Court Opinion

ID: 9446363
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:52:55.089383+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:37.745714
License: Public Domain

CLARK, Chief Judge
(concurring in the result).
I have more difficulty than my brothers in distinguishing Lambert v. People of State of California, 355 U.S. 225, 78 S.Ct. 240, 2 L.Ed.2d 228, and, in view of the importance of the issue, believe it worth while to note my doubts. I do not really see a more positive act by this seaman in leaving the country with his ship than Lambert’s continued stay in Los Angeles; and I am dubious as to the reality of notice through posters to ordinary seamen coming in and going out of the country. On the other hand, *848this legislation obviously assists in- the execution of a strongly held Congressional policy for the control of the traffic in narcotic drugs. Courts must be slower to strike down such a policy, whatever doubts they may have as to its ultimate wisdom, than to invalidate legislation such as the Los Angeles ordinance in the Lambert case, which was at most “but a law enforcement technique designed for the convenience of law enforcement agencies through which a list of the names and addresses of felons then residing in a given community is compiled.” 355 U.S. 225, 229, 78 S.Ct. 240, 243, 2 L.Ed.2d 228. And the Lambert case disclosed so sharp a division in the Court that the extension of its policy to new areas may well be thought unlikely. Hence, notwithstanding some concern, I am content not to depart from my brothers’ final result.