Court Opinion

ID: 9457992
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:40:12.741394+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:35.818358
License: Public Domain

HEANEY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
I agree that the police were within their rights in going to the house, in knocking at the door, in breaking down the door, and in seizing the defendant and the shotgun. It would be unreasonable to expect the police to risk their lives when faced with an armed person who they have reason to believe may be hostile, under all the circumstances present in this case.
On the other hand, I fail to understand why a temporary seizure of the defendant and the weapon would not have sufficiently protected the officers. One of the approximately twenty law enforcement officers participating in the search could easily have detained the defendant during the search. In this time, the police could have inquired of the proper authorities to learn whether the gun was registered, or they could have requested the defendant to provide proof of registration as required by 26 U.S.C. § 5841(e). Unless these inquiries gave them probable cause to arrest Cecil, the officers should have released him upon completion of the search.
Instead, the police handcuffed the defendant and used him as a human shield to protect them as they searched the house, on the theory that if any occupants of the house fired on the police, “Cecil would take the brunt of it.” He was then taken to police headquarters on charges of being in possession of an unregistered, sawed-off shotgun.
I cannot accept the majority’s conclusion that the police have probable cause to arrest anyone found in possession of a sawed-off shotgun in the absence of probable cause to believe it is unregistered. Cf., United States v. Bonds, 422 F.2d 660 (8th Cir. 1970). To my knowledge, there are no cases which have decided this precise point. It may be that probable cause for such an arrest could be established in most communities by showing either that there were no sawed-off shotguns registered in a com*1182munity, or if there were such guns registered, that they were in the hands of gun collectors and others known to the police, and by showing further that the police were aware of these facts. On the basis of this record, therefore, I do not think that the police had reasonable cause for believing that the defendant had violated any law. While Congress might be well advised to make the registered or unregistered possession of such weapons a violation of federal law, it has not done so; and neither we, by judicial fiat, nor the police, by their arrest policies, can amend the law to accomplish that result.
Requiring proof of probable cause to believe a gun is unregistered will not impose an impossible burden on the authorities who desire to enforce the existing law as written. The number of sawed-off shotguns legally registered to private individuals is small indeed,1 and the police can be kept advised of those guns legally registered in their locality.

. Less than 15,000 sawed-off shotguns are registered in the entire United States, most of which are registered to governmental agencies for training purposes or to residents of Western states.