Court Opinion

ID: 9452958
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:58:07.401283+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:26.246784
License: Public Domain

HAMLEY, Circuit Judge
(concurring) :
It may have been “an accidental happenstance” when the folded square piece of newspaper which had been concealed behind a picture in appellant’s hotel room, dropped to the floor. The action of Officer Barrett in unfolding the paper to expose the marihuana clearly was not. This was a conscious, deliberate act, having for its obvious purpose the discovery of any article which may have been secreted within the folded newspaper. It was just as much a search as if the officer had opened a closed book or briefcase, lying on a table in the room, to determine if anything was concealed therein.
An officer who has been ' invited to the home or hotel room of another person has no authority, by reason of such invitation, to go prying into closed receptacles, files, boxes or packages in the manner weekly depicted in the television show “San Francisco Beat.” Despite rightful presence on the premises, any such invasion of privacy is unlawful under the Fourth Amendment, absent specific consent, a search warrant, an immediately preceding valid arrest of the occupant on the premises, or some emergent circumstance such as the need of saving evidence about to be destroyed.
However, I agree with the majority that, on their assumption and my conclu*395sion that the hotel room search and seizure was illegal, it was harmless to defendant beyond a reasonable doubt, within the rule of Chapman v. State of California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705.