Court Opinion

ID: 9467743
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:55:21.220082+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:30.074842
License: Public Domain

BRIGHT, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
I concur in the result insofar as the majority holds that the police seizure at Gladstone was unreasonable. I do not agree, however, that a principled distinction exists under the fourth amendment between the police seizures at Independence and Gladstone. As to both storage facilities, the record establishes that
—the lessor left the apparent contraband in storage until the police arrived;
—the lessor closed the doors to the unlocked units and secured the outside gate;
*689—the police, not the lessor, actually removed the evidence.
The point of distinction made between the lessor’s conduct at Independence (held to be a private seizure) and Gladstone (held not to be a private seizure) emphasizes the fact that the lessor mounted a guard over the premises at Independence and thus effectively barred the lessee from removing or destroying the contraband in the storage unit. I presume that a lessor of individual storage units may also effectively bar a lessee from access to such unit by bolting an exterior door, as at Gladstone. Ante at 685. A hotel proprietor who possesses the hotel guest’s room key similarly possesses the power to bar the guest from his room. When the hotel owner turns the key over to the police to search the room, is that search and seizure lawful under fourth amendment strictures? Stoner v. California, 376 U.S. 483, 84 S.Ct. 889, 11 L.Ed.2d 856 (1964), suggests not.
Neither appellant nor the majority cites any case law in support of the distinction drawn in this case. The expectation of privacy which underpins an owner’s right to be free of unreasonable governmental seizure of his possessions does not rest upon an owner’s relative ability to retrieve his property. See Stoner v. California, supra; United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 53 L.Ed.2d 538 (1977); Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. 753, 99 S.Ct. 2586, 61 L.Ed.2d 235 (1979).
In United States v. Chadwick, supra, FBI agents had lawful possession of a footlocker with probable cause to believe it contained marijuana. The owners had been arrested and “ ‘there was no risk that whatever was contained in the footlocker trunk would be removed by the defendants or their associates.’ ” Id. at 4, 97 S.Ct. at 2479, quoting an FBI agent. The Supreme Court observed:
With the footlocker safely immobilized, it was unreasonable to undertake the additional and greater intrusion of a search without a warrant. [Id. at 13, 97 S.Ct. at 2484 (footnote omitted).]
A footnote to this holding makes it clear that the focus of the fourth amendment is the owner’s expectation of privacy, not his inability to retrieve the contents. The footnote reads in part:
Respondent’s principal privacy interest in the footlocker was, of course, not in the container itself, which was exposed to public view, but in its contents. A search of the interior was therefore a far greater intrusion into Fourth Amendment values than the impoundment of the footlocker. Though surely a substantial infringement of respondents’ use and possession, the seizure did not diminish respondents’ legitimate expectation that the footlocker’s contents would remain private. [Id. at 13 n.8, 97 S.Ct. at 2485 n.8.]
The Supreme Court concluded in Chadwick :
Even though on this record the issuance of a warrant by a judicial officer was reasonably predictable, a line must be drawn. In our view, when no exigency is shown to support the need for an immediate search, the Warrant Clause places the line at the point where the property to be searched comes under the exclusive dominion of police authority. Respondents were therefore entitled to the protection of the Warrant Clause with the evaluation of a neutral magistrate, before their privacy interests in the contents of the footlocker were invaded. [Id. at 15-16, 97 S.Ct. at 2485-86 (footnote omitted).]
Here, by mounting a guard at the storage facility, the lessor at best unlawfully repossessed the locker unit.1 As in Chadwick, the lessee retained privacy interests in the contents of his locker when the police took control or dominion over the storage unit. Like the search in Chadwick, it was an *690“additional and greater intrusion” for the police to seize the contents of the locker. Id. at 13, 97 S.Ct. at 2484. Accordingly, I conclude that the warrantless seizure at Independence was unreasonable under the fourth amendment.2
Thus, I would also affirm that part of the order of the district court suppressing the contraband removed from the Independence facility.
LAY, Chief Judge, and McMILLIAN, Circuit Judge, join in this concurring and dissenting opinion.

. Such unauthorized repossession is ineffective to empower the lessor to consent to a police seizure, absent evidence of abandonment by the lessee. See Drummond v. United States, 350 F.2d 983, 989 (8th Cir. 1965), cert. denied, 384 U.S. 944, 86 S.Ct. 1469, 16 L.Ed.2d 542 (1966); United States v. Wilson, 472 F.2d 901 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 868, 94 S.Ct. 176, 38 L.Ed.2d 116 (1973); Eisentrager v. Hocker, 450 F.2d 490 (9th Cir. 1971).

. The majority acknowledges that the plain view exception does not apply here. Ante at 686. Furthermore, it is clear that requiring a warrant on these facts would not impose an undue burden upon the police. Cf. United States v. Bomengo, 580 F.2d 173 (5th Cir. 1978), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1117, 99 S.Ct. 1022, 59 L.Ed.2d 175 (1979) (after viewing illegal gun silencers uncovered by a prior private search, the police obtained a warrant before seizing the items).