United States v. Solomon

33 F.2d 193, 1929 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1277
CourtDistrict Court, D. Massachusetts
DecidedMay 27, 1929
DocketNo. 8754
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 33 F.2d 193 (United States v. Solomon) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Massachusetts primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Solomon, 33 F.2d 193, 1929 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1277 (D. Mass. 1929).

Opinion

BREWSTER, District Judge.

Upon the motion of the defendants Zinno and Drago to declare a search and seizure illegal and to suppress evidence obtained thereby, evidence was received establishing the following facts:

These defendants occupied, as lessees, a shed or outbuilding detached and situated about 75 feet from a dwelling house on a farm in Lawrence, Mass. They did not reside on-the premises. They had set up and were operating in the leased building a redistilling plant.

On the morning of the 30th day of March, 1929, a federal prohibition agent, upon information received by him, went to- the vicinity of the farm involved, and, while driving by the building containing the still, he detected a strong odor of distillation. He saw a drain and pipe extending from the building to the road, and a black residue coming out of the drain. He then drove his -car into a driveway leading to the premises, and stopped in front of the dwelling house. From this point he was able to hear in the building the sound of acetylene burners and of a running motor. On approaching the building, he saw through an open door tanks, barrels, and cans. Entering the premises, he found a 1,000-gallon still, and saw the defendants in the act of pouring liquid into a can. He had seen neither of the defendants before he entered the building. The defendants were placed under arrest, and a seizure was made of liquor and of the property which was being used in its unlawful manufacture. The prohibition agent had no search warrant and no warrant to arrest the defendants.

The defendants attack the validity of the search and seizure solely on the ground that they were made, without a search warrrant.

There is nothing in the Fourth Amendment requiring the conclusion that an officer charged with enforcing the laws must be, in every ease, armed with a search warrant in .order to render his search and seizure valid. “The Fourth Amendment does not denounce all searches or seizures but only such as are unreasonable.” Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 147, 45 S. Ct. 280, 283 (69 L. Ed. 543, 39 A. L. R. 790).

The defendants rely largely upon the following observation made by the Chief Justice in the case of Carroll v. United States, supra: “ * * * The guaranty of freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures by the Fourth Amendment has been construed, practically since the beginning of the government as recognizing a necessary difference between a search of a store, dwelling house or other structure in respect of which a proper official warrant readily may be obtained, and a search of a ship, motor boat, wagon or automobile, for contraband goods, where it is not practicable to secure a warrant because the vehicle can be quickly moved out of the locality or jurisdiction in which the warrant must be sought.”

It must be conceded on the. facts before me that, if the test of reasonableness of the search and seizure in the ease at bar is to be the feasibility of obtaining' a' search warrant before taking any steps to suppress the crime and apprehend the criminal, then the search and seizure must be declared unreasonable, since it would have been practicable for the agent to have obtained- a warrant from a commissioner or the court before making the search. In other words, if this case is to be controlled by the principles applied in Carroll v. United States, supra, the defendants’ contention would be a valid one. But, if we examine closely Carroll v. United States, supra, we find that the court was dealing with the rights of officers to search without a warrant in cases where the search was not incidental to a lawful arrest. The Chief Justice, after considering sections 25 and 26 of title 2 of the National Prohibition Act (41 Stat. 305 [27 USCA, §§ 39, 40]), and section 6 of the Act Supplementing the National Prohibition Act (42 Stat. 222, Act of November 23, 1921 [18 USCA § 53]) together with the history of section 6, which was known as the Stanley Amendment, notes a clear intention on the part of Congress to draw a distinction between the necessity for a search warrant in the search of private dwellings and in that of automobiles and’ other road vehicles in the enforcement of the Prohibition Act. This distinction was held to be consistent with the Fourth Amendment.

Early acts of Congress are reviewed in the opinion for the purpose of showing that the distinction was nearly as old as the amendment. These statutes were intended to confer authority upon federal officials to search for property subject to forfeiture. They evidently contemplated that a search [195]*195of houses or other buildings, when the officials had cause to- suspect the concealment therein of such property, would be made only upon a search warrant. As I understand Carroll v. United States, supra, the decision was that the acts of Congress, passed under the Eighteenth Amendment, authorized the search of automobiles and other vehicles without warrant upon probable cause, and that these provisions did not contravene the Fourth Amendment. v

If the federal officers looked only to statutes for their authority to search and seize, it might well be true, as the defendant contends, that their right to search without a warrant'would be limited to moving vehicles, and that the conclusion would not be affected by the penalties attaching to the offense. Legislative enactments are not the only source from which officers charged with the duty of enforcing the law derive authority to search and seize. Under the common law of long standing, and universally accepted, a peace officer may search and seize the instrumentalities of the crime as an incident to a lawful arrest. Marron v. United States, 275 U. S. 192, 198, 48 S. Ct. 74, 72 L. Ed. 231; Carroll v. United States, supra; United States v. Seltzer (D. C.) 5 F.(2d) 364; Sayers v. United States (C. C. A.) 2 F.(2d) 146.

In Carroll v. United States, supra, the court says: “When a man is legally arrested for an offense, whatever is found upon his person or in his control whieh it is unlawful for him to have and which may be used to prove the offense may be seized and held as evidence in the prosecution.”

There has always been a distinction between arrest without a warrant in the ease of a felony and in the case of a misdemeanor. In the former ease, an officer might arrest without warrant one believed by the officer to have been guilty of felony, while in the latter case he could not arrest, unless the offense was committed in his presence. Kurtz v. Moffitt, 115 U. S. 487, 6 S. Ct. 148, 29 L. Ed. 458; Carroll v. United States, supra, at page 156 of 267 U. S. (45 S. Ct. 280).

Approaching the question of the authority of the prohibition agent to search and seize without a warrant, from this point of view two questions are presented: (1) Were the defendants lawfully arrested? and (2) Were the search and seizure incidental to the arrest?

That the arrest was'lawful can hardly be questioned, especially in view of the fact that the recent enactment of Congress, known as the Jones-Stalker Act (Act of March 2, 1929 [27 USCA §§ 91, 92]), makes the manufacture of intoxicating liquors a felony. All that the officer would need to show in justification of the arrest would be that he had reasonable grounds to believe that the felony had been committed. This ground for belief he unquestionably had upon the undisputed facts of the ease.

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Bluebook (online)
33 F.2d 193, 1929 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1277, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-solomon-mad-1929.