Court Opinion

ID: 9653377
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:45:31.4227+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:58.490764
License: Public Domain

GILBERT, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The question "for decision in the Supreme Court in Agnello v. United States, 46 S. Ct. 4, 70 L. Ed. -, was wholly different from that which is here involved. The sole inquiry there was whether or not an agent of the United States might, after arresting without *822a warrant and searching the accused, also search without a ivarrant and at a distance from the place of the arrest the home of the person so arrested. The court, while holding that, except in certain cases, as incident to arrest there is no sanction for the search of a private dwelling without a warrant, affirmed a well-settled rule in saying: “The right without a search warrant contemporaneously to search persons lawfully arrested while committing crime and to search the place where the arrest is made, in order to find and seize things connected with the crime as its fruits or as the means by which it was committed, as well as the weapons and other things to effect an escape from custody, is not to be doubted.”
The court went on incidentally to say that belief, however well founded, that an article sought is concealed in a dwelling house, furnishes no justification for a search of that place without a warrant, and in that connection cited, among other cases, Temperani v. United States (C. C. A.) 299 F. 365. But what was decided in the Temperani Case? It was, as stated in the syllabus, that the odors of fermentation incident to the manufacture of intoxicating liquors in a garage beneath a dwelling house do not justify the arrest of the offender as for an offense committed in the officers’ presence, if the offender was not in the garage “and the officers had no reason to suspect his presence.” With that, proposition I am in full accord, and I cannot imagine that any will dispute it. But I maintain that officers always have reason to suspeet the presence of the offender when the process of distillation on a large scale is in full operation. In the Temperan! Case it appeared that, when the officers entered, the offender was temporarily absent. But distillation on a large scale and for commercial purposes was in progress. In the present case the indications of the commission of an offense were stronger than in the Temperani Case, for the officer “smelled the unmistakable odor of fermenting mash coming from the building,” and he had seen ears enter and leave the premises at all hours of the day and night, and had received authentic information, and had every reason to believe, that liquor was being manufactured on the premises, and, as was the fact, that an operative was in charge of the process. ’
It will not be pretended that in the Agnello Case the Supreme Court meant to say that actual knowledge would not justify arrest without warrant, or that actual knowledge may 'not be acquired by the sense of hearing or sight, or, under possible circumstances, by the sense of smell., In Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 45 S. Ct. 280, 69 L. Ed. 543, the Chief Justice said: “The usual rule is that a police officer may arrest without warrant one believed by the officer upon reasonable cause to have been guilty of a felony, and that he may only arrest without a warrant one' guilty of a misdemeanor if committed in his presence.” In United States v. Lindsly (D. C.) 7 F.(2d) 247, it was held that, where the officers saw barrels and other objects in the defendant’s house before they entered the yard from the adjoining premises, and saw and smelled wine in the yard before they entered the premises, there was ample proof of the commission of an offense in their presence, which justified them in entering the premises without a warrant.
I still maintain that the owner of a distillery, in which intoxicating liquor is unlawfully manufactured on a large scale for commercial purposes, cannot, by making the distillery his dwelling place, or by constructing his dwelling above or adjacent to the distillery, claim for the latter the protection and immunity from search which the law accords to a dwelling house. In United States v. Goodwin (D. C.) 1 F.(2d) 36, Judge James well said: “While the manufacturing of liquor in such a dwelling is not specified as authorizing search of it to be made, there is every reason to place it in the class of ‘business purposes’ which will take away from a dwelling its exclusive private character. * * * The business of manufacturing liquor with a commercial end in view is inconsistent with dwelling purposes.”
In United States v. Apple (D. C.) 1 F.(2d) 493, after affirming the right of federal officers to inspect and supervise distilleries, even if carried on in a dwelling house, and, upon perceiving the odor of distillation, to enter a dwelling and seize evidence of the unlawful manufacture of intoxicating liquor, Judge Bourquin said: “The provisions of said act forbidding’ search of private dwellings without a search warrant, and prohibiting search warrant unless the dwelling is being used for unlawful sale of intoxicating liquor, or unless in, part used for some business purpose, have no application to the cases at bar. In so far as the instant premises were dwelling houses, they were used for the business purpose of distillation of spirits by distillers, and had been converted to distilleries and' subjected to the aforesaid revenue laws. To contend otherwise is to impute to *823Congress intent to encourage the infant industry of illicit family distilleries, to sanction the most pernicious evil of the day, and to undermine obedience to law, respect for government, and national morality.”
I think the judgment should be affirmed.