Court Opinion

ID: 9468783
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:23:34.884453+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:03.343636
License: Public Domain

COFFIN, Chief Judge
(dissenting in part).
While agreeing with all other parts of the court’s opinion, I deem it both unnecessary and inappropriate on this record to conclude that the Fourth Amendment required exclusion of the walkie-talkie found in Jackson’s rolled up rainslicker. I would instead affirm the district court’s ruling that defendant Jackson had not manifested a reasonable expectation of privacy in the rain-slicker.
The standards announced by the Supreme Court in Robbins v. California, 453 U.S. 420, 101 S.Ct. 2841, 69 L.Ed.2d 744 (1981), govern this case. The Court held that a warrantless search of a carefully wrapped and sealed package violated the Fourth Amendment. Four Justices argued that any “closed, opaque container” merits Fourth Amendment protection. Id. at 426, 101 S.Ct. at 2846 (opinion of Stewart, J., joined by Brennan, Marshall & White, JJ). It was this combination of characteristics that “manifested an expectation that the contents would remain free from public examination.” Id. at 426, 101 S.Ct. at 2846 (quoting United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 11, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 2483, 53 L.Ed.2d 538 (1977)). Justice Powell concurred in the judgment “because the manner in which the package at issue was carefully wrapped and sealed evidenced petitioner’s expectation of privacy in its contents.” Id. 453 U.S. at 429, 101 S.Ct. at 2847 (Powell, J., concurring in the judgment).
I construe Robbins to mandate two distinct lines of Fourth Amendment analysis. First, if an object is a “closed, opaque container” it may not be searched without a warrant, absent an exception to the warrant requirement. Second, even if an object does not qualify as a “closed, opaque container”, a warrant will be required to search it if someone has manifested a reasonable expectation of privacy in the object. This dual test has the advantage of creating a bright line to guide police officers while preserving the Fourth Amendment’s traditional emphasis on protecting an individual’s expectation of privacy.
This court’s ruling today, in my view, misconstrues the holding in Robbins. While the court agrees that an object must be “closed [and] opaque” to satisfy the plurality’s formulation, it adopts an overly broad definition of “container”. The court interprets Robbins to mean that “[t]he test of ‘container’ was simply whether it was ‘closed [and] opaque’ ”. Thus whenever something is “within or enclosed in” an object that must be “open[ed]” or undo[ne]” to reveal the identity of its contents, that object is a container for Fourth Amendment purposes. The court therefore holds that since the rainslicker had to be unrolled to reveal the walkie-talkie, a warrant was required to conduct the search.
The court’s holding relies on the Supreme Court’s “all-embracing definition of containers” in New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 460 n. 4, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 2864 n. 4 (1981), as “any object capable of holding another object.” But in my view it is inappropriate to extend this definition beyond the subject matter of that case. The Court in Belton was dealing with a search contemporaneous with a lawful custodial arrest of an occupant of an automobile and held that such a broad definition was justified since any article, including a container, is within reach of the arrestee and falls under the *564rule of Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969). Belton, supra, 453 U.S. at 458, 101 S.Ct. at 2863. This rationale clearly does not apply to the facts of the case before us. Moreover, I attribute some limiting significance to the use of the word “here” in Belton’s definitional footnote: “ ‘Container’, here denotes any object capable of holding another object.” Id. at 460 n. 4, 101 S.Ct. at 2864 n. 4 (emphasis added). I see similar significance in the sentence closing that footnote: “Our holding encompasses only the interior of the passenger compartment of an automobile and does not encompass the trunk.” Id. One can read this sentence not merely to emphasize that warrantless searches contemporaneous with a lawful custodial arrest are only permissible in the passenger compartment — a thought communicated elsewhere several times- — but also to suggest that the definition of “container” is limited to this context as well.
Robbins, on the other hand, resembles the case at bar in that it did not involve a search contemporaneous with arrest, and thus seems the more relevant precedent. I am impressed by the fact that every one of the many references to “container” in all the opinions in Robbins describes objects fabricated and particularly suitable for the sole purpose of containing other things. Justice Powell, in his concurring opinion, seems to corroborate this understanding when he writes: “In accordance with the plurality’s usage I use the term ‘container’ to include any and all packages, bags, boxes, tins, bottles and the like.” Robbins, supra, 453 U.S. at 429 n. 1, 101 S.Ct. at 2847 n. 1 (Powell, J., concurring in the judgment).
I view Belton as designed to give law enforcement officers an open sesame to search all objects within an automobile’s passenger compartment in connection with a contemporaneous arrest — including anything that could hold anything else. Robbins, in contrast, restricts officers in other kinds of searches. To incorporate the same all-embracing definition of “container” in a Robbins context dramatically increases the restrictiveness of the holding. It seems to me that had the Justices intended Belton to define “container” for all Fourth Amendment purposes, Robbins, decided the same day, would have reflected this fact.
I would therefore not expand Robbins’ definition of container in a non-arrest setting to encompass rainslickers, blankets, newspapers or other objects which may be used to hold other things. Such an overly broad definition would impede law enforcement officers in too many cases where no reasonable expectation of privacy exists. This court’s statement of its holding, for example, implies that the officers could have legally seized the walkie-talkie if they had discovered it lying underneath the rain-slicker but not if the walkie-talkie lay within a fold of the slicker. This result is, in my view, not supported by the Fourth Amendment’s concern with expectations of privacy or by the effort to create bright line distinctions for law enforcement officers.*
I agree with the district court that defendant Jackson did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy when he left the walkie-talkie wrapped up in the rainslicker in plain view in the back of a truck. A rainslicker, unlike a piece of luggage or other container, ‘offer[s] at best only minimal protection against accidental and deliberate intrusions.’ United States v. Goshorn, 628 F.2d 697, 700 (1st Cir. 1980). Jackson could not reasonably expect that an object rolled within the rainslicker would remain unrevealed once the law enforcement officers legitimately took possession of the rainslicker. I would therefore affirm the district court’s ruling on this issue.

 The court has responded to this hypothetical by stating that “we do not envisage as a proscribed container a mere fold that could be expected to lead to a revelation in the normal course of handling. ” (Emphasis added.) This formulation, though a narrowing one, appears to undermine the court’s effort to create a bright line test. While I agree that how an object responds when handled is relevant in determining whether a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in its contents, I am unwilling to adopt the court’s formulation as a per se rule.