Court Opinion

ID: 9458728
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:00:22.920973+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:52.613205
License: Public Domain

J. JOSEPH SMITH, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part):
I concur in the affirmaneé of the conviction of Johnson and Higley and dissent from the affirmance of the conviction of White. The evidence as to the contents of the suitcase should have been suppressed as to White as the product of an illegal search. There was no such overwhelming proof as to White on any count aside from the fruits of the search that we can say beyond a reasonable doubt that the fruits played no part in his conviction.
Extending the Carroll motor vehicle doctrine to suitcases or similar objects is not justified, especially where, as in this case, there was no difficulty in either posting a watch over the suitcase or transporting it less than three blocks to the police station until a showing of probable cause could be made before a magistrate. See Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971). I would grant a new trial to White.
While Higley and Johnson had no standing to object, Fed.R.Crim.P. 41(e), United States v. Bozza, 365 F.2d 206, 222-223 (2d Cir. 1966) and see Mancusi v. DeForte, 392 U.S. 364, 88 S.Ct. 2120, 20 L.Ed.2d 1154 (1968), affirming United States ex rel. DeForte v. Mancusi, 379 F.2d 897 (2d Cir. 1967); Combs v. United States, 408 U.S. 224, 92 S.Ct. 2284, 33 L.Ed.2d 308 (1972), and as to Johnson in any case in the light of his confessions any error in admission might well be harmless, the search was directed at White, in whose recent possession the suitcase had been. He had standing to raise the objection that no exigent circumstances required invasion of his rights by search without determination of probable cause by an impartial *641magistrate, not only on the possession count, but also on the robbery counts.
There is no merit in the claim of abandonment. The suitcases appeared outside the rear door sometime after White’s arrest, so that White could not himself have put them there. There was no proof and no likelihood that he had authorized anyone else to do so. And if any inference of abandonment is relied on, disclosure of the identity of the informant, who alone was shown to have any knowledge of the suitcases, should have been revealed. The police tip was that there was a shotgun in the suitcase, not a bomb. So long as the ease was in police custody there was no danger from the shotgun. The Fourth Amendment should not be ignored by indiscriminate searches without warrant even in so-called “high crime” areas.