Court Opinion

ID: 9461887
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:26:36.725613+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:18.091983
License: Public Domain

SWYGERT, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
On July 10, 1973 a search warrant was issued by a judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois. It was based on an affidavit executed by Bernard Brown, a police officer of the City of Chicago. The warrant described an apartment occupied by defendant-appellant Lucille Jones and authorized the search and seizure of “heroin, a controlled substance and all narcotic paraphernalia (hypodermic needles) which have been used in the commission of or which constitute evidence of Sec. 1402, Chapter 56V2, Possession of Controlled Substances Heroin.”
The warrant was executed on the day it was issued. A number of federal agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration accompanied the Chicago police on the search. No heroin or narcotic paraphernalia were found on defendant’s person or in her apartment. During the search one of the federal agents, however, took from the defendant’s purse a piece of paper on which appeared the agent’s name and his unlisted home telephone number.
The agents asked the defendant to open a safe located in her bedroom. She complied, and officer Brown seized from the safe approximately $1900 in currency. At a later time, after seizure, the federal agents compared the serial number of these bills with the serial numbers of the marked money used in controlled purchases of cocaine from Thigpen and discovered that eight $100 bills had been given to Thigpen at the time of the purchases. The bills were turned over by the police to the federal agents. At defendant’s trial the piece of paper and the $800 of marked money were offered and were admitted into evidence.
The Fourth Amendment provides that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause . . . particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” The law is settled that the Amendment prohibits general searches. The Supreme Court made this clear in Marron v.. United States, 275 U.S. 192, 195-96, 48 S.Ct. 74, 75, 72 L.Ed. 231 (1927), when it said: “General searches have long been deemed to violate fundamental rights. . The requirement that warrants *390shall particularly describe the things to be seized makes general searches under them impossible and prevents the seizure of one thing under a warrant describing another. As to what is to be taken, nothing is left to the discretion of the officer executing the warrant.”
Since the seized piece of paper and currency were not “particularly” described in the search warrant issued on application of police officer Brown, the seizure of these items was the result of a general search and therefore illegal unless justifiable on the basis of some exception to the warrant requirement. Though not explicitly stated by the majority, the search and seizure of these items are apparently being upheld on the plain view theory.
In my opinion the record does not support a finding that the name and telephone number were in “plain view.” The plain view doctrine requires that an item be inadvertently found in the course of and within the scope of an otherwise permissible search. This “inadvertence” is an integral part of the doctrine. Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 471, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971). An officer cannot use a warrant specifying one item as a license to search for other items which he suspects might be present.1
In this case it can be said that the piece of paper itself was found while the officers were within the scope of their search warrant. But there is no explanation of why the writing on the paper was read. True in this case it is a fine line to draw, but there is an important privacy interest in the content of a person’s private papers.2 They should not be read during the course of a search unless there is a reason to do so that is related to the object of the legal search. Such was obviously the case in Harris v. United States, 331 U.S. 145, 67 S.Ct. 1098, 91 L.Ed. 1399 (1947), where the officers were searching for certain written documents. In our case the agents were searching for narcotics and narcotics paraphernalia. There is no explanation in the record about how the contents of the piece of paper could constitute narcotics or narcotics paraphernalia. Nor was there testimony by agent Scotti that he had inadvertently glanced at the paper and immediately recognized his name and phone number even assuming that such a statement could support a plain view theory. And certainly in this case where the federal agents were involved in an investigation of the defendant for a separate crime we cannot allow any type of presumption that agent Scotti had read the paper in the course of executing the search warrant rather than in an attempt to justify certain suspicions of other crimes.
Accordingly, the Government failed to meet its burden of proof on the plain view issue. The defendant had the burden of proving that the search and seizure of this paper were not accomplished pursuant to a valid warrant. That burden was met when it was shown that the piece of paper was not narcotics or narcotics paraphernalia and therefore not described in the warrant. The burden *391then shifted to the Government to justify the search and seizure on the basis of some exception to the warrant requirement. It has attempted to do so on the basis of the plain view concept. But it has failed to prove all the essential elements of this exception. There is no proof that the contents of the piece of paper as distinguished from the piece of paper itself were inadvertently discovered in the course of a search properly limited to the items named in the search warrant. Given the nature of the objects of the search being conducted, it was incumbent upon the Government to offer such an explanation. The Government’s failure to do so leaves us with a warrantless search of the contents of the paper that is not justified on the basis of any recognized exception to the warrant requirement. The search of the contents of this paper was a general search and the subsequent seizure was therefore unconstitutional.
Although I conclude that the seizure of the eight $100 bills was also unconstitutional and that the bills should have been suppressed, my reasoning is somewhat different from that with regard to the paper.
On a strictly plain view analysis the currency in the safe was apparently in plain sight when the safe was opened by the defendant at the request of the police who ostensibly wished to explore the contents of the safe for narcotics. This inadvertent discovery, at least on the part of the police, did not automatically mean that the bills could then be seized.
While it is proper to seize inadvertently discovered “mere evidence” of a crime different from that which is the subject of the search, Harris v. United States, 331 U.S. 145, 67 S.Ct. 1098, 91 L.Ed. 1399 (1947); Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967), the Constitution requires that at the time of discovery and seizure there be a strong probability that the item is evidence of a specific crime within the knowledge of the discovering officer. In regard to these bills there was an insufficient probability at the time of their discovery to support their seizure. When the bills were removed from the defendant’s apartment, neither the police nor the federal agents knew whether any of them were the marked bills.3 The federal agents may have suspected, independent of this search, that the defendant had engaged in criminal activity which involved $100 bills that had been marked. But the facts supporting that suspicion were insufficient to allow this type of warrantless seizure on the assumption that these bills might be part of the marked money.4 The Government might argue that'there was sufficient support for this assumption since the piece of paper containing agent Scotti’s name and phone number had already been found. But this argument must fail in *392my view since I believe the discovery of the name and number to have been unconstitutional. If, as the Government seems to contend, the seizure of the money was premised on the information gained from the paper, then the seizure of the money was fruit of the poisonous tree. I therefore do not even consider whether this additional information would support the seizure of these bills as evidence.
The Fourth Amendment speaks in terms of formality. When we ignore that formality and attempt to substitute the plain view doctrine when not applicable upon close analysis, we weaken the vitality of the Amendment which has for its purpose the prevention of arbitrary encroachments by the Government on the privacy of its citizens. The unsullied maintenance of that vitality is of paramount importance and must precede any so-called justice in a particular case.
I would reverse the conviction.

. In Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 470 n. 26, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 2040, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971), Mr. Justice Stewart wrote:
In Marron v. United States, 275 U.S. 192, 48 S.Ct. 74, 72 L.Ed. 231, officers raided a speakeasy with a warrant to search for and seize contraband liquor. They arrested the bartender and seized a number of bills and other papers in plain view on the bar. While searching a closet for liquor they came across a ledger kept in the operation of the illegal business, which they also seized. There is no showing whatever that these seizures outside the warrant were planned in advance. . . Thus Marrón can hardly be cited for the proposition that the police may justify a planned warrantless seizure by maneuvering themselves within “plain view” of the object they want.

. A clearer case would be presented if the paper seized and read had been a personal letter of some length, but the principle remains the same. Certainly there are few intrusions which lie closer to the historic core of the Fourth Amendment than the unauthorized reading of one’s private papers.

. A different issue might have arisen if the federal agents had brought along the list of numbers and checked the serial numbers of the bills upon their discovery. The issue then would be whether a lower standard of probability is needed to justify a further search in contrast to a seizure. But this would spawn a further issue: whether federal officers who accompany state officers in the execution of a state warrant particularly describing only “narcotics and narcotics paraphernalia” and who take with them means to “test” items not described in the warrant, have raised a prima facie case of “non-inadvertence” or misuse of the state warrant procedure. Since these issues are not before us, I do not think I should speculate on the answers.

. It is interesting to note that the police seized and took possession of the currency found in the safe. Only after a comparison was made by the federal agents of the bills with their list of marked money used in the Thigpen cocaine sales did the police turn over the eight $100 marked bills to the federal agents.
Thus an alternative rationale indicating that this warrantless seizure was unconstitutional can be constructed. Since the bills were not described in the warrant, their seizure by the police on the face of it was the result of a general search. Only after the federal agents discovered that eight of the bills were marked money did they “seize” without the benefit of a warrant the bills as evidence in the investigation of a federal offense. Thus it could be said that a second and perhaps “minor” unconstitutional intrusion on the privacy of the defendant occurred. For a somewhat analogous case see United States v. Birrell, 470 F.2d 113 (2d Cir. 1972).