Court Opinion

ID: 9448603
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:41:08.039308+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:30.166404
License: Public Domain

EDGERTON, Circuit Judge,
whom BAZELON, FAHY and WASHINGTON, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting.
This court affirmed appellant’s conviction of violating narcotics laws. Jones v. United States, 104 U.S.App.D.C. 345, 262 F.2d 234. The evidence consisted chiefly of narcotics seized by a policeman who had a valid search warrant. The Supreme Court vacated our decision and remanded the case to the District Court “to consider petitioner’s contention under 18 U.S.C. § 3109 * * That section provides: “The officer may break open any outer or inner door or window of a house, or any part of a house, or anything therein, to execute a search warrant, if, after notice of his authority and purpose, he is refused admittance * * *.” Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 272-273, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697.
The District Court took testimony and found that a “janitor, at the behest of the officer, knocked on the door. The door was partially opened. The officer immediately identified himself by showing his credentials and stating that he had a search warrant. The defendant, who opened the door on a chain, immediately turned around and ran for the bathroom instead of admitting the officer. The officer pulled the chain off the door by putting his hand through the open space and entered.” He “knew that he was entering a headquarters for the sale of narcotics.” The court found that "the entry into the premises was not forced until after the officer identified himself, announced that he had a search warrant and he was not admitted.”
I do not question any of these findings or the testimony that supports them. Also, I agree that when appellant turned and ran instead of admitting the officer, the officer was “refused admittance” within the meaning of the statute. In such circumstances the District Court’s legal conclusion, that the search warrant was properly executed, would normally follow. But I think this conclusion does not follow in the special circumstances of this case. Undisputed testimony raises a question of law with which the District Court did not deal.
Although the officers themselves first knocked at the door, the janitor after-wards knocked “at the behest of the officer”, as the District Court found. The janitor testified, and the officer did not deny, that the officer forced him to knock by threatening to arrest him. Both men testified that someone in the apartment asked who was there and that the janitor replied “janitor”. The facts that appellant partly opened the door, and that *386he then ran instead of lifting the chain, show that the officer’s stratagem led appellant to believe until he saw the officer that no one but the janitor was there. It is not. disputed, and the government appears to concede, that this was the reason why appellant partly opened the door.1
In an entrapment case, the Supreme Court has said that “stealth and strategy are necessary weapons in the arsenal of the police officer." Sherman v. United States, 356 U.S. 369, 372, 78 S.Ct. 819, 2 L.Ed.2d 848. Another entrapment case, Sorrells v. United States, 287 U.S. 435, 53 S.Ct. 210, 77 L.Ed. 413, is to the same effect. Stealth and strategy are common in legal as well as in illegal entrapment. Also in On Lee v. United States, 343 U.S. 747, 72 S.Ct. 967, 96 L.Ed. 1270, the Court approved the admission in evidence of incriminating oral statements that had been obtained by stealth and strategy. A former employee of On Lee entered his shop and got incriminating statements from him without disclosing the facts that the former employee had become a government agent and that he carried a transmitter which enabled another agent outside the shop to hear what On Lee said. The second agent's testimony was held admissible.
Though the government relies on those cases, I think they are not pertinent. They did not involve, and the present case does involve, seizure of tangible property in claimed violation of a constitutional right. In the On Lee case the Court expressly distinguished seizure cases. It said: “Petitioner relies on cases relating to the more common and clearly distinguishable problems raised where tangible property is unlawfully seized. Such unlawful seizure may violate the Fourth Amendment, even though the entry itself was by subterfuge or fraud rather than force. United States v. Jeffers, 342 U.S. 48 [72 S.Ct. 93, 96 L.Ed. 69]; Gouled v. United
States, 255 U.S. 298 [41 S.Ct. 261, 65 L.Ed. 647] (the authority of the latter case is sharply limited by Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, at 463 [48 S.Ct. 564 at 567, 72 L.Ed. 944]).” 343 U.S. at 753, 72 S.Ct. at 971. In (he Gouled case the Court held that a search, and seizure of tangible property, following an entry “obtained by stealth" violated the Fourth Amendment. 255 U.S. at 305, 41 S.Ct. at 263. In Olmstead v. United States the Court limited that principle only in the sense that it refused to extend the principle to a case of wiretapping which did not involve either search or seizure. The Court said in Olmstead: “Gouled v. United States carried the inhibition against unreasonable searches and seizures to the extreme limit. Its authority is not to be enlarged by implication and must be confined to the precise state of facts disclosed by the record. A representative of the Intelligence Department of the Army, having by stealth obtained admission to the defendant’s office, seized and carried away certain private papers valuable for evidential purposes. This was held an unreasonable search and seizure within the Fourth Amendment. A stealthy entrance in such circumstances became the equivalent to an entry by force. There was actual entrance into the private quarters of defendant and the taking away of something tangible. Here we have testimony only of voluntary conversations secretly overheard. The Amendment itself shows that the search is to be of material things — the person, the house, his papers or his effects. The description of the warrant necessary to make the proceeding lawful, is that it must specify the place to be searched and the person or things to be seized.” 277 U.S. at 463-464, 48 S.Ct. at 567. Concerning a search for and seizure of property, Olmstead did not limit Gouled.
In the present case, as in Gouled, there was “actual entrance into the private quarters of defendant and the taking away of something tangible.” It follows *387that if 18 U.S.C. § 3109 were interpreted as meant to authorize the sort of entry that occurred here, the question would arise whether the Gouled principle applies, i. e., whether the officer’s use of subterfuge or stealth in gaining entry made the search and seizure unreasonable and a violation of the constitutional rights of the accused.2
That the subterfuge substantially aided the entry, and so the search and seizure, seems clear. Because of the subterfuge, appellant partly opened the door. Because the door was partly opened the officer, as the District Court found, simply “pulled the chain off the door by putting his hand through the open space and entered.” If appellant had not partly opened the door, the officer would have had to break the door in order to enter. And as the government’s brief recognizes, “The practical difficulty in breaking a triple locked door which opens opposite to the direction of travel is self-evident.” The subterfuge removed the practical difficulty.
The officer could have entered without subterfuge, but he chose not to do so. The premise that an entry by simply breaking in, after giving the necessary notice and being refused admittance, would have been legal is correct. But it does not support the conclusion that breaking in with the aid of subterfuge was legal. Moreover the officer might have been admitted without any breaking if he had simply announced his authority and purpose.
I think it unnecessary to decide whether the search and seizure were unreasonable. I think we should avoid that constitutional question by interpreting the statute as not intended to authorize the use of stealth or subterfuge in aid of entry. As I understand the terms of the Supreme Court’s remand, it follows that the seized evidence should have been excluded and that appellant’s conviction should be reversed.

. The government’s brief refers to “the opening of the door by appellant, as a re-suit of the stratagem used by” the officer.

. This question would nrise whether or not the officer, had he been obliged to wait until he could break through the door, would have been too late to prevent appellant from flushing the narcotics down the drain.