Court Opinion

ID: 9470218
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:59:49.463376+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:47.303123
License: Public Domain

ALARCON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
I would affirm the judgment.
*979The district court found that no fourth amendment violation occurred at the time of the detention, arrest, and search of Prim based, inter alia, on the fact that there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest.
The evidence of the existence of an outstanding arrest warrant was uncontradicted. No question was raised below as to the validity of the warrant. Specifically, no issue of law or fact was presented to the district court as to whether Special Agent Snyder had the authority to make an arrest pursuant to the outstanding warrant.
It is also undisputed that under Hawaiian law Special Agent Snyder and Honolulu Police Officer Abe were authorized to arrest Prim based on the outstanding Oregon warrant of arrest.
Hawaii Rev.Stat. § 832-14 provides as follows:
Arrest without a warrant. The arrest of a person may be lawfully made also by any peace officer or a private person, without a warrant upon reasonable information that the accused stands charged in the courts of a state with a crime punishable by death or imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.... (emphasis added).
No question has been raised as to the legal meaning of the term “reasonable information” or whether the facts presented to the district court meet this standard. I believe that a proper construction of the Hawaii statute consistent with the requirements of the fourth amendment would be to equate “reasonable information” with probable cause. No challenge has been made concerning the constitutionality of section 832-14.
The undisputed facts show that Special Agent Snyder received information of the outstanding Oregon warrant through official police channels from Patrolman Battaglia of the Port Authority of Portland Police Department.
The fact that Special Agent Snyder may not qualify as a “peace officer” under Hawaiian or federal law is immaterial in view of his power to make an arrest as a private person under section 832-14.
Thus, the facts known to Special Agent Snyder prior to the search established probable cause to arrest. The fourth amendment requires no greater proof. The United States Supreme Court has held that where an officer has probable cause to arrest, no additional justification is required for a search of a person and his effects. See, e.g., Gustafson v. Florida, 414 U.S. 260, 94 S.Ct. 488, 38 L.Ed.2d 456 (1973); United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 94 S.Ct. 467, 38 L.Ed.2d 427 (1973). The Supreme Court stated the rule as follows:
A custodial arrest of a suspect based on probable cause is a reasonable intrusion under the Fourth Amendment; that intrusion being lawful, a search incident to the arrest requires no additional justification. It is the fact of the lawful arrest which establishes the authority to search, and we hold that in the case of lawful custodial arrest a full search of the person is not only an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment, but is also a “reasonable” search under that amendment.
Id. at 235, 94 S.Ct. at 477 (emphasis added).
Thus, pursuant to the applicable Hawaiian law of arrest, DEA Special Agent Snyder and Honolulu Police Officer Abe were authorized to detain and arrest Prim based on the outstanding Oregon warrant. Under Robinson they were authorized to search his person and his briefcase for narcotics without further justification. See also Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 763, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 2040, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969).
Judge Takasugi has concluded that the district court’s reliance on the outstanding warrant was clearly erroneous because: “The nonsupport warrant was not the cause of the officer’s action and thus not the cause to which the objective standard should be applied.” Ante 698 F.2d at 975.
Judge Takasugi has cited no authority for the novel proposition that a law enforcement officer or a private person who has probable cause to arrest and search a person, based on an outstanding warrant, acts unreasonably if his subjective motivation to *980make an arrest and to search another is based on additional factors which do not, standing alone, justify an arrest.
The curious result of the majority’s determination of this case can be stated as follows: If a law enforcement officer has facts within his knowledge which constitute probable cause to arrest, he violates the fourth amendment if he mistakenly believes that he lacks authority to make an arrest unless he obtains additional facts. The majority has apparently concluded that, under the law of search and seizure, the total is equal to less than the sum of its parts. Stated in equation form, the majority suggests that facts establishing probable cause to arrest plus additional facts not amounting to probable cause equal an absence of probable cause, or 2x + lx = lx.
Contrary to the majority’s conclusion, probable cause for arrest cannot be based on the subjective state of mind of the arresting officer. The Supreme Court has recently stated this principle as follows:
Moreover, the probable cause determination must be based on objective facts that could justify the issuance of a warrant by a magistrate and not merely on the subjective good faith of the police officers.
United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 808, 102 S.Ct. 2157, 2164, 72 L.Ed.2d 572 (1982).
The objective facts before the district court established reasonable cause to arrest on the basis of the outstanding warrant. The state of mind of the officer at the time Prim was first detained, was not legally relevant in determining if the objective facts demonstrated probable cause. The majority has seized upon a portion of the officers’ testimony — i.e., an in-court reconstruction of their stream of conciousness at the time Prim was apprehended — and has ignored the objective facts which clearly justified the officer’s conduct under the fourth amendment. Apparently the majority would have reached a different result if the officers had testified falsely that they were motivated solely by their knowledge of the existence of the outstanding warrant. The result of the majority opinion is to punish the honest and conscientious law enforcement officer who refrains from invading the privacy of another until he has completed his investigation, in spite of objective facts which would justify an earlier arrest, and to reward a more casual or less candid officer, who would arrest on minimally adequate objective facts, without seeking additional corroboration or incriminating information. This cannot be the law.
In justifying their conclusion that the district court must be reversed, Judge Hug and Judge Takasugi have informed us in separate opinions that an arrest may not be used as a mere pretext for an unauthorized search. This of course has been the law for many years. There is no evidence in this record, however, to show that the officers were guilty of pretextual conduct. It is distressing to me that the issue of pretext has been needlessly interjected in a case where the record demonstrates that the officers acted in complete good faith in doing their job and exhibited great sensitivity in choosing the least intrusive means of interfering with the rights of an individual under suspicion. The suggestion that this record somehow justifies a discussion of pretext is a gratuitous overkill of little value in resolving the issues raised by the parties.
The fourth amendment proscribes unreasonable law enforcement conduct. It has no application to official acts which are reasonable and respectful of individual privacy. In the matter before this court, the officers, in spite of their knowledge of facts which would have justified an immediate and embarrassing arrest and search in an international airport, chose instead, to make a quiet and discreet request of Prim in the hope that he would consent to a search. I would applaud, not condemn, their conduct.