Court Opinion

ID: 9464497
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:35:02.915721+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:40.098826
License: Public Domain

GOLDBERG, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring.
Although I agree with my brother Wy-zanski that the search of the trailer in this case did not violate appellant’s fourth amendment rights, I do not agree that the search can be justified under an abandonment theory. United States v. Colbert, 474 F.2d 174 (5th Cir. 1973), and Edwards v. United States, 441 F.2d 749 (5th Cir. 1971), make clear that abandonment is a question of intent, yet Garry Williams’ actions in this case do not reflect a single psychic wave of the requisite intent. The trailer was left in a rest area where cars and tractor-trailers presumably were parked all the time. Merely leaving a car or a trailer parked in a rest area cannot mean that one relinquishes “his interest in the property in question so that he [can] no longer retain a reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to it at the time of the search.” United States v. Colbert, supra, 474 F.2d at 176. That Williams did not intend to relinquish control of the trailer here is also demonstrated by the fact that he later returned to pick up the trailer. Indeed, all of appellant’s actions evidenced an intent to retain control of the trailer rather than to abandon it. More importantly, the agents apparently did not believe that appellant intended to relinquish control since they waited for him to return.
The facts of this case are clearly distinguishable from those in Colbert, supra, where the defendant left a suitcase on a public sidewalk and then denied ownership. Although I leave any exegetical thesis on the Colbert case for another day, even under the principles articulated in that case appellant surely retained a reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to his trailer. Leaving a trailer parked in a rest area presumably designed to provide for tractor-trailer parking is hardly analogous to leaving a suitcase on the sidewalk. Perhaps a more appropriate analogy would be to leaving a suitcase in a locker at a bus station, which hardly would manifest the requisite intent for abandonment. I therefore cannot agree with the majority’s conclusion that the doctrine of abandonment applies here. If the abandonment concept is employed with much more abandon, the fourth amendment itself will be abandoned.
I nonetheless concur in the result reached by the majority because I believe that the DEA agents had probable cause to search and that exigent circumstances which justified a warrantless search existed. Probable cause was established by the fact that the DEA agents’ information concerning the Williams’ modus operandi was corroborated in detail by the agents own observations on the day of the search, see United States v. Anderson, 500 F.2d 1311 (5th Cir. 1974), and by the fact that appellant left the trailer behind when he suspected that he was being followed by the police. Furthermore, the risk of Williams returning to remove the trailer constituted sufficient exigent circumstances to justify a warrantless search. See, e. g. Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 48-53, 90 S.Ct. 1975, 26 L.Ed.2d 419 (1970).
*828In conclusion, .1 concur only with the result reached by the majority on the issue of the trailer search. I fully concur with the result reached, and reasoning of, the majority opinion on all other issues raised by this appeal.