Court Opinion

ID: 9466718
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:25:28.801664+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:54.926968
License: Public Domain

MESKILL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
Like the majority, I view the threshold question in this case to be whether either or both of the defendants had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the contents of the automobile. Unlike the majority, I would not decide this question on the record before us.
As far as can be determined from the record on appeal, the government never put Smith or Cannon on timely notice of the fact that they would be put to their proof on the issue of their standing to challenge the search. Therefore, the failure of the defendants to offer evidence at the suppression hearing bearing on their relationship with either the automobile or the luggage inside is most likely attributable to the fact that the defendants believed their legitimate expectations of privacy — their standing — to be conceded by the government.1 This would not have been an unreasonable reading of the government’s attempt at the suppression hearing to defend the search, on the merits, as a reasonable inventory search.
In Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 99 S.Ct. 421, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978), the Supreme Court declined to order a remand for fact-finding on the issue of ownership of the damning evidence, noting that although the prosecutor had argued below that the defendants lacked standing, the defendants had chosen not to “contest the factual predicates of the prosecutor’s argument and instead, [had] simply stated that they were not required to prove ownership to object to the search.” Id. at 130-31 n.1, 99 S.Ct. at 424 n.1. The Rakas Court distinguished the case of Combs v. United States, 408 U.S. 224, 92 S.Ct. 2284, 33 L.Ed.2d 308 (1972), as quite different. “In Combs, the Government had not challenged Combs’ standing at the suppression hearing and the issue of standing was not raised until the appellate level . . . . Because the record was ‘virtually barren of the facts necessary to determine’ Combs’ right to contest the search and seizure, the Court remanded the case for further proceedings.” Rakas, 439 U.S. at 130-31 n.1, 99 S.Ct. at 424 n.1. Similarly, in the instant case the record is barren of the facts necessary to determine *491either defendant’s right to contest the search and seizure.2
When the government has led a defendant to believe that he will not be put to his proof on an issue as to which the defendant bears the burden, it does not seem appropriate for an appellate court to resolve that issue on the resultingly incomplete record. In my view, the facts elicited below, either at the hearing or at trial, neither establish nor belie the proposition that either Cannon or Smith or both had an interest in the luggage found in the trunk of the car sufficient to confer standing to challenge the warrantless opening of that luggage in the absence of consent, exigent circumstances, or another recognized justification. Therefore, we are simply not in a position to draw conclusions regarding the reasonableness or legitimacy of any expectations harbored by Smith or Cannon in regard to the luggage. Where the silence of the record is attributable to the government rather than the defendants, I would not draw inferences adverse to the latter on the basis of the gaps in the record, nor would I substitute guess work for sound factfinding.
Furthermore, I must dissent from any discussion of the lawfulness of the search. Since the majority has determined that the defendants lacked standing, any views expressed by this panel regarding the applicability of United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 53 L.Ed.2d 538 (1977), and Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. 235, 99 S.Ct. 2586, 61 L.Ed.2d 235 (1979), to either investigative or inventory searches are unrelated to the disposition of this appeal. In my view, this area of the law is confused enough without our straining to decide issues not presented by the cases. See United States v. Ochs, 595 F.2d 1247 (2d Cir. 1979) (Meskill, J., concurring). I therefore express no opinion on these matters.

. The record reveals that only after the court had announced that none of the items would be suppressed, did the government attorney allude to the question of standing. “Your Honor, just for the record, the Government has a second position that the co-defendant, Mr. Cannon, additionally has no standing in the search . . ” (Transcript of suppression hearing at 106). No mention of Mr. Smith was made at this time. The court agreed with the government attorney and Mr. Cannon’s attorney stated an objection. The suppression hearing was devoted exclusively to testimony concerning the police stop of Smith, the seizure of the evidence from the car, and the inventory procedures of the Baltimore Police Department.

. The majority states (p. 487) that the defendants denied interest in the items seized and argued lack of knowledge of the property. However, the only support the majority cites for this assertion is a statement in Smith’s attorney’s summation (“None of this stuff found in the trunk belongs to Joe Smith. No allegation that it belongs to Joe Smith.”) and the testimony of the officer who stopped the car that he did not know how the items got into the trunk. I find the former not dispositive and the latter irrelevant.