Court Opinion

ID: 9480092
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:38:05.249307+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:28.906238
License: Public Domain

WOODLOCK, District Judge
(dissenting).
It is tempting to treat the mere turning of the key to the padlock for storage compartment # 633 as an investigative step not rising to the level of Fourth Amendment concern. That, in essence, is the way the district court treated this step when it ruled that the insertion of a key into a lock solely for purposes of identifying ownership did not constitute a search at all.
Such a treatment, however, creates significant conceptual difficulties, as the majority recognizes with its candid observation that “whether trying the key in order to identify the lock’s owner was a 'search' is a tricky question.” Ante, at 212. The conceptual trick can be avoided, I believe, by adherence to recent Supreme Court precedent.
In Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 107 S.Ct. 1149, 94 L.Ed.2d 347 (1987), the Supreme Court focused Fourth Amendment concerns in this context on whether the investigative step at issue involves the physical exploration and manipulation of the concealed aspects of an object only the exterior of which is exposed. The investigative step here involved just such exploration and manipulation. Hicks compels the conclusion that the investigative step at issue in this case was a search for which a warrant was a necessary precondition.
Accordingly, while I join in parts I.A., II, III and IV of the majority opinion, I respectfully dissent from part I.B. and write separately to set forth the bases for my view that this case should be remanded to the district court for further proceedings on the Fourth Amendment issue.
I
Hicks, an opinion handed down after the trial judge’s ruling in this case and thus unavailable to him for guidance, is the current touchstone for this area of Fourth Amendment law. In Hicks the Supreme Court held that the mere act of moving some stereo components slightly — to reveal the serial numbers underneath — constituted a search. In the words of the Supreme Court, “A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable.” Id. at 325, 107 S.Ct. at 1153.
However, here the majority of this court holds that an intrusion into a padlock which merely discloses whether a particular key can open the mechanism is not a search. The majority offers an alternative holding as well: that “even if it was a search, it was ... not unreasonable because there is no expectation of privacy involved.” Ante, at 212. The Supreme Court in Hicks declined to accept either of the two alternative rationales the majority articulates for avoiding the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment.
The Court rejected Justice O’Connor’s characterization of the officers’ actions as a “cursory inspection,” not implicating a “full blown search.” See id. at 333, 107 S.Ct. at 1157 (O’Connor, J., dissenting). Justice O’Connor’s characterization is paralleled by the lower court holding and the first alternative ground adopted by the majority in this case. The Court also rejected Justice Powell’s suggestion — paralleled by the second alternative adopted by the majority — that a modest dislocation of an object in plain view would be reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. See id. at 330, 107 S.Ct. at 1155 (Powell, J., dissenting). The Court instead found that “the ‘distinction between “looking” at a suspicious object in plain view and “moving” it even a few inches’ is much more than trivial for purposes of the Fourth Amendment.” Id. at 325, 107 S.Ct. at 1153 (quot*219ing dissent of Powell, J., at 333, 107 S.Ct. at 1157).
The padlock at issue here — no less than the stereo component in Hicks — was an “effect” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment and Lyons had a legitimate expectation of privacy regarding it. While the primary expectation of privacy was attached to the storage compartment itself, the lock was an indefeasible component of that compartment: without a secure lock, the expectation of privacy in the compartment would be significantly diminished. Moreover, Lyons had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the use of the lock itself. It was his private lock; he held the only keys and there was no master key on file. The internal mechanism of the lock was not exposed to outside view; the nature of a padlock is such that it is meant to remain closed unless opened by a person authorized by the owner to make use of the key. Lyons had taken all steps necessary to secure a reasonable expectation of privacy in his identity as the owner of the lock with access to the compartment. It parses too fine to distinguish between a reasonable expectation of privacy in the objects and places a lock secures and a reasonable expectation of privacy in the lock’s interior mechanism.
I need not resort to elaborate metaphor to evoke the fundamental function of lock and key to guard those effects which persons seek to keep private. Indeed, the use of a lock is a classic sign that an expectation of privacy legitimately attends the location of a person’s effects. “No less than one who locks the doors of his home against intruders, one who safeguards his possessions [by locking them in a private storage compartment] is due the protection of the Fourth Amendment Warrant Clause.” United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 11, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 2483, 53 L.Ed.2d 538 (1977). Society considers the objects a person seeks to keep under lock and key to be at the very heart of the class of effects for which an expectation of privacy is reasonable. The penetration and manipulation — cursory or sustained, modest or substantial — of the guardian mechanisms of that heartland is no trivial matter for Fourth Amendment purposes. It is a search in its own right irrespective of whether, as here, it also provides evidence supporting — and is thus the initial stage of — the search of the compartment whose privacy the mechanism guards.
Following Hicks, I would conclude that attempting to identify ownership of a private storage compartment by means of the penetration and manipulation of a padlock constitutes a search requiring a warrant unless there is an “acceptable reason for bypassing the usual constraints of the fourth amendment.” United States v. Curzi, 867 F.2d 36, 41 (1st Cir.1989). I can find none.
I recognize, as the Supreme Court observed last term, that “the Fourth Amendment does not proscribe all searches and seizures, but only those that are unreasonable.” Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives Ass’n., — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 1402, 1414, 103 L.Ed.2d 639 (1989). The reasonableness of a search “is judged by balancing its intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests against its promotion of legitimate governmental interests.” Id. (quoting Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 654, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 1396, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979)). But “[i]n most criminal cases[,] this balance [is struck] in favor of the procedures described by the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment.” Id. Thus, “[e]xcept in certain well-defined circumstances, a search or seizure in such a case is not reasonable unless it is accomplished pursuant to a judicial warrant issued upon probable cause.” Id. The exceptions arise “when special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement, make the warrant and probable cause requirement impracticable.” Id. (quoting Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 873, 107 S.Ct. 3164, 3167, 97 L.Ed.2d 709 (1987) (citation omitted)). Here there is neither a special need nor a showing that the requirements of the Warrant Clause are impracticable.
In affirming the district court’s decision, the majority relies upon case law which has melded the definition of a search with a perceived special need of law enforcement personnel to use keys to discover the identi*220ty of the ownership of certain locked premises and effects.
Thus, the majority suggests that appellant’s legitimate expectation of privacy was merely in the contents of the compartment and not in the lock itself or in the identity of those with access to the compartment. Concluding that the sole and limited purpose of the Government in inserting the key in the padlock was to ascertain whether Lyons had access to the compartment, the majority looks to United States v. DeBardeleben, 740 F.2d 440, 444-45 (6th Cir.) (no reasonable expectation of privacy in identity of vehicle, thus permissible to insert key in lock to determine ownership), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1028, 105 S.Ct. 448, 83 L.Ed.2d 373 (1984), one of several cases cited by the Government which can be characterized broadly as holding that while there may be a reasonable expectation of privacy in an object, there is not necessarily a privacy interest in the identity of the owner of that object. See also, New York v. Class, 475 U.S. 106, 114, 106 S.Ct. 960, 966, 89 L.Ed.2d 81 (1986) (no reasonable expectation of privacy in vehicle identification number (VIN), thus covering VIN with papers not enough to create such an expectation); United States v. Grandstaff, 813 F.2d 1353, 1358 (9th Cir.) (inserting key in car door constituted search, but search was reasonable because agents sought only to learn identity of owner, and there is little or no expectation of privacy in the identity of a vehicle’s ownership), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 837, 108 S.Ct. 119, 98 L.Ed.2d 78 (1987); United States v. Portillo-Reyes, 529 F.2d 844, 852 (9th Cir.1975) (Wright, J., dissenting) (inspection by insertion of key into car door for limited purpose of ascertaining ownership does not constitute the beginning of search), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 899, 97 S.Ct. 267, 50 L.Ed.2d 185 (1976); see also People v. Carroll, 12 Ill.App.3d 869, 299 N.E.2d 134, 139 (1973) (no privacy interest infringed when officer merely inserted key into apartment door accessible from common hallway and discovered key turned tumbler), cert. denied, 417 U.S. 972, 94 S.Ct. 3180, 41 L.Ed.2d 1144 (1974).
All these cases, including DeBardeleben, were decided before Hicks and accordingly do not reflect the Hicks analysis. Moreover, with the exception of the Illinois Appellate Court decision in People v. Carroll, the limited analysis of which I find unpersuasive and decline to follow, these cases deal with attempts to identify ownership of automobiles.1 They rest on the proposition that the expectation of privacy in an automobile is substantially reduced. That proposition is, by now, well established. See generally New York v. Class, 475 U.S. at 112-14, 106 S.Ct. at 965-66 (licensed motor vehicles subject to pervasive state regulation, and have range of physical characteristics — such as mobility and visibility — different from fixed dwellings; expectation of privacy therefore reduced); California v. Carney, 471 U.S. 386, 392, 105 S.Ct. 2066, 2069, 85 L.Ed.2d 406 (1985) (“pervasive schemes of regulation, which necessarily lead to reduced expectations of privacy, and the exigencies attendant to ready mobility justify searches without prior recourse to the authority of a magistrate _”).
Special characteristics justify recognition of a lesser expectation of privacy in automobiles (and by extension, in automobile locks which are integral parts of the vehicles): their inherent mobility, their intended function (to transport rather than store things), their visibility on the public highway, and their regulable nature. See generally United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. at 12-13, 97 S.Ct. at 2484-85. More specifically “[a] car owner does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his identity as the owner of a particular ear, as *221evidenced by state laws requiring the display of license plates and license plate and owner registrations.” United States v. DeBardeleben, 740 F.2d at 444. Those characteristics are not present in the case of an immobile storage unit requiring no state licensing and registration or of a padlock obtained for the purpose of securing that unit.2
To be sure, the Supreme Court has treated some intrusions as so minimal as not to constitute a search at all. In United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983), as the majority notes, the Supreme Court upheld a canine sniff of the outside of luggage at an airport. But the Court in Place was careful to emphasize the narrow reach of its holding:
In these respects, the canine sniff is sui generis. We are aware of no other investigative procedure that is so limited both in the manner in which the information is obtained and in the content of the information revealed by the procedure. Therefore, we conclude that the particular course of investigation that the agents intended to pursue here — exposure of respondent’s luggage, which was located in a public place, to a trained canine — did not constitute a ‘search_’
Id. at 707, 103 S.Ct. at 2644-45.
In Hicks, the Court distinguished the type of procedure involved in Place from impermissible conduct by noting that the canine sniff was “minimally intrusive and operational necessities rendered] it the only practicable means of detecting certain types of crime.” 480 U.S. at 327, 107 S.Ct. at 1154. The investigative procedure here is not minimally intrusive and there is no special operational necessity to justify it.3
Moreover, the canine snout in Place was not used to penetrate the interior of the luggage and insinuate itself among the articles within that were otherwise shielded from observation. In short, the deployment of the dog’s nose along the unconcealed exterior of the luggage in Place and the use of the keys here to penetrate and manipulate the interior of the lock are substantially different physical acts which can hardly be classified as part of the same genus of investigative activity.4
*222Even assuming, however, that the investigative procedure may have been, as the majority suggests, minimally intrusive, that characterization does not alter the fact that the procedure involved a penetration and manipulation of the concealed portions of an effect which the owner had taken all necessary steps to shield from public observation. Under the teaching of Hicks, it was a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.
Neither the majority nor the Government contends that the course of investigation resulting in the insertion of the key and manipulation of the lock was justified by “a compelling necessity for immediate action as [would] not brook the delay of obtaining a warrant.” Curzi, 867 F.2d at 41 (citations omitted). Lyons had already been placed under arrest, the delay involved in obtaining a warrant “pose[d no] threat to police or the public safety,” id. at 42, and there was no “great likelihood that evidence w[ould] be destroyed if there [was] a delay until a warrant [could] be obtained.” Id. (emphasis in original).5 This was not an exceptional circumstance where “special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement, ma[d]e the warrant and probable cause requirement impracticable.” Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives Ass’n, 109 S.Ct. at 1414 (citations omitted).
Having concluded that the insertion of the key into and manipulation of the internal mechanisms of the lock to storage compartment # 633 constituted an unwarranted search, I must briefly take up the implications of that conclusion in the context of this case.
II
-A-

Sufficiency of the Affidavit

Without the fruits of the impermissible search of the padlock — which provided evidence that the key seized from the defendant fit the lock to compartment # 633 — the affidavit in support of the warrant failed to establish probable cause to search that compartment. While the Government provides a lengthy list of grounds providing probable cause for believing that the defendant was a drug dealer familiar with firearms who stored his drugs outside his house, only his reputed association with Larry Gallo — who was the nominal renter of compartment # 633 at E-Z/Warwick — and his periodic presence at the E-Z/Warwick facility suggested that Gallo’s storage compartment would contain evidence of Lyons’ criminal activity. The reputed Gallo/Lyons association evidence was itself not particularly strong. It was described as “source information” which was defined by the government “... as maybe information that comes from FBI files with nothing in the files to show where it originates from or perhaps information that comes from an informant who has no proven reliability.” Such information was insufficient to establish a sound reason for entering compartment # 633 as opposed to any other compartment on the premises. See generally, Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 230-35, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 2328-31, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983).
*223-B-

Altemative Justifications

Because the district court found that the insertion of the key was not a search and that the affidavit demonstrated probable cause given the additional evidence provided by the use of the key, the district court did not have occasion to address two alternative post-hoc justifications for the search of the compartment. These are the exceptions from the exclusionary rule for good faith execution of the search and for inevitable discovery of the evidence. See, e.g., United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 924, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 3421, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984) (good faith exception operates to prevent application of the exclusionary rule upon evidence obtained in objective good faith using a facially valid warrant even if the warrant is subsequently found to have been issued on other than probable cause); United States v. Silvestri, 787 F.2d 736, 744 (1st Cir.1986), cert. denied, 487 U.S. 1233, 108 S.Ct. 2897, 101 L.Ed.2d 931 (1988) (outlining concerns to be considered in invoking the inevitable discovery exception to the exclusionary rule); see generally Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 81 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984); see also Murray v. United States, 487 U.S. 533, 108 S.Ct. 2529, 2534, 101 L.Ed.2d 472 (1988) (“The inevitable discovery doctrine, with its distinct requirements, is in reality an extrapolation from the independent source doctrine: Since the tainted evidence would be admissible if in fact discovered through an independent source, it should be admissible if it inevitably would have been discovered.”) (emphasis in the original).
I would remand to the district court for evaluation of these justifications for the search of compartment # 633.
Ill
Sir Walter Scott reports that “[t]he king’s keys are, in law phrase, the crowbars and hammers used to force doors and locks, in execution of the king’s warrant.” W. Scott, V Waverly Novels, The Antiquary 305 n. * (A. Constable & Co. reprint ed. 1895). The majority here has expanded the definition of the king’s keys. That definition now is not limited merely to the devices necessary in execution of a warrant. It includes any set of keys available to those capable of executing the sovereign’s warrant irrespective of whether they have such a writ. Under the majority’s definition, keys can be used without a warrant to explore the concealed interiors of the guardian mechanisms people employ in their efforts to make private those places and things over which they exercise dominion and control.6
The analytical device used by the majority to achieve this definitional expansion is to conceive the intrusion at issue here as something less than a search or, if a search, a reasonable one. In Hicks, the Supreme Court declined “to send police and judges into a new thicket of Fourth Amendment law, to seek a creature of uncertain description that is neither a plain-view inspection nor yet a ‘full-blown search.’ ” 480 U.S. at 328-29, 107 S.Ct. at 1154. In this case, the agents and the courts have generated that creature by extending the plain-view inspection of the exterior of the padlock into an examination of the lock’s concealed interior.
I can find no special need — beyond the normal desire of law enforcement agents to use any tool at their disposal — to justify dispensing with the warrant and probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment when agents find themselves in possession of keys during their investigative work. The failure of the agents here to obtain a warrant for the use of the key to penetrate a place the defendant sought to maintain as private calls into question the evidence they later obtained as a result of that action. I would accordingly remand *224the case to the district court for evaluation of whether the post-hoc justifications for the use of evidence obtained on the basis of a faulty search are applicable in this case.

. I note that this court was presented with — but did not resolve — a similar situation outside the automobile context in United States v. Aguirre, 839 F.2d 854 (1st Cir.1988). There one of the searches under consideration flowed from the placement of a key into an apartment lock to determine whether that key fit. When the agent there found the key did fit the lock, he apparently did not actually enter, open the door or peer into the apartment. A warrant was thereafter sought and obtained from the magistrate. Id. at 856 & n. 2. We declined, however, to consider whether the search in Aguirre was improper because the defendant lacked standing to challenge the search. Id. at 859-60.

.There have been cases in non-automobile contexts in which the Supreme Court has found a subjective expectation of privacy insufficient to justify Fourth Amendment protection against intrusion. For example, a person’s construction of a fence around a marijuana patch in the "hope” it will remain unobserved is different from "a subjective expectation of privacy from all observations of his backyard.” California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207, 212, 106 S.Ct. 1809, 1812, 90 L.Ed.2d 210 (1986) (emphasis in original). Because the ten foot fence in Ciraolo did not protect against the "eyes of a citizen or a policeman perched on the top of a truck or a two-level bus,” id. at 211, 106 S.Ct. at 1811, it did not protect against the eyes of a policeman flying overhead in public space from which the patch was "clearly visible.” Id. at 213, 106 S.Ct. at 1812. Similarly, the observation of marijuana plants by the naked eye through openings in the roof and sides of a greenhouse from a police surveillance helicopter flying at a height of 400 feet was held last term not to constitute a search. Florida v. Riley, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 693, 102 L.Ed.2d 835 (1989).
By contrast, the internal mechanism of a lock, to which the defendant held the only kevs, and which was not "clearly visible” to anyone, is properly the subject of "a subjective expectation of privacy from all observations,” California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. at 212, 106 S.Ct. at 1812.

. Thus, this is not the type of situation that in United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 104 S.Ct. 1652, 80 L.Ed.2d 85 (1984), impelled the Court to rule “[a] chemical field test that merely discloses whether or not a particular substance is cocaine does not compromise any legitimate interest in privacy.” Id. at 123, 104 S.Ct. at 1661. The test could do nothing more than determine whether the powder was cocaine; it could disclose "no other arguably 'private’ fact," and therefore, it “compromise[d] no legitimate privacy interest.” Id. The reasoning in Jacob-sen hinged on the combination of the nature of the field test performed and the decision by Congress “to treat the interest in ‘privately’ possessing cocaine as illegitimate.” Id.
Such reasoning does not apply to the insertion of a key into a lock. Congress has made no policy statements concerning the legitimacy of " 'privately” possessing” a padlock; nor was the “test” conducted in this case — the insertion of the key and the manipulation of the lock — designed solely and efficiently to disclose the presence of contraband.

. While the majority, in its effort to distinguish Hicks with Place, takes the position that it is not resting its "holding on the ‘plain view’ exception to the warrant nor ... undertaking] to enlarge the contours of that exception,” ante, at 213 n. 2, it is apparent that the majority’s perception of *222a diminished expectation of privacy in the padlock's interior stems in large part from the fact that padlock was located in a “public” place. See id. (parenthetical to United States v. Place emphasizing that the luggage "was located in public place”); see also ante, at 212 (asserting that "public exposure vitiates any reasonable expectation of privacy.”) The padlock, however, was only partially exposed to the public. The agents here — like the police in Hicks who had exigent circumstances to validate their entry in the apartment — may have had authority to observe the padlock's exterior. But by “taking action, unrelated to the objectives of the authorized intrusion, which exposed to view concealed” aspects of the interior of the padlock, the agents exceeded such authority as they had to observe matters in plain view, Hicks, 480 U.S. at 325, 107 S.Ct. at 1152, or, more precisely here, in a “public” place — the common area of the storage facility.

. Indeed, a warrant was obtained to search the compartment the following afternoon. There was no evidence to suggest that the FBI was sufficiently concerned with the destruction of evidence to take steps to ensure its continued vitality in the interim. Had the agents believed exigent circumstances existed, they could have secured the compartment and lock to protect them from any interference pending the issuance of the warrant. See Place, 462 U.S. at 701, 103 S.Ct. at 2641.

. Elsewhere, Scott describes the efforts made to protect places and effects from use of the king’s keys. In Redgauntlet, he gives an account of a "door framed to withstand attacks from excise-men, constables, and other personages, considered as worthy to use what are called the King’s keys [fn: "In common parlance, a crowbar and hatchet.”] ‘and therewith to make lock-fast places open and patent' ...” W. Scott XVIII Waverly Novels, Redgauntlet 388-89 (Adam Si Charles Black Centenary ed. 1871).