Court Opinion

ID: 9458532
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:54:29.737595+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:47.956890
License: Public Domain

WILKEY, Circuit Judge,
concurring;
I concur in Judge Fahy’s carefully reasoned opinion and the action the court takes here, not because I am convinced of the wisdom of the action, but because I feel it is compelled by the Supreme Court’s 5-3 decision in Kaufman v. United States, 394 U.S. 217, 89 S.Ct. 1068, 22 L.Ed.2d 227 (1969). The application we make today of the Supreme Court’s rule in Kaufman illustrates how wide the door was opened by that decision, and perhaps suggests that the Court would have been wiser to follow the majority decision of this court in Thornton v. United States, 125 U.S. App.D.C. 114, 368 F.2d 822 (1966), rather than the minority opinion in that ease. If the consequences of Kaufman now appear thoroughly undesirable, the matter is not beyond rectification by the High Court, although it is by us.
A sua sponte suggestion for rehearing by the court en banc was denied, in connection with which MacKINNON, *764Circuit Judge, makes the following statement:
MacKINNON, Circuit Judge:
I vote for en banc consideration of this case in order to maintain uniformity of our decisions, Fed.R.App.P. 35, which generally do not authorize hearings on insubstantial grounds.
The court’s opinion directs a remand of a case tried in 1966 to consider whether there was constitutional error in admitting a number of shell casings into evidence because they were allegedly obtained by an inadequate search warrant. However, because of the rule announced in Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57, 44 S.Ct. 445, 68 L.Ed. 898 (1924), this objection only relates to 5 shell casings which were found in the house and does not relate to 23 shell casings found on the ground at the front of the farm house (Tr. 164, 166). There was positive testimony that the 5 shell casings bore the head stamp initials “W.R.A.” (Tr. 170), which indicated they were made by the same firearms manufacturing company that manufactured the slugs which killed the deceased victim. There is nothing in the record to indicate that the 5 casings were any different from the 23 casings. They all formed part of one exhibit, with the 5 in a separate envelope (No. 6). Thus it appears that the 5 casings were merely cumulative evidence to the 23. Counsel did not object to their admission and I would not permit the accused to raise the point at this late date. In the years that have passed since the conviction was affirmed, all the casings have been destroyed, and the Government, through no fault of its own, is necessarily prejudiced to some extent.
And while the remand does not expressly turn on these points, I also object to the comments in the court’s opinion, because of the tendency of dicta to confuse, that the search violated Fed.R. •Crim.P. 41 and the ’Supreme Court’s decision in Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971).
Fed.R.Crim.P. 41(a) 1 by virtue of its permissive wording merely authorizes certain courts of record and United States Commissioners (who are not courts of record) to issue search warrants. It does not require all search warrants in federal cases to be issued by courts of record. It does not prohibit federal authorities from using search warrants authorized by the laws of the states and it specifically does not interfere with searches specially authorized.2
In my view the court’s opinion also misreads Coolidge v. New Hampshire, supra, in applying its sanctions to the Maryland Justice of the Peace who issued the search warrant here when it states:
[W]e read Coolidge to say that if a Justice of the Peace has prosecutorial functions, he suffers from unacceptable bias built into his job by the laws of his State.
Coolidge holds that it is a violation of the Fourth Amendment for a search warrant to be issued by a person who occupies the dual positions of prosecutor (or police) and Justice of the Peace with respect to the offense to which the warrant relates; the reason being that the warrant would not be issued by an impartial magistrate. But certainly a Maryland Justice of the Peace is not involved in any way in the prosecution for a murder committed in the District of *765Columbia. To say that all search warrants issued by judges and justices of the peace in the State of Maryland are unconstitutional because the Maryland Constitution designates them “conserva-'tor[s] of the peace,” while leaving arrests and prosecutions to the police and prosecutors, is to completely misapply Coolidge.

. Fed.R.Crim.P. 41(a) provides:
A search warrant authorized by this rule may be issued by a judge of the United States or- of a state, commonwealth or territorial court of record or by a United States commissioner within the district wherein the property sought is located.

. Fed.R.Crim.P. 41(g) provides:
This rule does not modify any act, inconsistent with it, regulating search, seizure and the issuance and execution of search warrants in circumstances for which special provision is made. The term “property” is used in this rule to include documents, books, papers and any other tangible objects.