Court Opinion

ID: 9883120
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 01:37:23.055087+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:21.431690
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Blackmun,
concurring.
I join the opinion of The Chief Justice and the judgment of the Court, but I add a personal comment in order to make very clear my posture , as to Spinelli v. United States, 393 U. S. 410 (1969), cited in several places in that opinion. I was a member of. the 6-2 majority of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Spinelli v. United States, 382 F. 2d 871 (1967), which this Court by a 5-3 vote reversed, with the pivotal Justice concluding his con*586curring opinion, 393 U. S., at 429, by the observation that, “Pending full-scale reconsideration of that case [Draper v. United States, 358 U. S. 307 (1959)], on the one hand, or of the Nathanson-Aguilar cases on the other, I join the opinion of the Court and the judgment of reversal, especially since a.vote to affirm would produce an evenly divided Court.” Obviously, I then felt that the Court of Appeals had correctly decided the case. Nothing this Court said in Spinelli convinced me to the contrary. I continue to feel today that Spinelli at this level was wrongly decided and, like Mb. Justice Black, I would overrule it.