Court Opinion

ID: 9449599
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:16:35.328535+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:54.109934
License: Public Domain

BURGER, Circuit Judge,
(concurring).
I concur fully in Judge DANAHER’S opinion. I think the record affords abundant support for the District Court’s action in denying the motion to suppress the narcotics seized from appellant. Independent of all other factors there was a valid arrest here and it is important that we pinpoint the precise time when the arrest occurred.
Appellant challenges the authority of the police officer to ask him what he was holding in his hand, and claims therefore that revealing the narcotics cannot be regarded as probable cause for arrest on a possession charge. This is not so. Here there was no indiscriminate “dragnet” process. On the contrary, the officer was a member of the narcotics squad; the area of the arrest was 14th and U Streets, N. W., shown by this record to be a place known to police as an area of narcotics activity; the arresting officer had previously arrested appellant for violation of the Harrison Narcotics Act and knew him as a drug user and one frequently in the company of addicts; the officer also knew appellant’s companion to be a narcotics user. It is the totality of these circumstances as viewed through the experienced eye which justified the officer in making the inquiry which he made, and appellant’s voluntary action in responding and revealing the illegal possession gave abundant probable cause for arrest. At that moment the officer could observe the commission of a felony and he was bound to act.