Court Opinion

ID: 9465263
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:40:52.468078+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:04.346421
License: Public Domain

GODBOLD, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
To me this is a close case on the merits. The federal offense of kidnapping would be complete when the state line was crossed, and Court’s subsequent acquiescence would not absolve the defendants of criminal responsibility. But when Court’s overall conduct, including that after the state line was crossed, is considered as circumstantial evidence of whether there was ever a kidnapping at all or whether there was an extortion scheme in which Court was a participant, the case becomes very close. Therefore, I cannot join in the palliative of harmless error1 which insulates the entry and search from scrutiny. The officers entering the apartment knew when they entered that a quarter of an hour more or less previously and some two miles away the three defendants already had been arrested and Court, who was with them, had been released. The entry cannot be justified as a matter of necessity. It cannot be justified upon the right of an officer who has validly entered to make a security search of the immediate surroundings. It cannot be justified on the basis of consent, because if there was valid consent at all it was secured after the sweep search had been completed and the telephone recording device already found.
I respectfully dissent.

. Harmless error beyond reasonable doubt, since constitutional issues are involved, Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967).