Court Opinion

ID: 9457970
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:39:41.275767+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:35.848503
License: Public Domain

KILEY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
I disagree that the police action was a mere inspection and not a search. “A search implies an examination of one’s premises or person with a view to the discovery of contraband or evidence of guilt to be used in prosecution of a criminal action. The term implies exploratory investigation or quest.” Haerr v. United States, 240 F.2d 533, *831535 (5th Cir. 1957). The authority relied upon by the government, Pasterchik v. United States, 400 F.2d 696 (9th Cir. 1968), does not support the inspection theory on the facts before us. The Pas-terchik court, at 700, on authority of its own Cotton v. United States, 371 F.2d 385, 394 (9th Cir. 1967), said that a policeman need not obtain a warrant to “open a door to check the serial number, or open the hood to check the motor number” if he has “reasonable cause to believe that a car has been stolen, or has any other legitimate reason to identify a car” where the car is already lawfully available to him. Here, in my opinion, there was no reasonable cause to believe the car driven by Ware was stolen.
I agree that the first link in the chain of circumstances involved prudent police work in checking out the anonymous phone call.
I also agree that the arrest of Ware for driving without a license is valid. Green knew the driver of the car was Ware. The check of the state license showed Ware did not own the car. Green also knew that the driver’s license which Ware proffered was false on its face. Then Allen arrived and told Green that Ware had previously forfeited his own driver’s license for a traffic violation.
Ware and his girl friend were taken to the police station and the car was towed to the police garage. The war-rantless search followed immediately.
Ware’s traffic offense did not substantiate the anonymous tip, and the Fourth Amendment requires more than an anonymous phone call “tip” to justify a search. See Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 418, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969); Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964); United States v. Harris, 403 U.S. 573, 91 S.Ct. 2075, 29 L.Ed.2d 723 (1971).
The police needed no further evidence, when the search was made, to support their case against Ware for driving without a license. And the only prior offense of Ware known by the police at the time of Ware’s arrest was his prior conviction for driving without a license. The search was therefore for evidence to substantiate the annoymous tip. It is noteworthy that the police also searched the trunk and the interior of the car while looking for the confidential vehicle identification number. In my opinion the search was unreasonable under Preston v. United States, 376 U.S. 364, 84 S.Ct. 881, 11 L.Ed.2d 777 (1964).
In Preston an anonymous call was made to police. They checked it out and arrested Preston for vagrancy. He and the car were taken to the station where he was booked for vagrancy. His car was towed to a garage. The police, when they searched the car, had no reasonable belief that he had participated in any crime other than vagrancy. As in the case before us, the police could not have obtained a valid warrant to search the car.
The police here searched the ear immediately after arriving at the station. At this point they had no knowledge which would justify a reasonable belief that the car was stolen, much less that it was stolen in another state. There was only an anonymous tip to the effect that it was stolen. The police could not have procured a valid search warrant upon the knowledge they had when Ware was arrested, see Spinelli, Aguilar and Harris, supra, and could not validly have searched the car without a warrant except to protect themselves or evidence.
The police in Preston seized loaded guns in the glove compartment of the car and thereafter seized other incriminating items in the car trunk. The evidence was used to convict Preston and others of conspiracy to rob a bank. The Supreme Court, reversing, rejected the contention that the search was reasonable as incident to the arrest. The Court stated that once a person is under arrest and in custody, a search made at another time and place without a warrant is not incident to an arrest. Pres*832ton, supra, at 367, 84 S.Ct. 881, 11 L.Ed.2d 777. The Court thought that when the search was made at the garage there was no danger that Preston or his companion could have used any weapons in the car or could have destroyed any evidence or could have driven the car out of the jurisdiction. The Court found that the facts did not bring the search under any of the exceptions to the constitutional rule justifying a warrantless search. The Preston case closely parallels the case before us.
A warrantless search is per se unreasonable and the government bears a heavy burden of proof in establishing that the search comes within an exception to the constitutional rule. Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 454-455, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971). It is my view that the government has not carried the heavy burden successfully, that the district court erred in not sustaining Ware’s motion to suppress the identification number seized in the unreasonable search, and that the use of that number and the evidence derived from its use to convict Ware was constitutional error.
This is not a Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 90 S.Ct. 1975, 26 L.Ed.2d 419 (1970), ease where the arrest was upon probable cause of armed robbery and where the search of the car would have been justified on the highway as incidental to the arrest. Nor is United States v. Castaldi, 453 F.2d 506 (7th Cir., 1971), of aid to the government. There, because two of Castaldi’s companions were at large at 3:00 A. M., the automobile was a “fleeting target” under the rule of Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925), with possible danger to the police and evidence.
Here, there was no danger to the police since the car was searched at the police garage. It was not a “fleeting target.” Nor was there any possibility that the arrested Ware could destroy any evidence. Furthermore, it would be unreasonable for the government to argue that any incriminating evidence could be in the car which would aid in the prosecution of Ware for driving without a license, since the police already had seen him driving and had known that he did not have a license. The search was a general warrantless search for evidence of another crime.
I would reverse the conviction.