Court Opinion

ID: 9447104
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:25:40.872559+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:54.039124
License: Public Domain

POPE, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I agree that the absence of a breaking in by force serves to distinguish this case from Miller v. United States, 357 U.S. 301, 78 S.Ct. 1190, 2 L.Ed.2d 1332. My search has failed to turn up any case equating a ruse or fraud with force.
But I think the evidence here in question was properly received for another reason. The arrest here followed other arrests and a search pursuant to a search warrant at another betting location. There the occupants had warning of what was up as the agents first announced they were federal officers and then broke the door with a sledge hammer. By the time they got in the room was full of smoke from the betting sheets and papers which had been set on fire. In my view, in a ease of this kind, we can take judicial notice that when an attempt is made by officers to enter a betting parlor, there will be an attempt to destroy evidence if the operators have warning. For this reason we have here the exceptional case suggested or referred to in Miller v. United States, supra, (357 U.S. at page 309, 78 S.Ct. at page 1195),1 United States v. Jeffers, 342 U.S. 48, 52, 72 S.Ct. 93, 95, 96 L.Ed. 59,2 and Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 15, 68 S.Ct. 367, 369, 92 L.Ed. 436 3 I think the obvious danger of another bonfire of evidence was sufficient warrant for what was done here.

. “There are some state decisions holding that justification for non-compliance exists in exigent circumstances, as, for example, when the officers may in good faith believe that they or someone within are in peril of bodily harm, Head v. Case, 4 Conn. 166, or that the person to be arrested is fleeing or attempting to destroy evidence. People v. Maddox, 46 Cal.2d 301, 294 P.2d 6.”

. “There was no question of violence, no movable vehicle was involved, nor was there an arrest or imminent destruction, removal, or concealment of the property intended to be seized.”

. “No evidence or contraband was threatened with removal or destruction. * * ”