Court Opinion

ID: 9447924
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:17:51.126052+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:14.135057
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge
(concurring specially).
I concur in the result and all of the opinion except one sentence. The Court states, and correctly so: “If the appellant had submitted his guilt or innocence to a jury and had been convicted we would, of course, guided by Elkins, reverse the conviction.” Then follows the sentence which I deem to be erroneous:
“Even in such a case the question could only be considered on appeal and could not be properly raised in a proceeding under Section 2255, Kinney v. United States, 10 Cir., 1949, 177 F.2d 895.”
The basis of my difference is revealed in the Kinney ease itself. In holding what our Court now states above, the Tenth Circuit had this to say. “The purpose of the motion under said section [§ 2255] is not to ‘review the proceedings of the trial as upon appeal * * * but merely to test their validity when judged upon the face of the record or by constitutional standards.’ ” (Emphasis added.) 177 F.2d 895 at pages 897-898.
Repudiation of the silver platter doctrine by Elkins was bottomed directly on the Federal Constitution. The Court in Elkins after commenting that admission of such illegally obtained evidence would cause “the federal courts” to “be accomplices in the willful disobedience of a Constitution they are sworn to uphold,” the Court states its positive holding. “For these reasons we hold that evidence obtained by state officers during a search which, if conducted by federal officers, would have violated the defendant’s immunity from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment is inadmissible over the defendant’s timely objection in a federal criminal trial. * * * ” 364 U.S. 206 at page 223, 80 S.Ct. at page 1447.
The companion case of Rios v. United States, 1960, 364 U.S. 253, 80 S.Ct. 1431, 4 L.Ed.2d 1688, speaks in like terms. “As in most cases involving a claimed unconstitutional search and seizure, resolution of the question requires a particularized evaluation of the conduct of the officers involved.” 364 U.S. 253, at page 255, 80 S.Ct. at page 1433. Later on the Court stated: “Under these principles the inquiry in the present case will be narrowly oriented. The seizure can survive constitutional inhibition only upon a showing that the surrounding facts brought it within one of the exceptions to the rule that a search must rest upon a search warrant.” 364 U.S. 253, at page 261, 80 S.Ct. at page 1436.
The result is that Elkins has now raised to a constitutional plane that which was formerly a mere matter of trial error. Under Kinney, and a host of like decisions, this constitutional question, is in a proper case, within the reach of § 2255.