Court Opinion

ID: 9456777
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:02:11.793851+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:06.087075
License: Public Domain

HAYS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part):
I dissent from that part of the majority decision which holds that the evidence used to convict appellant on count IV for possession of 21 Timex watches was obtained by an illegal search and seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
The watches were the fruits of the crime upon which the warrant was based. When a valid warrant in good faith describes certain items to be seized and in the course of searching for those items, other articles are observed which are obviously fruits of the same crime as that upon which the warrant is based, there is no requirement that a new search warrant be obtained in order to seize those other articles. If a warrant particularly described 2½ dozen pairs of stockings and 3 dozen were found, should the extra ½ dozen have to be left behind ?
The police activity in the instant case was not, as the majority says, “an abhorrent general search.” There is no indication that the police conducted any “general search” at all. The articles not named in the warrant were found only in the course of looking for articles which were so named. We have been careful to distinguish between a general search and a search for specific articles. See United States v. Pino, 431 F.2d 1043 (2d Cir. 1970); United States v. Lozaw, 427 F.2d 911 (2d Cir. 1970).
The cases of United States ex rel. Nickens v. LaVallee, 391 F.2d 123 (2d Cir. 1968) and Marron v. United States, 275 U.S. 192, 48 S.Ct. 74, 72 L.Ed. 231 (1927), which the majority finds to be controlling here, are distinguishable. In neither of those cases was the seizure confined to the fruits of the very crime on which the warrant issued; on the contrary, objects such as ledgers, reeeipts and newspaper clippings which might serve as incidental evidence were seized.