Court Opinion

ID: 9650848
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:53:13.224206+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:02.500060
License: Public Domain

THOMAS, .Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
• In my opinion the judgment should be affirmed.
It is settled by the decisions of the Supreme Court cited in the majority opinion that evidence of crime . discovered by a federal .officer in making a search with a warrant invalid under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution is not admissible against the victim of the unlawful search over his timely objection; that the federal government may use evidence improperly seized by state officers operating entirely upon their own account; but evidence obtained, by state officers through wrongful search and seizure in cooperation with federal officials must be excluded.
• Difficulty arises in applying these rules where it is claimed the unlawful seizure was made by the cooperation of the state and federal officials. In such a case if federal officials were present during the search, even though the search were made by the state officers, the evidence must be excluded. The same is true if the unlawful search were made by state officers under the direction of federal officers. But to exclude such evidence the search must be made solely on behalf of the United States. The evidence is admissible when a law of the state makes criminal the acts with which the defendant is charged and the seizure may have been made in enforcing the state law. Gambino v. United States, 275 U.S. 310, 316, 317, 48 S.Ct. 137, 72 L.Ed. 293, 52 A.L.R. 1381.
There is no -showing here that the arrest, search and seizure were made solely for the purpose of aiding in the prosecution of a federal offense. It appears that a law of the state made criminal the acts with which the defendant was charged. The search and seizure were made by state officers whose duty it was to enforce the state law. The record shows that no federal official had anything to do with the wrongful seizure of defendant’s property, or any knowledge thereof, until after the arrest was made and the property was taken. The prosecution in the federal court was not in effect a ratification of any acts of state officers done by prearrangement on behalf of the United States.
The agents of the Alcohol Tax Unit of the Treasury Department of the United States stationed at Hot Springs had no authority to adopt a prosecution for violation of the federal liquor laws until authorized to do so by their superior offi*481cer at Little Rock. There is no showing that the officer at Little Rock had any knowledge of the practice of the state officers at Hot Springs to tender important cases to the federal authorities for prosecution in the federal court, or that he ever approved or ratified such practice; and the local federal agent, at the time he instituted the proceeding in the federal court, did not know that the seizure had been made by the state officers under an invalid search warrant. The testimony of the state officers in reference to their past practices and of the witness Irvin Outler does not seem to me sufficient to warrant a reversal of the finding of the trial court nor to bring the case within the field of activities of federal officers denounced by the decisions of the Supreme Court. Compare Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 48 S.Ct. 564, 72 L.Ed. 944, 66 A.L.R. 376; Goldman v. United States, 62 S.Ct. 993, 86 L.Ed. —; and Goldstein v. United States, 62 S.Ct. 1000, 86 L.Ed. —, decided April 27, 1942. I can find no place in the record where the federal officers did wrong or where they invaded the constitutional rights of the appellant.