Court Opinion

ID: 9470217
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:59:49.460222+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:47.301586
License: Public Domain

HUG, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the result, for one of the reasons expressed by Judge Takasugi:
Even if the relocation were constitutional, continued detention after defendant’s first refusal to consent to a search constituted a custodial interrogation without probable cause under the reasoning of Dunaway and Chamberlin. As such, . . . the cocaine taken from defendant was thereby tainted by the illegal detention and should have been suppressed. Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963).
I find it unnecessary to examine the more ambiguous earlier events or the later events which were obviously tainted by the illegal detention.
The district court and the dissent characterize the detention as a valid arrest because of the outstanding Oregon arrest warrant for nonsupport. I disagree. The DEA agents who arrested Prim did not have federal statutory authority to arrest on state charges. See 21 U.S.C. § 878. Like other special federal law enforcement officers, DEA “agents are not general guardians of the public peace, as are state or local police. Their, powers to search places and to search and arrest persons are limited by statute.” United States v. Diamond, 471 F.2d 771, 773 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 412 U.S. 932, 93 S.Ct. 2751, 37 L.Ed.2d 161 (1973); see also United States v. Watson,. 423 U.S. 411, 415-16, 96 S.Ct. 820, 823, 46 L.Ed.2d 598 (1976) (postal inspectors); United States v. Harrington, 681 F.2d 612, 613 (9th Cir.1982) (Customs Service); United States v. Soto-Soto, 598 F.2d 545, 549 (9th Cir.1979) (FBI agents); United States v. Thompson, 475 F.2d 1359, 1362-63 (5th Cir.1973) (border patrol). I do not believe these express limitations of enforcement officers’ authority can be avoided merely by invoking state statutes permitting warrantless arrests by private persons. If federal agents could resort to such state statutes in every instance, the federal statutory limitations would be meaningless. Therefore, I cannot conclude, in view of the nature of the felony involved in the Oregon warrant, that DEA agents were clearly authorized by the warrant to arrest Prim.
Even assuming that such authority could exist, the record does not support the conclusion that the warrant was the basis for Prim’s detention. The Government does not contend that the DEA agents’ intended purpose in detaining Prim was to execute the outstanding warrant. The admitted purpose of the detention was to investigate a possible narcotics violation. Reliance on the warrant appears to be an after-the-fact justification of a search for which no probable cause existed. An arrest may not be used as a pretext to search for evidence of an unrelated crime. United States v. Lefkowitz, 285 U.S. 452, 467, 52 S.Ct. 420, 424, 76 L.Ed. 877 (1932); Williams v. United States, 418 F.2d 159, 161 (9th Cir.1969), aff’d 401 U.S. 646, 91 S.Ct. 1148, 28 L.Ed.2d 388 (1971). “To put it in other words, the search must be incident to the arrest, and not vice versa.” Taglavore v. United States, 291 F.2d 262, 265 (9th Cir.1961) (emphasis in original).
The dissent asserts that the DEA agents’ subjective motivation is not relevant to this inquiry. However, we have held that the arresting officers’ motivation is relevant when the arrest is alleged to be a mere pretext for an unauthorized search. See Williams, 418 F.2d at 161, and cases cited therein; Taglavore, 291 F.2d at 265. Because the agents’ statements indicate that their only motivation was investigation of a narcotics violation, I conclude that the search and seizure were not the products of a valid arrest.