Court Opinion

ID: 9453361
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:11:00.349585+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:37.480096
License: Public Domain

MERRILL, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
I dissent and would remand for new trial.
I cannot agree that under Cooper v. State of California, 386 U.S. 58 (1967), this search was reasonable. Here the car was not in official custody, impounded as evidence incident to a forfeiture proceeding, as was the case in Cooper. Under those circumstances it is not the fact that the car had been engaged in unlawful activities that renders the war-rantless search reasonable. Rather, it is the fact that the car is in official custody, incident to proceedings by which the Government will acquire title to it, and in which the car itself will constitute evidence. “Search” under such circumstances is little more than inspection of property one expects to acquire or which the law has required one to impound and retain as evidence. There is no issue which the judgment of a magistrate need resolve to establish reasonableness. The relationship between the car and its custodians and the purpose of the custody renders the “search” mere routine.
To extend the authority for warrant-less search beyond such a case and into the area where the Government has not yet impounded and has no more than an apparent right to invoke forfeiture, is, in my judgment, wholly unjustifiable.
This remains a ease where the only basis for the search was the expectation that it would produce contraband or evidence. Whether or not the search was reasonable depends upon the reasonableness of that expectation. It is firmly established that this is a determination that may only be made by a magistrate, save in cases where danger of loss or frustration creates a situation of urgency not present here.
Nor can I agree that under Chapman v. State of California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), admission of the products of the search was harmless error. It may well be that the proof, excluding the products of search, strongly points to guilt, but I do not understand this to be the proper test. The Supreme Court, at 386 U.S. 23, criticizes an approach involving “emphasis, and perhaps overemphasis, upon the court’s view of ‘overwhelming evidence’ ”. It then quotes Fahy v. State of Connecti*175cut, 375 U.S. 85, 86-87, 84 S.Ct. 229, 230, 11 L.Ed.2d 171 (1963):
“The question is whether there is a reasonable possibility that the evidence complained of might have contributed to the conviction.”
The Court later states at 23-24, 87 S.Ct. at 828:
“An error in admitting plainly relevant evidence which possibly influenced the jury adversely to a litigant cannot, under Fahy, be conceived of as harmless.”
The products of the search here constituted the strongest possible corroboration of the admissions of the defendants. It is difficult to conceive how they could not have impressively influenced the jury and thereby contributed to the conviction.