Court Opinion

ID: 9451982
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:28:21.11564+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:00.549904
License: Public Domain

ALBERT Y. BRYAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
Because the District Judge’s conclusions are for me irrefutable, I cannot join in overturning his decision, notwithstanding the trenchancy of the majority opinion. I find altogether untenable, in the circumstances here, its determinative basis: that the truck driver’s jacket and trousers worn by the petitioner Hayden when he committed the robbery were unlawfully seized because they were “of evidential value only”, and so not admissible at his trial.
The evidential rule of search and seizure has been sustained in other situations but it is inapposite in the setting of this case. The preliminary facts, unquestioned now, were stated by the District Judge as follows:
“On or before March 16, 1962, a man named Miller delivered to Hayden a sawed-off shotgun and a P .38 Luger pistol, and Hayden acquired through Miller or otherwise some am-muntion (sic) for both weapons. About 8 a.m. on March 17, armed with the pistol and perhaps also with the gun, Hayden struck Charles E. Mc-Guirk on the head with the pistol and robbed him of some f363, which he had just obtained from the cashier’s cage of the Diamond Cab Company. Two cab drivers saw Hayden running from the scene of the crime, looking back over his shoulder; they gave the alarm, and both of them followed him several blocks to his home at 2111 *656Koko [sic] Lane, luhich one of the drivers saw him enter. The Diamond Cab dispatcher reported to the police what he had learned from the victim and what he had learned over the radio from one of the cab drivers. This information was relayed over the police radio to a number of patrol cars, which came to Koko [sic] Lane promptly, some in less than five minutes after Hayden had entered the house. One of the cab drivers, who had parked at the corner nearest 2111 Koko [sic] Lane, pointed out to the officers the house which Hayden had entered; the officers knocked at the door, which was opened by Mrs. Hayden; they told her that they were looking for a robber who was reported to have entered the house, and said they would like to speak to her husband and search the house. She offered no objection. * * * ” (Accent added.)
As the validity of the officers’ entry and search of the house are uncontested and uncontestable, the pivot of the present decision is the seizure of the clothing. Hayden ran home to escape “hot” pursuit by persons who had been at the scene of the robbery and saw him go in the house. They were dutifully and lawfully attempting to apprehend him. While the police were not initially in the chase, they joined while it was still in full cry. Had they collared Hayden before he crossed his threshold, or after-wards but before he undressed, the clothes he wore could unquestionably have been introduced in evidence as identification or for other purposes. Robinson v. United States, 109 U.S.App.D.C. 22, 283 F.2d 508 (1960). How these articles are instantaneously immunized by his disrobement is unclear to me.
These garments were clues to the whereabouts of the robber. The officers did not know Hayden but they knew his attire. In fresh pursuit, they knew that the robber had sought asylum in the house; they did not know the refuge was his home. As the fugitive was not in sight on their entry, they were obliged to undertake a manhunt throughout the house. The seizure of the clothing occurred in the hue and hunt for the felon, as well as for the money, the pistol and the shotgun.
Obviously he was using his home as a hideout. Not until after the search of the cellar or basement for the felon, when the clothing was found, was or could Hayden be accused. Not until then were the police assured that no other man was in the house. On this point, the District Judge found:
“Hayden was feigning' sleep in the back room on the second floor. Two or three officers roused and questioned him, and when the officers who were searching the first floor and the cellar reported that no other man was in the house, they arrested him. At about the same time one of the officers noticed that the toilet in the adjoining bathroom was running continuously, and found the shotgun and pistol immersed in the flush tank. The officers found a clip of ammunition for the pistol, a sweater and a cap under the mattress of Hayden’s bed, and ammunition for the shotgun in a bureau drawer in Hayden’s room. Meanwhile, the officer who was searching the cellar’ for a man or the money found a jacket and trousers of the type the fleeing man was said to have worn, with a leather belt still in place, in a washing machine.” (Accent added.)
While this finding conclusively demonstrates that the arrest was not made until after the seizure of the clothes, the relative times of the two incidents are not critical. The important fact is that the seizure was made in tracking the felon and not in collecting evidence, the basis of the precept the majority would enforce. No authority is cited holding that an article seized in a hunt for a criminal is inadmissible because it is “of evidential value only”. Nor is the item rendered untouchable because found in a quest in the quarry’s home.
Again, Hayden’s discard and concealment of the habit in which he had been observed on the street were as indicative *657of guilt as was his flight. The secreting of himself in the house anywhere — in basement, attic, bedroom, closet or on the roof — would be provable as incriminating conduct. Had he donned a different garb or disguised himself to avoid capture, the dissemblance would certainly be open to proof at trial. The proof would include production of the clothes he hid as well as those in which he reappeared.
Deceptions frequently speak as forcefully as words, and surely whatever a fugitive said to mislead the officer is fair evidence against him. Simply because the conduct or words occur in the accused’s home does not bar their admission. Devices and designs to thwart arrest or conviction have never, to my knowledge, been excluded as evidence against the schemer.
Finally, and most important, the clothing was seizable as something used in the commission of the crime, coneededly a recognized exception to the rule against seizure of evidence only. Pretending to be asleep, Hayden when finally discovered was undressed and abed. Assuredly, his purpose was to show that he was not equipped to commit a crime at the cab terminal only a few minutes before and several city blocks away. He thus made the issue of whether the apparel in which' he had been seen was an aid — a means or an instrument — in his criminal act.
Examples of personal effects converted into implements of crime would be eyeglasses worn by. an accused when he committed a crime, but not found on apprehension, and without which he later demonstrates he cannot see; or artificial limbs worn at the time, but later hidden, and without which he cannot walk or handle a weapon. This was virtually the reasoning in United States v. Guido, 251 F.2d 1, 3 (7 Cir. 1958), cert. den. 356 U.S. 950, 78 S.Ct. 915, treating shoes as an instrument of the crime.
This is in no sense to declare clothes qua clothes to be tools of crime. Here, to repeat, they were put in this category by the accused’s reliance on' his near-nudeness to eliminate himself as the robbery suspect. They are not merely proof of identification. They establish his preparedness to perpetrate the offense; they belie his alibi.
If nakedness can be thus employed to raise a reasonable doubt of guilt, surely it can be refuted by production of the clothes he wore when he robbed and ran. If not, then to impede identification a criminal need only strip immediately after he is inside his front door. Indeed, under the ruling of the Court, he need not bother to hide his clothes. Left plainly visible, they still would not be touchable for they would be of “evidential value only”.
I cannot agree to Hayden’s release or re-trial simply because his clothes were admitted in evidence.