United States v. Fitzpatrick

289 F. Supp. 767, 1968 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9052
CourtDistrict Court, D. Utah
DecidedSeptember 12, 1968
DocketNo. NCR 13-68
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 289 F. Supp. 767 (United States v. Fitzpatrick) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Utah primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Fitzpatrick, 289 F. Supp. 767, 1968 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9052 (D. Utah 1968).

Opinion

[768]*768MEMORANDUM DECISION

CHRISTENSEN, District Judge.

Defendant is under indictment for bank robbery, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2113(a), 2113(d) (1964). A pre-trial evidentiary hearing has been held upon defendant’s motion to suppress statements he made to F.B.I. agents before his arrest, items seized prior to his arrest from an automobile which he had been driving, and money found by F.B.I. agents after his arrest on premises in which defendant had been living. The defendant asserted that the statements were made without proper advice concerning constitutional rights and that the property and money were seized without his consent, without a warrant, and not incident to a lawful arrest.

The defendant testified that agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation interviewed him at 129% Twenty-Fifth Street, Ogden, Utah, and asked him to accompany them, saying to him, “We’ve got a matter we want to clear up.” Defendant made no objection and accompanied the agents to a parking area where as he sat in the car he was viewed by others, apparently for the purpose of identification. Thereupon he was asked about a Cadillac automobile which he had borrowed from his landlady. His consent to search it was requested, the agents stating, according to the defendant, that “they were going to search it anyway.” He said he signed some papers but did not read them. It later developed that he had signed a consent to search the ear, as hereinafter more particularly found. The defendant did not furnish the keys to the Cadillac but stated that they had been stolen, and the trunk was opened by a key man who had been called by the agents. Inside were found a hand gun, a pair of rubber gloves, and a nylon stocking, among other things.

According to the defendant, it was long after the agents first talked to him that he was first advised concerning his rights — after the trunk of the car had been opened and after further interrogation. The defendant further testified that about 11:30 p.m. he asked if he “had the right to an attorney” and the agents told him he did, whereupon he talked to his attorney. Upon defendant’s demand to be either placed under arrest or released the agents told the defendant not to leave the premises and thereafter formally placed him under arrest. The defendant testified that while he did not verbally object to the search of the car he did not want it searched and that he had never consented to the search of his room at 129% Twenty-Fifth Street. On cross-examination he conceded that he was advised of his constitutional rights by the agents and that he understood what was said, but insisted that the advice was given after the automobile had been searched.

The questions of suppressing the seized money and the statements made by the defendant to the agents can be quickly resolved. Apparently up to the time of the hearing the defendant was of the impression that the money had been found in a room which he claimed to have rented. The undisputed evidence, however, established that the money was found in a dresser in the room of Mrs. Weakly, the proprietress, and that Mrs. Weakly had given a written consent to a search of the entire premises. The additional search of a nearby room which defendant claimed to have rented is immaterial to the present inquiry; indeed, at the time of the hearing the defendant substantially conceded that he had no standing to object to the search of Mrs. Weakly’s room.

It is clear that prior to the time any significant statements were made by the defendant, he was fully advised concerning his constitutional rights. In fact, the record does not reveal any directly incriminating statements at all, the defendant having denied any complicity whatsoever in the robbery.

We return, then, to the search of the automobile. If this search, as defendant claimed, had taken place before his. constitutional rights had been explained to him and without a knowledgeable and [769]*769voluntary consent on his part, it could not be sustained. The testimony adduced by the government, however, put the circumstances in a strikingly different light.

Special Agent Gordon S. Carr testified that when he and his associate first interviewed the defendant they were actually investigating another man who was reported to have been driving a Cadillac automobile resembling the one reported to have been connected with the robbery. They learned from Mrs. Weakly, however, that prior to the robbery this car had been turned over to the defendant. Upon contacting him and confirming that he had been using the automobile, it was observed for the first time that the defendant had a tatoo mark resembling one which had been seen on the robber at the time of the crime. This was when the defendant became a prime suspect. Almost immediately he was orally advised of his rights in full compliance with the requirements of Miranda v. State of Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966) and Escobedo v. State of Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977 (1965). The observation of the defendant as he sat in the agents’ automobile in a parking lot and his consenting to the search of the Cadillac followed. Admittedly, the defendant had not yet been arrested and there was no warrant for the search of this car.

The defendant urges that the waiver of a constitutional right will not readily be found and, indeed, that only a voluntary consent will dispense with the necessity of a warrant if the search is not incident to a lawful arrest. He further points out that a consent is not voluntary if it is the product of duress or coercion, actual or implicit, citing United States v. Smith, 308 F.2d 657 (2d Cir. 1962); Judd v. United States, 89 U.S.App.D.C. 64, 190 F.2d 649 (1951); Villano v. United States, 310 F.2d 680 (10th Cir. 1962); Wion v. United States, 325 F.2d 420 (10th Cir. 1963); Weed v. United States, 340 F.2d 827 (10th Cir. 1965); United States v. Kidd, 153 F.Supp. 605 (W.D.La.1957).

A consent to a search, however, “can be binding in the absence of a search warrant even though there was ample time and probable cause for obtaining a warrant.” Anderson v. United States, 399 F.2d 753, (10th Cir. 1968).

The evidence plainly established that before the search the following form of consent was signed by the defendant:

2. James Bernard Fitzpatrick, having been informed of my constitutional right not to have a search made of the premises [sic] hereinafter mentioned without a search warrant and of my right to refuse to consent to such a search, hereby authorize Gordon S. Carr and George W. Larson, Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, United States Department of Justice, to conduct a complete search of the 1957 Cadillac A. E. 9808 located at the rear of Toney’s Lounge.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
289 F. Supp. 767, 1968 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9052, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-fitzpatrick-utd-1968.