Court Opinion

ID: 9454183
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:38:30.541735+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:00.003951
License: Public Domain

HASTINGS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I join Chief Judge CASTLE in his able dissent in this case. I wish to add a few brief comments of my own.
I was moved to vote for a rehearing en banc in the instant White case because I thought the majority opinion, written by the late Judge Schnackenberg, mistakenly relied upon Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967), as its authority for a reversal of the judgment of conviction. I thought at that time, as I do now, that the factual situation in Katz is so unlike the present case before us as to furnish no controlling precedent.
The original panel opinion was handed down in slip opinion form on March 18, 1968. Judge Major and Schnackenberg were in the majority, with Chief Judge Castle in dissent. It is conceded in the present en banc majority opinion that *852the author of the prior panel majority-decision was of the view that the rationale of Katz required a reversal of White’s conviction. Yet that is precisely the same position taken by Judge SWYGERT in the instant majority opinion. Why was it necessary to indulge in this exercise in semantics to reach the same result on the same cited authority?
I concede that Judge SWYGERT’S majority opinion is a sophisticated constitutional essay in contrast to the short direct approach taken by Judge Schnackenberg. But therein may lie a present danger. With deference, I suggest that the present majority has undertaken, a broad construction of Katz that was not taken by the Supreme Court. For a stimulating treatment of the subject I recommend the reading of Katz v. United States: The Limits of The Fourth Amendment, by Edmund W. Kitch, Associate Professor of Law, The University of Chicago.1
My final comment is directed to the rather summary reversal of On Lee v. United States, 343 U.S. 747, 72 S.Ct. 967, 96 L.Ed. 1270 (1952), by the majority here. Chief Judge CASTLE has ably covered this in his dissent. My fundamental objection to the majority mistreatment of On Lee is that it has no authority to do what it did. I have long held the rather old fashioned view that only the Supreme Court could set aside its holdings. By the process of taking a head count and making a guess on what the Court may do at some future time, the majority holds: “On its facts, On Lee is directly in point and would control the disposition of this case if Katz had not supervened and if the Supreme Court had not on other occasions completely eroded the decisional basis of On Lee.”
I make no prophecy on the future of On Lee. Until it is set aside by the Supreme Court, I regard it as controlling and dispositive of the present appeal. I would affirm the judgment of conviction.

. Released a few days ago by The University of Chicago Press, as a chapter in The Supreme Court Review, 1968, pp. 133-152, edited by Professor Philip B. Kurland.