Court Opinion

ID: 9483159
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:13:07.181354+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:27.879958
License: Public Domain

YOUNG, District Judge
(dissenting).
The majority here reverses the appellant’s conviction for possessing counterfeit social security cards with the intent to sell them in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 408(g)(3) (1988),6 on the ground that the evidence was insufficient to convict. They reach this result in the face of a guilty verdict from a properly charged jury on evidence that the appellant knowingly possessed with the intent to sell five hundred blank but fake copies of social security cards, each accurate in every preprinted particular but none bearing a typed-in name or social security number. Believing that the majority has too easily equated counterfeit currency with counterfeit social security cards and, in the process, has sub silentio overruled this court’s decision in United States v. Moran, 470 F.2d 742 (1st Cir.1972), I am constrained respectfully to dissent.
*1297I. The Counterfeit Standard
The crux of the majority’s view is expressed in the conclusion that, “[i]n the absence of these crucial indicia [the bearer’s name and social security number], we cannot conceive that, in the language of the district court’s charge, ‘an honest, sensible, unsuspecting person who has powers of ordinary observation and who exercises ordinary care in looking at things,’ could have believed the cards, in the condition in which they were confiscated, were genuine social security cards.” Majority Opinion at 1294.
While this is the first decision of this Circuit to apply the Chodor/Fera standard to circumstances other than the counterfeit currency cases in which the standard was developed,7 and while it may well be argued that this standard is inapposite in the context of blank social security cards, I agree completely with the majority that the Chodor/Fera standard has become the law of this case and the government is stuck with it here.
Even so, as the Ninth Circuit remarked in analogous circumstances, “completeness in a green card is a more complex issue than completeness in counterfeit currency.” United States v. Moreno-Pulido, 695 F.2d 1141, 1144 (9th Cir.1983) (case involving counterfeit immigration “green cards”).
An item of currency enables a holder to receive value in exchange. A green card is more like a government check or a U.S. savings bond. Such certificates may need signatures, filled-in blanks or other steps before they can serve their purpose, but a counterfeited, check or bond would appear to be a counterfeit before the required information and signatures are included.

Id.

Precisely the same distinction exists, of course, as between currency and a social security card. Currency is a medium of exchange, valuable in and of itself, each bill intended to be fungible and, but for the serial number and mint designation, each pretty much like any other of the same denomination. Not so a social security card issued to a particular person. Such a card is, to carry out its essential purpose, specific to that person, and sets out the bearer’s name and social security number. The pre-printed blank form, however, is a standard issue government document: Social Security Administration Form OA-702 (4-84) in this case. The production of the standard pre-printed form is, therefore, one governmental step and the issuance to a specific individual (with the name and social security number typed in) is another. Thus, prior to individualized issuance, genuine social security cards exist in blank form — a concept that is absurd in the context of currency. Who, after all, ever heard of a blank ten dollar bill? In currency cases, therefore, the accuracy of the replica in comparison to genuine bills is the crucial determinant. In the context of social security cards, however, what exists in blank form may be stolen — and, more importantly, it may be counterfeited.
Once this distinction is understood, it is not difficult to conceive of a wide variety of groups to whom such counterfeit blank social security cards might be retailed. Immigrants unfamiliar with our laws, young people applying for their first jobs, the elderly seeking a replacement card — each person is a mark for the unscrupulous individual seeking to market counterfeit blank social security cards. What is more, each one may well be an “honest, sensible, unsuspecting person who has powers of ordinary observation and who exercises ordinary care in looking at things.” Such a victim’s confusion lies not with the blank social security card which in all respects appears genuine, but rather, with the victim’s understanding of the regulatory framework within which such cards are issued to individuals. Indeed, the very evil that these counterfeit blank social security cards pose is that .an unscrupulous individual may market them to the innocent and guilty alike, all in subversion of the social security laws and regulations.
*1298I agree with the Ninth Circuit that a person who manufactures or sells the blank form to another individual who fills in the card is guilty of counterfeiting. See Moreno-Pulido, 695 F.2d at 1144 n. 3. More to the point, I also believe that the appellant can, consistent with the instructions of the district judge here, be found guilty upon this common sense view of the evidence presented to the jury.
Furthermore, I agree with the majority that United States v. Moran establishes in this Circuit the benchmark propositions that “[e]ven if it is unfinished, an ersatz document may still be considered a counterfeit if what remains to be done is inconsequential or insignificant” but that “if the paper [is] unfinished in any significant particular, it [is] not yet a counterfeit.” Majority Opinion at 1293, 1294, citing and quoting Moran.8
Where I part company with the majority is in discerning the practical application of Moran in the instant circumstances. Moran, after all, involved uncut sheets of bogus ten dollar bills. There is simply no functional difference between the uncut bills in Moran and the blank social security cards here. If Moran were good law, it would require affirmance here because it recognizes that the uncut sheets are counterfeit even though the bills could not, in uncut form, pass in commerce. The majority opinion, however, eviscerates Moran even while citing it. The paper confiscated in Moran would not meet the test of counterfeiting as applied by the majority here, since the uncut sheets of bogus ten dollar bills would not be accepted, for example, in the supermarket check-out line. Believing that this interpretation is too rigid in light of Moran and that it is not our province to overrule the decision of another panel of this Circuit, I cannot join in the majority’s opinion.
II. Probable Cause to Search
Given the approach that I advocate regarding the appellant's first contention, I am further obliged to address her second point. In light of the controlled delivery of a specific package, appellant criticizes the breadth of the search as it was ultimately authorized and executed. In my view, there was no error either in authorization or execution.
The government’s supporting affidavit contained specific information beyond the mere circumstances of the controlled delivery. The affiant stated that a review of the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles’ records indicated that the appellant had used a fraudulent social security number on her application for a Massachusetts driver’s license. Based on information in that affidavit, therefore, there was probable cause to issue the particularized search warrant which allowed the government to seize items and documents which identified the appellant as Nazira Gomes. Gomes’ name and fraudulent social security number appeared on the application obtained from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles and also on the package of contraband mailed to 29 Hayes Street. See, e.g., United States v. Rey, 923 F.2d 1217, 1220-21 (6th Cir.1991) (probable cause existed to issue an anticipatory search warrant relating to a controlled delivery); United States v. Malik, 680 F.2d 1162, 1165 (7th Cir.1982) (defendants’ claim that search warrant issued after controlled delivery was too broad has no merit if warrant is specific and detailed).
Concluding that, on this record, denial of the motion to suppress was proper and that the evidence was sufficient to support the conviction, I would affirm. Since my views have proved unpersuasive to the majority, I respectfully dissent.

. The current version of the statute is codified at 42 U.S.C. § 408(a)(7)(c) (1992).

. See United States v. Chodor, 479 F.2d 661 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 912, 94 S.Ct. 254, 38 L.Ed.2d 151 (1973); see also United States v. Fera, 616 F.2d 590 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 969, 100 S.Ct. 2951, 64 L.Ed.2d 830 (1980).

. I recognize, of course, that the year after our decision in Moran we decided in Chodor that "[t]he proper test for determining what constitutes a counterfeit obligation is, as stated in United States v. Lustig, 159 F.2d 798, 802 (3d Cir.1947), rev’d on other grounds, 338 U.S. 74, 69 S.Ct. 1372, 93 L.Ed. 1819 (1949).” Chodor, 479 F.2d at 664. In the instant case, the district judge instructed the jury in accordance with the Chodor standard.