Court Opinion

ID: 9446432
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:53:53.247777+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:38.563062
License: Public Domain

PARKINSON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
In order to sustain the judgment of conviction in this case the Government is obliged to justify the search as being incident to a lawful arrest. This it cannot do and I am, therefore, compelled to dissent.
On the day of the arrest federal agents were investigating leads to a whiskey loss from the Hayes Freight Lines which had occurred the night before. Agents Stadtmiller and Oitszinger were in a car so engaged. The defendants “were driving south in the 2600 block on Wallace, and we [the agents] were headed north, and we [the agents] intercepted their path.” The agents “drove directly in front of” the car in which the defendants were riding and made “a head-on stop”.
Counsel for the Government stated in oral argument before this court that when the federal agents stopped the defendants’ car the arrest of the defendants occurred right then and there. Thus it is clear that unless the agents had probable cause to then believe that the defendants had committed a felony cognizable under the laws of the United States that arrest was not a valid one and any search incident thereto was unlawful. The search at its commence*730ment must be valid and cannot be saved by what it turns up. “In law it is good or bad when it starts and does not change character from its success.” United States v. Di Re, 1948, 332 U.S. 581, 595, 68 S.Ct. 222, 229, 92 L.Ed. 210.
The parties are in agreement that probable cause means more than bare suspicion. The Government’s contention that there was probable cause to arrest the defendants when the federal agents stopped defendants’ car is based solely upon three factors: 1, the defendants were seen carrying cartons, the number, size and contents of which were completely unknown to the agents, which the defendants placed in the back of their automobile; 2, the agents were “acquainted” with the defendants; and 3, a Mr. Lieberman, vice-president of Ziffrin Truck Lines, for which the defendant Pierotti worked, had told Agent Stadtmiller that Pierotti had been “implicated” with interstate shipments.
Again in oral argument before this court the Government admitted that it could not explain what had been meant by the words “acquainted” and “implicated”. It has not been argued, nor from this record could it be so argued, that any connotation unfavorable to defendants must or should be placed upon these words. They stand alone unexplained and undefined and as such they are meaningless. They cannot be twisted and contorted into personal knowledge by the agents that the defendants were criminals or were known to be involved in federal law violations as were the defendants in the Carroll and Brinegar cases.
Not only were the agents unable to tell anything about the cartons prior to the arrest but on subsequent examination it was shown that whereas the agents were looking for and expected to find stolen whiskey the cartons contained no such thing. Moreover, after the agents had opened the cartons and examined the contents they were unable to say what crime, if in fact any at all, had been committed.
In the Walker case the evidence clearly showed that the arresting federal agents had personal knowledge given to them by an informer which furnished probable cause to believe a federal felony was being committed. Thus this court held the arrest was valid and the search incidental thereto lawful. Likewise in the Gilliam case the federal agents had personal knowledge that the defendant was a bootlegger and they had been furnished with information by an officer that clearly constituted probable cause. It is that sort of direct evidence of personal knowledge that is completely lacking in the case at bar.
The Bell case has no application here. There the arresting officers were policemen of the District of Columbia. They stopped the defendant’s car after he had pulled away from the curb and had driven some two blocks without lights at 3:30 o’clock in the morning. The officers could have properly arrested the defendant for driving without lights.
Apart from the fact that the record in the Carroll, Husty and Brinegar cases clearly disclosed evidence of personal knowledge of the arresting federal agents that each defendant was a bootlegger and engaged in illegal trafficking of liquor in violation of The National Prohibition Act and thereby had probable cause sufficient to search their “respective automobiles, Mr. Justice Jackson speaking for the court in U. S. v. Di Re, 1948, 332 U.S. 581, on page 584, 68 S.Ct. on page 223, points up the clear distinction between such cases and the one here when he speaks as follows:
“The belief that an automobile is more vulnerable to search without warrant than is other property has its source in the decision of Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543, 39 A.L.R. 790. That search was made and its validity was upheld under the search and seizure provisions enacted for enforcement of the National Prohibition Act and of that Act alone.”
Again we say there is no evidence of personal knowledge by the federal agents *731here that the defendants or either of them could have been suspected of interstate shipment thefts at the time the path of their car was intercepted by the agents and they were arrested and taken into custody. It was at that time probable cause had to exist for when their car was stopped by the agents intercepting its path and driving directly in front of them and making a head-on stop I think the arresting officers were then in the position of an officer who has entered a home; i. e., the search at that time had to be valid and could not be saved by what it later uncovered.
In my opinion the search of defendants’ automobile was in clear violation of the Fourth Amendment. I would, therefore, reverse and remand with instructions to sustain the motions to suppress.