Court Opinion

ID: 9451173
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:08:29.524337+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:35.814300
License: Public Domain

MERRILL, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I dissent. I find here no consent by appellant to search or seizure.
There was no express consent. There was no express authorization to Mrs. Caldwell to give consent. If either is to be found it must be by implication through appellant’s having placed the briefcase in Mrs. Caldwell’s possession.
By doing so he may be said to have consented to the consequences of all risks attendant upon such a surrender of possession which were reasonably foreseeable. The majority opinion holds that since it was reasonable for Mrs. Caldwell to co-operate with the Federal authorities, such co-operation was to be expected and thus was foreseeable and, by implication, consented to.
I cannot accept the reasonableness of Mrs. Caldwell’s actions as the proper test in this case. Her search was not self-motivated by curiosity. Her communication with the officers was not the result of personal suspicion, nor was their search and seizure undertaken in response to and in satisfaction of her suspicions. In all respects, she acted at the request of the officers, in response to their wishes and as their agent.1 If it was not permissible for them to search or seize themselves, it was not permissible for them to have another person search for them and deliver up for their seizure *1016simply because that person had the power to do so through possession. I do not regard as a foreseeable and thus consented-to risk the fact that Federal officers may improperly persuade the possessor to do for them (and not for herself) what they have no authority to do for themselves.
I would distinguish this case from Sartain v. United States, 303 F.2d 859 (9th Cir. 1962). In that case, unlike the present case, the search and ultimate seizure was not accomplished under Government direction and control. The independent action by the possessor in Sartain was one of the grounds on which we there distinguished Holzhey v. United States, 223 F.2d 823 (5th Cir. 1955). I would reverse on the authority of Holzhey.

. On the day before appellant entrusted his brief case to Mrs. Caldwell, Government agents had informed her that appellant’s apartment was under surveillance. Immediately after appellant deposited his brief case with Mrs. Oaldwell she telephoned the Federal agents. She was directed to open the brief case. She reported that the brief case appeared to be locked. The agent told her to try to open the brief case again. Mrs. Caldwell obediently complied and this time was successful. She then reported the contents of the brief case to the agent.