Court Opinion

ID: 9455865
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:35:53.786654+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:46.046139
License: Public Domain

SIMPSON, Circuit Judge
(concurring specially):
With considerable disinclination, I concur. Concededly the defect in the search was not of constitutional dimensions, as it consisted only of a failure to follow Rule 41(a), F.R.Crim.P., as to the type of judicial officer who issued the search warrant. As Judge Gewin’s well written opinion points out (page 930), Mapp offers a state legal remedy against the fruits of an unconstitutional search, whether made by state or federal officers, to defendants in state criminal proceedings.
I am, nonetheless, very nearly persuaded that we should, on grounds of public policy, enjoin the use of the critical seized evidence in the long delayed state prosecution here. Permitting this type of shuttling of the prosecution back and forth between state and federal prosecutors and forums is an encouragement to wrongdoing on the part of venal officers.1 Disrespect for the law is fed by the sort of unabashed forum shopping which our decision permits. This *933is so even though zeal for conviction is the sole apparent motive.2
This case presents the “reverse silver platter” doctrine decried by Mr. Justice Goldberg in his special concurrence in Cleary v. Bolger, 371 U.S. 392, 404, 83 S.Ct. 385, 392, 9 L.Ed.2d 390, 398. The doctrine should be laid to rest on grounds of public policy, under the Supermacy clause of the federal constitution,3 just as Elkins4 laid to rest the obverse “silver platter” doctrine which grew up under Wolf5 The grounds for its burial differ but they seem to me to be equally compelling. Hopefully, the day will arrive when a majority of the Supreme Court will recognize and act upon these considerations. Otherwise, the now countenanced practice of whipsawing the defendant back and forth between courts of the two sovereigns will erode and eventually destroy the force and value of Elkins.
Meanwhile, today’s controlling precedent being what it is, I concur, albeit reluctantly.

. The percentage of such officers is doubtless small indeed compared to the overwhelming majority of conscientious enforcement officers, local, state and federal. Even so the widespread illicit traffic in drugs, liquor and other contraband, giving rise to the type of cases where the use vel non of the evidence seized is usually the decisive factor at trial, has historically provided a prolific breeding ground for corruption, extortion and “payola” or “ice”. The rigidly exorbitant penalties for drug violations un*933der both state and federal laws create added strong incentive for wrongdoing.

. Navarro might never have been prosecuted in the courts of Texas but for the fact that the United States Attorney who prosecuted him in his original federal trial became in the interim a state district attorney and initiated the current state criminal proceedings. This information is taken from Navarro’s brief, but is not refuted by the appellee.

. Article VI, Clause 2, U. S. Constitution.

. Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 80 S.Ct. 1437, 4 L.Ed.2d 1669.

. Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 69 S.Ct. 1359, 93 L.Ed. 1782.