law. The law is as this court stated it in District of Columbia v. Little, 1949, 85 U.S.App.D.C. 242, 246, 178 F.2d 13, 17, 13 A.L.R.2d 954, affirmed on other grounds, 1950, 339 U.S. 1, 70 S.Ct. 468, 94 L.Ed. 599:
“ * * no matter who the officer is or what his mission, a government official cannot invade a private home, unless (1) a magistrate has authorized him to do so or (2) an immediate major crisis in the performance of duty affords neither time nor opportunity to apply to a magistrate.”
'The authorities cited to the court in Little, including Morton v. United States, 1945, 79 U.S.App.D.C. 329, 147 F.2d 28, which the majority relies on here, did not “support the proposition that an officer may enter any building if he has reasonable ground to believe that a person therein has committed a felony.” 85 U.S.App.D.C. at page 246, 178 F.2d at page 17.
It is easy — perhaps too easy — to find in the common law authorities dicta seeming to establish a right of the police to invade a home without a warrant when there is reasonable cause to believe the •occupant has committed a felony. But analysis of the authorities shows there is no such established police right. I have seen no more illuminating analysis •of the common law authorities than that ■of Judge Prettyman, speaking for the court, in Accarino v. United States, 1949, 85 U.S.App.D.C. 394, 402, 403, 179 F.2d 456, 464, 465. His conclusions deserve restatement:
“It seems to us clear that from the early days of the common law the breaking of doors to make an arrest without a warrant was lawful only if necessary. [Emphasis supplied.] Indeed, there was grave doubt among the great authorities that an officer had any power to break doors without a warrant. Care should be taken nowadays that expressions of opinion by those early writers in support of the existence of the power are not misconstrued as assertions of an unqualified power. A man in his own home has a right of privacy which he does not have when on the public street. That additional right imposes additional requirements upon the power of arrest. [Here follows the above quotation from District of Columbia v. Little.]”
-* * ■» * * *
“ * * * Unless the necessities of the moment require that the officer break down a door, he cannot do so without a warrant; and if in reasonable contemplation there is opportunity to get a warrant, or the arrest could as well be made by some other method, the outer door to a dwelling cannot be broken to make an arrest without a warrant. The right to break open a door to make an arrest requires something more than the mere right to arrest. If nothing additional were required, a man’s right of privacy in his home would be no more than his rights on the street; and the right to arrest without a warrant would be precisely the same as the right to arrest with a warrant. The law is otherwise.
* * * * * *
“Upon one topic there appears to be no dispute in the authorities. Before an officer can break open a door to a home, he must make known the cause of his demand for entry. There is no claim in the case at bar that the officers advised the suspect of the cause of their demand before they broke down the door. Upon that clear ground alone, the breaking of the door was unlawful, the presence of the officers in the apartment was unlawful, and so the arrest was unlawful. It follows that the search was unlawful and the evidence thus procured should have been suppressed.”
*762Applying the Acearino principles to the instant case, the entry of the police into appellant’s dwelling was unlawful if it was a “breaking” and either (1) was not required by “the necessities of the moment,” or (2) the officers failed to make known the cause of their demand for entry. I find here all the conditions establishing illegality: the entry was a “breaking”; it was not necessary; and the officers failed to make known the cause of their demand for entry.
The majority opinion states that the officers “did not force their way” into the house. Appellant testified that the officers “bust in through the back door” and one of the officers characterized the entry as “a raid.” At the very least, it appears from the record that their entry was not by invitation or by consent and that the door was not ajar for them. As the majority states, the officers turned the knob, opened the door and entered. Since it is well established that what constitutes breaking in the law of burglary also constitutes breaking in the law of arrest6 and that turning a door-knob is a sufficient breaking for burglary,7 the police entry of the house was a breaking.8
As for the necessity of breaking into the house without a warrant, the majority opinion notes that “the officers believed that by the time they could get a search warrant there would be no narcotics in the premises.” Indeed, so one of the officers testified at the trial under questioning by the judge. Passing the question whether such belief would constitute the “immediate major crisis” which this court found necessary to justify a warrantless invasion of a home in Little,9 I conclude from the record before us that the belief was not in fact entertained or, at least, could not reasonably have been entertained. The trial judge asked the officer what evidence he had that appellant had any narcotics and the officer replied, “I knew that the special employee had went into the premises and made a purchase of narcotics.” But the informer had been sent in to buy six capsules and had come out with three, informing the officers not only that appellant had told him he had no more, but also that he himself could see no more in the container from which appellant had produced the three capsules. The officers therefore had reason to believe there were no more narcotics in the house, and no reason to suppose the contrary. A belief that non-existent narcotics might disappear if they delayed breaking in, if they entertained such a belief, would have been altogether unreasonable and would not have justified invading the house without a warrant.
Moreover, the officer’s testimony that the house was invaded without a warrant because of that belief has the earmarks of a manufactured afterthought. The reason for dispensing with a warrant had been expressed to the prosecutor when he interviewed the officers in preparation for trial. That reason was “that a buy had then been made from this defendant.” The prosecutor, informing the court of this reason for breaking in without a warrant, characterized it as “what I understand in contemplation of law to be an insufficient reason * That is also my understanding.
Furthermore, apart from the reason given by the officers for breaking in without a warrant, there is nothing in the circumstances of the case to justify it. One of the officers could have gone for a warrant leaving the three others to guard *763the two doors of the house to make sure no one escaped. The only evidence they had reason to believe was in the house was the marked five dollar bill with which Hayden had bought the three capsules. Since the occupants of the house were unaware of the impending incursion by the police, there was no reason to anticipate that this evidence would be destroyed.10
The common law requirement that, before breaking into a house without a warrant, the officer “must make known the cause of his demand for entry”11 was ignored here just as in Accarino. As in that case, the police merely knocked on the door and announced that they were police officers, but it does not appear that they announced the cause of their demand before they broke in. Therefore, as in Accarino, their entry was illegal “[u]pon that clear ground alone * * * ” 12
Enough has been said, I think, to demonstrate that reasonable cause to believe an occupant of a house is guilty of a felony does not at common law authorize a police officer to break in to make an arrest without a warrant. I shall now show that no such authority is granted by the statutes relating to the law of arrest in the District of Columbia.13
The Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia was established by an act of Congress in 1861,14 amended in 1862.15 The 1861 act provided in § 7 for a force to consist of a superintendent, ten sergeants and up to 150 patrolmen. By § 27, all the members of the force were required to take an oath of office; the superintendent and the sergeants were, in addition, to furnish security. Section 9 of the 1861 act specified the powers of the police. It provided :
“That the members of the said police force shall possess * * * all the common law and statutory powers of constables * * *;16 and any warrant for search or arrest, issued by any magistrate of the said District of Columbia, may be executed * * * by any member of said police force * * * according to the terms thereof * * *.17 The superintendent of police and the sergeants of police, having just cause to suspect that any felony has been, or is being, or is about bo be, committed within any building, * * * may enter upon the same at all hours of day or night, to take all necessary measures for the effectual prevention or detection of all felonies, and may take then and there into custody all persons suspected of being concerned in such felonies, and also may take charge of all property which he or they shall have then and there just cause to suspect has been stolen.” 18 [Emphasis supplied.]
As I read this section, it was the intent of Congress that, although the members *764of the force were to have the authority of a common law constable to arrest without warrant on reasonable cause to believe the suspect guilty of a felony,19 only the eleven top officers, in whom special confidence was reposed, should have authority to invade a building to make an arrest.20
This reading of the 1861 act is reinforced by the 1862 amendment of the statute. Section 3 of the 1862 amendment granted power to the superintendent of police to authorize any member of the force to enter certain types of buildings for the purpose of arrest and seizure of property.21 This section is limited, however, to gaming and lottery houses, houses of prostitution, and places for lewd and obscene entertainment; and the authorization to enter can be granted only upon a signed complaint by an officer or by two householders stating the grounds upon which the premises are believed to come within the limitations of the section. This section of the 1862 amendment defines the extent to which police officers may enter a house to arrest on reasonable cause.22
Respecting the general authority of police officers to arrest without warrant, § 10 of the 1862 amendment is specific. It provides that a member of the force may “immediately arrest without warrant * * * any person who shall commit, or threaten or attempt to commit, in the presence of such member, or within his view, any breach of the peace or offence directly prohibited by act of Congress [or by any law or ordinance in force in the District].” 23 Under this provision, they may arrest a person in his home without a warrant only if they happen to be on the premises lawfully,24 or if, from the outside, they can see the crime being committed.25
The majority opinion seeks to bring the instant case within the authority of the last-quoted section by characterizing this crime as having been “committed in the presence of the officers” and analogizing it to Agnello v. United States, 1925, 269 U.S. 20, 46 S.Ct. 4, 70 L.Ed. 145. Since the felony in this case consisted of selling narcotics to Hayden behind the closed doors of a dwelling-house and since the four Narcotics Squad officers were outside, with no possibility of sensory perception of what was transpiring in the house,26 the felony was not committed in the presence of the officers,27 unless Hayden is considered one of the officers. Throughout the majority opinion, Hayden is referred to as “a special employee of the Metropolitan Police Department.” In his testimony he called himself a “special agent.” As appears from the record, however, Hayden was under indictment for a crime at the time of these events and, five days later, was convicted. He was serving a sentence at Occoquan Reformatory at the time of his testimony. He had also had *765numerous other convictions, including one for a narcotics violation. His work as a “special agent” of the Metropolitan Police Department began “about the 26th of March,” 1957, the day of appellant’s arrest, and he was paid “by the case” rather than receiving a salary. This case was the only one he ever “worked on.” In short, Hayden was an informer, not a policeman. However reliable the officers may have considered Hayden’s information, the events were perceived by him, not by them. Plainly the crime was not committed in their presence.
Believing as I do that the police invasion of the house was not authorized either by common law or by statute, I would find it unnecessary to consider whether the invasion violated appellant’s constitutional rights. But, since the majority reaches the constitutional question and decides it, I think, erroneously, I deem it advisable to state my views on that question.
In Wrightson v. United States, 1955, 95 U.S.App.D.C. 390, 393, 222 F.2d 556, 559, this court recognized the established principle that the Fourth Amendment covers arrests as well as searches.28 We said:
“The Amendment protects the people against the seizure of their persons as well as against the search of their houses.”
So, having had no common law or statutory authority to invade appellant’s house to arrest him, the officers here, as in Nueslein v. District of Columbia, 1940, 73 App.D.C. 85, 88, 115 F.2d 690, 693, “violated the security of the defendant under the IVth [Amendment] by unlawfully coming into his home and by placing him in custody.”
The purpose of the Fourth Amendment, like that of the common law rule, is to assure, whenever possible, that the justification for breaking into a suspect’s home shall be judged by a magistrate rather than a policeman. The Supreme Court said in McDonald v. United States, 1948, 335 U.S. 451, 455-456, 69 S.Ct. 191, 193, 93 L.Ed. 153:
“Absent some grave emergency, the Fourth Amendment has interposed a magistrate between the citizen and the police. This was done not to shield criminals nor to make the home a safe haven for illegal activities. It was done so that an objective mind might weigh the need to invade that privacy in order to enforce the law. The right of privacy was deemed too precious to entrust to the discretion of those whose job is the detection of crime and the arrest of criminals. Power is a heady thing; and history shows that the police acting on their own cannot be trusted,29 And so the Constitution requires a magistrate to pass on the desires of the police before they violate the privacy of the home.”
And in Johnson v. United States, 1948, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14, 68 S.Ct. 367, 369, 92 L.Ed. 436, the Court said:
“The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enter*766prise of ferreting out crime. [Footnote omitted.] Any assumption that evidence sufficient to support a magistrate’s disinterested determination to issue a search warrant will justify the officers in making a search without a warrant would reduce the Amendment to a nullity and leave the people’s homes secure only in the discretion of police officers. [Footnote omitted.] Crime, even in the privacy of one’s own quarters, is, of course, of grave concern to society, and the law allows such crime to be reached on proper showing. The right of officers to thrust themselves into a home is also a grave concern, not only to the individual but to a society which chooses to dwell in reasonable security and freedom from surveillance. When the right of privacy must reasonably yield to the right of search is, as a rule, to be decided by a judicial officer, not by a policeman or Government enforcement agent.”
Both in McDonald and in Johnson the Supreme Court noted that the Constitution does not prevent invasion of a home without a warrant in a “grave emergency” 30 or in “exceptional circumstances.” 31 As Mr. Justice Jackson put it in his concurring opinion in McDonald:
“When an officer undertakes to act as his own magistrate, he ought to be in a position to justify it by pointing to some real immediate and serious consequences if he postponed action to get a warrant.” 32
As I have shown, supra, the consequence of postponing action which the majority refers to — that norcotics might disappear —is not “real” and, indeed, was not pointed to by the police as their reason for dispensing with a warrant. The reason they did point to- — that they thought the fact that a buy had been made relieved them, as a matter of law, of the requirement of getting a warrant — is no justification at all.
My brothers of the majority say that, even if there were no exceptional circumstances justifying invading the house without a warrant of either arrest or search, United States v. Rabinowitz, 1950, 339 U.S. 56, 70 S.Ct. 430, 94 L.Ed. 653, makes the invasion constitutional. I do not so read that case.
In Rabinowitz the police entered the defendant’s establishment armed with a valid warrant of arrest. The question before the Court was whether, having had an opportunity to obtain a search warrant as well, the police could lawfully search the premises without a search warrant. There was thus no question about the lawfulness of the entry. The Court held that the lawful arrest supported a search without warrant. It did not hold that the police could make an entry without a warrant. In overruling Trupiano v. United States, 1948, 334 U.S. 699, 68 S.Ct. 1229, 92 L.Ed. 1663, the Court made it clear that it was doing so only “[t]o the extent that [it] requires a search warrant based solely upon the basis of the practicability of pro*767curing it rather than upon the reasonableness of the search after a lawful arrest * * 33 339 U.S. at page 66, 70 S.Ct. at page 435. The exact ambit of the Rabinowitz doctrine may be clarified by the Supreme Court in Jones v. United States, 5 Cir., 245 F.2d 32, certiorari granted, 1957, 355 U.S. 810, 78 S.Ct. 57, 2 L.Ed.2d 29.
In addition to his confession, the police obtained from appellant, as a result of their unlawful entry and the ensuing search, a “Bufferin” bottle. The informer testified that appellant had sold him the three capsules out of such a bottle. On cross-examination, the informer admitted that he had earlier told the police and the prosecutor that he was not sure appellant was the seller. He added that his earlier statement had been a lie and that his testimony that appellant was the man was really true. At the very least, it would seem, Hayden’s testimony could stand some corroboration. For that purpose, the prosecutor had marked for identification the Bufferin bottle which the police had seized from appellant and asked Hayden whether it was the bottle from which the three capsules had come. Hayden said it looked like it. Then the prosecutor had one of the policemen identify the bottle as one that had been taken from appellant. If the Bufferin bottle was inadmissible in evidence because it had been illegally seized and if appellant’s counsel fairly raised the question of its admissibility by timely objection, it was error to permit the prosecutor to question the witness about it. And if it was error, it could not fail to be prejudicial.
Since the invasion of the house without warrant of any kind and without exceptional circumstances justifying dispensing with a warrant was, as I have shown, illegal, the arrest was illegal, the search was illegal and the seizure was illegal. Indeed, the trial judge so ruled at first, but then reversed himself. Even though he reversed himself on the question of legality of the seizure, however, he did not reverse his ruling excluding the bottle from evidence.
Before trial, appellant moved to suppress the marked five dollar bill which the police took from him. His motion did not refer to the narcotics paraphernalia which the police had found upstairs, because he did not claim to own them. At the hearing on the suppression motion, the prosecutor asked appellant whether a bottle had been taken from him and appellant said he did not recall that it had been. The court suppressed only the five dollar bill, all that appellant sought to have suppressed. At the trial, as soon as it appeared that the prosecution had a bottle which it claimed was taken from appellant at the time of the arrest, defense counsel moved that it too be suppressed. The court indicated that the motion was “too late,” because not filed “prior to the trial,” but counsel made the point that an arrested person cannot be expected to move to suppress an object until it appears that the police have-seized it. The court took the motion under advisement. Ultimately, as I have-said, he ruled that the bottle was inadmissible, but not before its full significance in the case had been impressed on the jurors’ minds through the testimony of two witnesses.
When the prosecutor asked to have the Bufferin bottle marked for identification, defense counsel, already having moved to suppress it, said, “I am going to object.” But the court, without ruling on the motion to suppress, allowed the bottle-to be marked and exhibited to the wit*768nesses, indicating that an objection would be proper only when the bottle was being offered in evidence. The prosecutor, having obtained all the advantage he needed, never offered the bottle in evidence.
I think the defense motion to suppress the Bufferin bottle was timely and that it was error for the court not to rule on it, meanwhile permitting the prosecution to impress its full evidentiary force upon the jury. Normally motions to suppress evidence must be made before trial. But that rule obviously is inapplicable when the defendant does not know that the property in question has been seized. In such a case, the only reasonable rule is that the motion should be made as soon as possible after discovery of the seizure.34 Had the police obtained a search warrant in this case, as they should have done, this problem would not be before us, for then, under the applicable statute, appellant would have known precisely what had been seized. D.C.Code, § 33-414 requires that the officer executing a search warrant give the person from whom property is seized a receipt listing every item taken. He must also file with his return of the warrant an inventory of all seized property, a copy of which inventory the owner may obtain upon request. It would seem the better practice for officers to give receipts for seized property even when the seizure is not pursuant to warrant. In the instant case, so far as appears from the record, there is no reason for appellant to have known that the police had taken an empty bottle from him until that fact was revealed at the trial.35

. That appellant had a residence at another place did not make the house the police entered any the less Ms dwelling. The friend who owned the house had already been absent about a month and was to be away for another month or two, during all of which time appellant was living and was to continue to live in the house.

. See also the concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Jackson in McDonald v. United States, 1948, 335 U.S. 451, 459, 69 S.Ct. 191, 195, 93 L.Ed. 153:
“Having forced an entry without either a search warrant or an arrest warrant to justify it, the felonious character of their entry, it seems to me, followed every step of their journey inside the house and tainted its fruits with illegality.”
And see Accarino v. United States, 1949, 85 U.S.App.D.C. 394, 403, 179 F.2d 456, 465, in which Judge Prettyman wrote:
“ * * * the breaking of the door was unlawful, the presence of the officers in the apartment was unlawful, and so the arrest was unlawful. It follows that the search was unlawful and the evidence thus procured should have been suppressed.”

. Warner, Investigating the Law of Arrest, 26 A.B.A.J. 151, 152 (1940).

. Accoi’ding to Warner, ibid., warrant-less arrests constitute the “vast majority.” Judge Yankwich cites a 1930 finding by the Committee on Criminal Law and Criminology of the American Bar Association “that, in the largest cities, at least ninety-five per cent of all arrests are made without warrant.” Yankwich, Lawless Enforcement of Law, 9 So.Calif.L.Rev. 14, 17 (1935). See also Note, Philadelphia Police Practice and the Law of Arrest, 100 U.Pa.L.Rev. 1182, 1183 (1952): “Despite the ease with which warrants may be obtained, the Philadelphia police almost never use them. Of a total of 770 arrests examined by the writers only 24, or 3%, were authorized by warrants.” But see Foote, Safeguards in the Law of Arrest, 52 Nw.U.L.Rev. 16, 20 (1957), pointing to the inadequacy of most police statistics and most research methods in this field and warning against “hasty generalizations from geographically limited samples.”

. Agnello v. United States, 1925, 269 U.S. 20, 30, 46 S.Ct. 4, 70 L.Ed. 145.

. Wilgus, Arrest Without A Warrant, 22 Mich.L.Rev. 541, 673, 798 at 806 (1924), and authorities there cited; see also Boynton v. State, Fla.1953, 64 So.2d 536, 548.

. Supra note 6; see also Clark and Marshall Crimes § 410 (1952).

. Cf. Woods v. United States, 1956, 99 U.S.App.D.C. 351, 353, 240 F.2d 37, 39, certiorari denied, 1957, 353 U.S. 941, 77 S.Ct. 815, 1 L.Ed.2d 760, where pushing open a door with the back of an officer’s hand was held to be a breaking.

. 85 U.S.App.D.C. at page 246, 178 F.2d at page 17.

. See the dissenting opinion of Chief Judge Edgerton in Shepherd v. United States, 1956, 100 U.S.App.D.C. 302, 311, 244 F.2d 750, 759, certiorari granted sub nom. Miller v. United States, 1957, 353 U.S. 957, 77 S.Ct. 867, 1 L.Ed. 908.

. Even if the officers have a search warrant, this requirement is imposed by statute. 18 U.S.C. § 3109; Woods v. United States, supra note 8.

. 85 U.S.App.D.C. at page 403, 179 F.2d at page 465. See also Work v. United States, 1957, 100 U.S.App.D.C. 237, 238, 243 F.2d 660, 661; and the dissenting Shepherd v. United States, supra note 10. opinion of Chief Judge Edgerton in

. See United States v. Di Re, 1948, 332 U.S. 581, 589-591, 68 S.Ct. 222, 92 L.Ed. 210.

. August 6, 1861, c. 62, 12 Stat. 320-26.

. July 16, 1862, c. 181, 12 Stat. 578-82.

. Now D.C.Code § 4-136.

. Now D.C.Code § 4-138.

. Now D.C.Code, § 4-141. As a result of subsequent reorganization the “sergeants” became “lieutenants.”

. Carroll v. Parry, 1919, 48 App.D.C. 453, 459.

. As to the constitutionality of a statutory grant of authority to any police officer, no matter how exalted, to invade a home without a warrant from a magistrate or exigent circumstances justifying its omission, see District of Columbia v. Little, supra, 85 U.S.App.D.C. at page 248, 178 F.2d at page 19; see also discussion infra.

. Now D.C.Code, § 4-145.

. But see supra note 20.

. Now D.C.Code, § 4-140.

. See, e. g., United States v. Rabinowitz, 1950, 339 U.S. 50, 60, 70 S.Ct. 430, 433, 94 L.Ed. 653, where officers, having lawfully entered under a valid warrant of arrest, were held to have authority to arrest for a crime “being committed in their very presence.”

. Cf. Agnello v. United States, supra note 5; and United States v. Harnish, D.C.D.Me.1934, 7 F.Supp. 305, in both of which the officers observed the events in the house by looking through a window.

. 4 Wharton, Criminal Law and Procedure § 1599 (1957).

. Henderson v. United States, 4 Cir., 1926, 12 F.2d 528, 51 A.L.R. 420.

. The court cited Albrecht v. United States, 1927, 273 U.S. 1, 5, 47 S.Ct. 250, 71 L.Ed. 505, and McGrain v. Daugherty, 1927, 273 U.S. 135, 156, 47 S.Ct. 319, 71 L.Ed. 580.

. Similar considerations, it may he noted, dictate the policy that arrested persons be brought before magistrates without unnecessary delay for a determination of whether there is probable cause to hold them. McNabb v. United States, 1943, 318 U.S. 332, 343-344, 63 S.Ct. 608, 87 L.Ed. 819; Mallory v. United States, 1957, 354 U.S. 449, 452-453, 77 S.Ct. 1356, 1 L.Ed.2d 1479.

. 335 U.S. at page 455, 69 S.Ct. at page 193.

. 333 U.S. at page 14, 68 S.Ct. at page 369. See also Work v. United States, supra note 12.

. 335 U.S. at page 460, 69 S.Ct. at page 195. The theory that narcotics crimes are of a special heinousness justifying a degree of suspension of constitutional rights is untenable. Mr. Justice Jackson obseryed: “While I should be human enough to apply the letter of the law with some indulgence to officers acting to deal with threats or crimes •of violence which endanger life or security, it is notable that few of the searches found by this Court to be unlawful dealt with that category of crime. Almost without exception, the overzeal was in suppressing acts not malum in se but only malum prohibitum. [Citing, inter alia, Johnson and Agnello, both narcotics cases.] While the enterprise of parting fools from their money by the ‘numbers’ lottery is one that ought to be suppressed, I do not think its suppression is more important to society than the security of the people against unreasonable searches and seizures.” Id., 335 U.S. at pages 459-460, 69 S.Ct. at page 195.

. In Trupiano the police had neither an arrest warrant nor a search warrant, but, since they saw one of the suspects operating the still through an open doorway, the entry and arrest were “valid on the theory that he was committing a felony in the discernible presence of an agent of the Alcohol Tax Unit, a peace officer of the United States.” 334 U.S. at pages 704-705, 68 S.Ct. at page 1232.

. See Rule 41(e), Fed.R.Crim.P.; Gouled v. United States, 1921, 255 U.S. 298, 305, 41 S.Ct. 261, 65 L.Ed. 647; Price v. Johnston, 9 Cir., 125 F.2d 806, 808, certiorari denied 1942, 316 U.S. 677, 62 S.Ct. 1106, 86 L.Ed. 1750.

. See the following colloquy at the trial:
“The Court: Did the officers give this defendant a list of the things they seized?
“Mr. Hantman [Assistant United States Attorney]: No, they didn’t have any warrant.
“The Court: I know they didn’t have a warrant, but don’t they still have to give them a receipt for what they seize?
“Mr. Hantman: I don’t know whether they did or not in this case.
“Mr. Fauntleroy [Defense Counsel]: I haven’t seen any.
“Mr. Hantman: I dont know whether they did or not.”