Court Opinion

ID: 9460021
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:37:54.467786+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:26.112324
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Circuit Judge:
The government appeals from an order of the Southern District, entered’ January 18, 1973, which suppressed certain evidence relating to the prosecution of Robert Yigo and Carmen Pagan, who were indicted on August 11, 1972, for possession of heroin with intent to distribute it, in’ violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 812, 841(a)(1), and 841(b)(1)(A), and for conspiracy to violate these sections (18 U.S.C. § 2). Prior to trial defendants moved to suppress tangible evidence obtained during the search of the automobile in which they were riding at the time of their arrest, to suppress other tangible evidence obtained from defendant Pagan’s pocketbook, and also to suppress oral statements made by both defendants shortly after their arrest. The district court, after a hearing, denied the motion with respect to the evidence seized from the automobile, but granted it with respect to the evidence seized from Miss Pagan’s purse and with respect to the oral statements, see-357 F. Supp. 1360 (S.D.N.Y. 1972). The government does not challenge the suppression of Miss Pagan’s statement, but pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3731, it has appealed the order to the extent that it sup*297pressed the evidence seized from Miss Pagan and Vigo’s oral statement.
We reverse, and hold that both defendant Vigo’s oral statement and the evidence seized from Miss Pagan are properly admissible.
From the evidence at the hearing, the district court found the following facts. On April 11, 1972, Thomas Smith, a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD), received information from an unidentified informant1 that Vigo had offered to sell him up to one kilogram of cocaine. The informant reported that he was to meet with Vigo the following day at Amigo’s Bar, located at 8th Street and Avenue D in Manhattan. Smith instructed the informant to contact Vigo again and attempt to arrange for the delivery of the cocaine to take place at that meeting.
On April 12, 1972, the informant told Smith that he had contacted Vigo and that Vigo had agreed to deliver the cocaine to him later that day for an undetermined price. Smith and the informant decided that the latter would telephone Smith or other BNDD agents when he was with Vigo, that he would inform Vigo he was calling his customers for the cocaine, and that he would try to arrange a meeting place where completion of the transaction could take place. The informant advised Smith that Vigo would be driving to Amigo’s Bar in a 1965 Lincoln Continental with New York license plates. He also gave Smith a description of Vigo.
On the evening of April 12th, BNDD agents (not including Agent Smith) established surveillance of Amigo’s Bar. Members of the surveillance team observed Vigo drive up to the bar in the automobile described by the informant, and they watched Vigo enter the bar at about 9:00 p.m. At 9:45 p.m. Smith received a telephone call at his office from the informant, who advised him that he was calling from the bar and that he was with Vigo and an unidentified customer of Vigo’s. The informant reported that Vigo was having difficulty with the customer regarding some heroin with which the customer was dissatisfied, and that Vigo was unwilling to conduct further business until the other customer was satisfied. The informant asked Smith whether he would be interested in the heroin which the other customer was desirous of returning, or whether the purchase of the cocaine, as originally contemplated, should be pursued. Smith then heard a man in the background say, “I paid $8000. Tell him he can have it for that.” The informant stated that the voice was that of Vigo’s customer and that the customer had just said the package of heroin was “not good” but he would (in the informant’s words) “let you have it for the price he paid for it, just to get his money back.” Smith told the informant that the agents would not purchase the heroin package, that he should continue to negotiate for the cocaine, and that he should attempt to discover what Vigo intended to do with the heroin.
At 11:00 p.m. the informant again telephoned Agent Smith and told him that Vigo intended to take the package of heroin back to his supplier and that he would be leaving Amigo’s Bar shortly. He also said that he believed the heroin was located in the trunk of Vi-go’s car. Informed of this, Smith and another agent left his office and joined the surveillance team. Vigo was observed to leave the bar at 11:45 p.m., accompanied by two unidentified men. The members of the surveillance team followed Vigo and his companions to *298East 5th Street and Avenue D in Manhattan, where Vigo entered a housing project and returned with Miss Pagan.
The agents subsequently followed the car to the Bronx, where Vigo and his companions stopped at several bars. It shortly became apparent that Vigo was not going to any particular destination, and consequently, at roughly 1:00 a.m. on the morning of the 13th, the agents stopped Vigo’s car in the vicinity of 163rd Street and Third Avenue. All four occupants were removed from the car, were told that they were being arrested, and were advised of the offense for which they were being arrested.
Six agents participated in the arrest,, and as a result the events described below happened nearly simultaneously.2 The agents frisked Vigo and found a loaded .32 caliber revolver tucked in his belt. They then took Miss Pagan’s purse (they did not search her person) and searched it, discovering, among other things, some notes thought by the agents to contain a formula for cutting narcotics, a scale, and some marihuana. They also searched Vigo’s car, and in the trunk Agent Smith discovered a briefcase containing several packages of heroin as well as narcotics paraphernalia, including spoons, rubber bands, a strainer, and a scale.
After the search of the car, Agent Smith advised Vigo that “. . . he had a right to have an attorney, had a right not to say anything at all, that he had a right to have an attorney present during anything we might discuss, if he wanted to discuss anything, and advised him he had the right to have a court-appointed attorney if he so desired and could not afford his own attorney.” Smith could not recall that he had in-fornied Vigo that anything he said could later be used against him. Vigo was asked whether he understood what he had been told, and in response Vigo expressed a willingness to talk. He admitted that one of the packages contained heroin and that it belonged to him. Furthermore, in what appears to have been an effort to protect his companions, he stated that although Miss Pagan knew there was heroin in the ear, she was not responsible for it, and that the other two occupants of the car did not even have knowledge of it.
We hold that the search of Miss Pagan’s purse was reasonable and proper as a normal protective measure on the part of law enforcement authorities. A loaded concealed gun had just been found on her companion Vigo. A lady’s handbag is the most likely place for a woman similarly to conceal a weapon. Cf. United States v. Berryhill, 445 F.2d 1189 (9th Cir. 1971). The search of the handbag took place directly after the defendants had been stopped. The circumstances fall well within the limits of permissible protective search established in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). Cf. United States v. Johnson, 467 F.2d 630 (2d Cir. 1972). Nor did the search spill over into an unrelated and therefore unreasonable search for evidence. The agents did not search Miss Pagan’s person. They did no more than ascertain the contents of the place where she would have been most likely to hide a weapon. Evidence of crime discovered by virtue of such a limited investigation is not the fruit of an unreasonable search and is admissible. See United States v. Del Toro, 464 F.2d 520 (2d Cir. 1972).
Defendant Vigo’s oral admissions made at the time of his arrest are also admissible. In Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, at 478, 86 S.Ct. 1602, at *2991630, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), the Supreme Court stated:
In dealing with statements obtained through interrogation, we do not purport to find all confessions inadmissible. Confessions remain a proper element in law enforcement. Any statement given freely and voluntarily without any compelling influences is, of course, admissible in evidence. The fundamental import of the privilege [against self-incrimination] while an individual is in custody is not whether he is allowed to talk to the police without the benefit of warnings and counsel, but whether he can be interrogated. There is no requirement that police stop a person who enters a police station and states that he wishes to confess to a crime [footnote omitted], or a person who calls the police to offer a confession or any other statement he desires to make. Volunteered statements of any kind are not barred by the Fifth Amendment and their admissibility is not affected by our holding today.
Vigo’s statements were voluntary within the meaning of this language, and their admission into evidence did not violate the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Nor does it contravene the purpose behind Miranda of curtailing illegal custodial interrogation by law enforcement authorities. The statements were made immediately after Vi-go’s arrest, at the scene of the arrest and before any systematic inquiry was begun by the arresting agents. None of the inherently compelling factors of station-house interrogation were present. The arresting agents did not coerce or deceive him. He was aware of the illegality of his acts,3 and had in addition been given three of the four warnings required by Miranda. He spoke in an effort to protect his companions, particularly Miss Pagan, and with evident knowledge of the meaning and consequences of what he said. Under these circumstances, the admissibility of his statements was not precluded either by the Fifth Amendment or by Miranda. Stone v. United States, 385 F.2d 713 (10th Cir. 1967), cert, den., 391 U.S. 966, 88 S.Ct. 2038, 20 L.Ed.2d 880 (1968); Pitman v. United States, 380 F.2d 368 (9th Cir. 1967); Parson v. United States, 387 F.2d 944 (10th Cir. 1968); Sablowski v. United States, 403 F.2d 347 (10th Cir. 1968); United States v. Tafoya, 459 F.2d 424 (10th Cir. 1972); United States v. Cruz, 265 F.Supp. 15 (W.D. Tex., 1967); People v. Gant, 264 Cal.App.2d 420, 70 Cal.Rptr. 801 (1968); Cameron v. State, 214 So. 2d 370 (Fla.D.C.App. 1968). See also People v. Dorado, 62 Cal.2d 338, 354, 42 Cal.Rptr. 169, 179, 398 P.2d 361, 371 (1965).
Inasmuch as we hold defendant Vigo’s statements voluntary and admissible under the requirements of Miranda v. Arizona, supra, they are similarly voluntary and admissible under the requirements of 18 U.S.C. § 3501. It is therefore unnecessary to reach the question of the application and constitutionality of § 3501.
The order of the district court suppressing the evidence seized from defendant Pagan’s purse and suppressing the oral statements of defendant Vigo is accordingly reversed.

. The record reveals that Agent Smith had known the informant since January, 1972. The informant was registered with the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs as a cooperating informant. He had previously provided the Bureau with information in another ease which had resulted in the seizure of a kilogram of heroin and a half kilogram of cocaine and the arrest of one suspect. He had also supplied information concerning other narcotics traffickers which had resulted in the arrest of one other suspect.

. Neither the transcript of the suppression hearing nor the district court’s Memorandum Opinion on the motion to suppress indicates the exact sequence of events immediately following the arrest. But it is clear that all the events occurred within a very short span of time after the automobile was stopped.

. Agent Smith testified that among Vigo’s fii words after being taken out of the car were, “I know what you got me for.”