Court Opinion

ID: 9465811
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:56:25.229056+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:23.037095
License: Public Domain

ENGEL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Unlike the majority, I am unable to agree that this case cannot and should not be meaningfully distinguished from United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 53 L.Ed.2d 538 (1977). The footlockers in question were seized and searched at a time concurrent with the apprehension and arrest of defendant Vickers. They were located when seized inside Vickers’ automobile which was halted and searched on a ramp turning from an interstate highway onto Briley Parkway, a thoroughfare in the greater Nashville area which led to the Nashville airport. Given the exigent circumstances which then existed, I am of the opinion that the search and seizure might properly be measured by the appropriate law pertaining to automobile searches, see, e. g., Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 46-52, 90 S.Ct. 1975, 26 L.Ed.2d 419 (1970), and that Chadwick, supra, was not intended to carve an exception to that law. See United States v. Ochs, 595 F.2d 1247, 1254-1255 (2d Cir. 1979); United States v. Gaultney, 581 F.2d 1137, 1144-45 (5th Cir. 1978); United States v. Finnegan, 568 F.2d 637, 640-41 (9th Cir. 1977). See also United States v. Stevie, 582 F.2d 1175, 1180-81 (8th Cir. en banc 1978) (Gibson, C. J. dissenting), petition for cert. filed, 47 U.S.L.W. 3437 (U.S. Dec. 15, 1978) (No. 78-971). This is particularly true when a search on the highway to determine the presence of marijuana might well have been less intrusive than the alternative (which the majority opinion appears to compel) of requiring both the footlockers and motor vehicle to be transported to a police station before it could be known with certainty that the footlockers contained contraband and that the automobile could be seized.
I would affirm the judgment of the district court.