Court Opinion

ID: 9468784
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:23:34.886907+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:03.345550
License: Public Domain

*565ON PETITIONS FOR REHEARING
Before COFFIN, Chief Judge, ALDRICH and BOWNES, Circuit Judges.
ALDRICH, Senior Circuit Judge.
Petitions for rehearing have been filed by-all defendants and by the government with respect to those who were granted a new trial. Defendants’ petition continues what, in their brief, we found objectionable, and is affirmatively unmeritorious. It is denied, as is the motion to strike that portion of the opinion entitled “The Fantasies.”
The government’s petition falls into two parts: for defendants Samsel, Mark Tice and Lewis, who complained of the warrant-less seizure of a chart which, by markings thereon, conclusively refuted their claim that the vessel’s presence in the bay was accidental, and for defendant Jackson, whose unrolled rainslicker exposed a walkie-talkie. We consider them separately. The Chart.
The government states, “. .. the [6-8] charts were found lying exposed in the wheelhouse ... in plain view.” We do not, on the evidence, agree with that characterization. The charts may have been in plain view as charts, but not their significance. The sole testimony, that of Agent Cunniff, was,
“I saw some charts lying on a table which I call a chart table near where the wheel of the tug was, and I collected all of these charts, seized them.”
Thus it did not appear whether the charts were folded or unfolded, or even that the chart in question was on the top of what, in light of their size, was necessarily a pile. If the government has the burden of showing that “plain view” means that the significant portion of the chart in question was open and exposed, it has failed to show it.
While there have been many opinions as to what is in plain view,1 where, as here, the government’s burden is to show that a discovery was inadvertent, discovery of content by rummaging among a pile of papers is not inadvertent unless the rummaging itself was initially justified. E.g., United States v. Scios, D.C. Cir., 1978, 590 F.2d 956, 963 n.15 (en banc); United States v. Ochs, n.l, ante (“an otherwise valid search”). Here it is apparent that the charts were seized wholesale, not as a result of inadvertent observation of “plain view” tell-tale marking on one of them. See Walter v. United States, 1980, 447 U.S. 649, 653-54, 100 S.Ct. 2395, 2399-2400, 65 L.Ed.2d 410.
For this there was no basis. The difficulty of justifying a warrantless seizure of a chart is well illustrated by the extensive path we followed in United States v. Miller, 1 Cir., 1978, 589 F.2d 1117, 1125-26, cert. denied, 440 U.S. 958, 99 S.Ct. 1499, 59 L.Ed.2d 771. None of the possible justifications there indicated and found was duplicated here. The government’s present claim, that the charts were taken (or, we would add, even examined) as part of Agent Cunniff’s duty “to inventory and safeguard [the vessel’s] contents” is purely imaginative. There was no inventorying, and the entire vessel was crewless and under guard. It seems equally cavalier to say the “charts were subject to forfeiture.” This assumes the whole point. The vessel was searched for drugs the night before. The government does not show the charts were not taken for evidence by protesting that the agent did not pull out drawers and search for other evidence elsewhere.
Nor are we persuaded by the government’s argument that we overlooked that the charts were “subject to administrative inspection,” and misconstrued the effect of government counsel’s trial concession of defendants’ standing, because “appellate Government counsel neglected to point out the obvious.” If anything is obvious, it is that this was not an administrative (document) inspection. Nor do we know of any rule that, whatever may be subject to administrative inspection (assuming, which *566we doubt, that charts are) loses all fourth amendment protection and may be seized without a warrant, at any time, for any purpose. That would be to swallow the camel with the gnat. Matthew 23:24.
As to standing; we pointed out in our opinion, at p. 850, that on the evidentiary record we would have had serious doubts as to the right of Mark Tice and Lewis to object to the search of the wheelhouse, but in light of the government’s stipulation2 they stood — we use the word advisedly— with Samsel. If the stipulation was ill advised, this is not the time to correct it even if, as the government now suggests by citing our opinion in United Stated v. Arra, 1 Cir., 1980, 630 F.2d 836, 841 n.6, two of the defendants might well have had a problem. In this, and as to Samsel alone, the government’s attempt to limit the scope of standing vis-a-vis the disputed articles can only recall the mother who gave her daughter permission to go out to swim so long as she kept away from the water.

The Rainslicker

The uncertainties in the law in this area, leading to the initial division of the panel, have been expounded at far greater length in the several opinions in United States v. Ross, D.C. Cir., 1981, 655 F.2d 1159. In light of the Court’s granting certiorari in that case, and making special inquiry as to the continued vitality of Robbins v. California (1981) 453 U.S. 420, 101 S.Ct. 2841, 69 L.Ed.2d 744, see 50 U.S.L.W. 3265 (10/13/81), it may be expected that whatever we now decide will have but short precedential value. In the meantime, while the majority of the panel has not changed its views based thereon, all are now persuaded by the government’s claim that Robbins’ enlarged concept of containers is not retro-dictated. Cf. United States v. Peltier, 1975, 422 U.S. 531, 535-39, 95 S.Ct. 2313, 2316-18, 45 L.Ed.2d 374.
The evidence with respect to the rainslicker was brief. In the back of the pickup there were a number of tires. The slicker was seen “folded up, laying on top of those tires.” When the pickup was surrendered to the rental agency the slicker was taken to the Marshal’s office, where “it was unrolled and the radio was discovered inside it.” Although, by bulk and weight, the walkie-talkie may well have made its presence, but not its identity, known before unrolling, it might be natural not to think of the slicker, particularly where so exposed, as a container protected under the prior cases, and we cannot say the court was unwarranted in declining to suppress.
Our prior ruling as to Jackson is rescinded, and his conviction is affirmed. With this exception, both petitions for rehearing are denied.

. See United States v. Ochs, 2 Cir., 1979, 595 F.2d 1247, 1257 n.8 (listing cases), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 955, 100 S.Ct. 435, 62 L.Ed.2d 328.

. These three defendants having objected in the district court to “items seized from the Vessel,” government counsel stated, . whatever search was conducted by Mr. Cunniff on the 13th ... I will concede standing on those three days for these three defendants.”