Court Opinion

ID: 9699410
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:22:45.139974+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:49.862856
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing
This matter was argued before the late Judge Morrill and the opinion heretofore filed by this court was determined on the basis of his notes and the memoranda submitted to him. On application of defense attorneys the matter was re-argued before this court.
At the rehearing stress was placed on the decision of the Court of Appeals of the Third Circuit in a considered opinion by Judge Hastie in the case of United States v. Bianco, 189 F.2d 716, 719. In that opinion Judge Has-tie, referring to action taken by a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent on telephoned information from a fellow agent, said, “The agent who relies on the summary assertions of his coagent can acquire therefrom no greater authority than could have been exercised by the coagent had he been in the arresting agent’s position. A telephone message cannot immunize irresponsible investigation.” (Emphasis added). There is a weighty distinction from that situation in the present case which to this court serves to remove the action of the police officer from the status of “irresponsible investigation.” The word he received was no mere telephone call from a fellow officer. It was a communication sent through official channels that a crime had been committed with detailed identification of the alleged criminals, with the further statement that they were armed. Failure on his part to take summary action under such circumstances would have amounted to sheer lunatic neglect of duty as well as non-feasance. The indicated action implied as a consequence the necessity for search and seizure. Any other course would be but a meaningless gesture. The whole matter must rest on whether or not the cir*748cumstances of which the officer had reasonably trustworthy information were sufficient in themselves to warrant belief by a man of reasonable caution that a crime is being committed. See Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543, and Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 93 L.Ed. 1879.
A reasonable corollary of this doctrine is such a belief that a crime has been committed. The Constitution does not forbid search; it forbids only unreasonable search, U.S.Const. Amend. 4, as Chief Justice Taft said in Carroll v. United States, supra.
To say that under conditions such as they existed in this case the search and seizure were unreasonable, would result in at least partial paralysis of activities in pursuit of felons.
Further, it would seem doctrinaire to urge that although it would constitute non-feasance on the part of the officer to fail to arrest and search the defendants, it would be improper to allow the results of the legitimate arrest and search to be used in the trial of those defendants. Insistently the court repeats that it is aware of the dangers which could result from misuse and prostitution of the means of obviating what might be termed an initial illegal search. But each case must be decided on its own facts.
It does not seem to this court that the protection granted by the Bill of Rights against unreasonable search and seizure has been trespassed upon unwarrantably or in any culpable degree by the acts of the police officer. They seem to have been taken justifiably on probable cause.
Repeating what it said in the last part of its original opinion about weighing the conflicting dangers inherent in the present situation, the court feels that by the action of the officer “the innocent man is not injured and the guilty person is not wronged.”
Let the order stand.