U.S. v. Dart

• Decision Date: 01 November 1984
• Docket Number: No. 84-5050,84-5050
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Leland Earl DART, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 263

747 F.2d 263

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Leland Earl DART, Appellant.

No. 84-5050.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued July 13, 1984.

Decided Nov. 1, 1984.

Michael S. Scofield, Charlotte, N.C. (Lisa G. Caddell; Wardlow, Knox, Knox, Freeman & Scofield, Charlotte, N.C., on brief), for appellant.

Harry L. Hobgood, Asst. U.S. Atty., Greensboro, N.C. (Kenneth W. McAllister, U.S. Atty., Greensboro, N.C., on brief), for appellee.

Before PHILLIPS, MURNAGHAN and ERVIN, Circuit Judges.

ERVIN, Circuit Judge:

Leland Earl Dart appeals from the district court's denial of his motion to suppress the seizure of unregistered automatic weapons discovered during a search of a mini-warehouse facility in Greensboro, North Carolina. Because we believe that the search was constitutionally defective, we reverse the decision of the district court.

I.

In September of 1982, Dart signed a lease for the rental of storage Unit 69 at Colonial Self Storage in Greensboro, North Carolina. The unit was ten feet by twenty feet and was located, with other units, in a fenced area. A metal, garage-like door provided the only entrance to the unit. The door was secured with a lock for which only Dart had a key. In the warehouse Dart placed numerous pieces of personal property. Among the possessions was an extensive collection of guns.

On the evening of August 18, 1983, the Colonial Self Storage Warehouse complex was burglarized. Officer Donald Johnson of the Greensboro Police Department received a call at 7:00 A.M., August 19, 1983, reporting the break-in. When Officer Johnson arrived at the complex he immediately surveyed the storage facilities to determine where the entry had occurred and to see if any of the burglars were still on the premises. Around the perimeter security fence Johnson found several items he surmised had been dropped by the burglars while fleeing from the area. Within the complex itself Johnson discovered that the locks on approximately ten of the storage units had been sawed off and that the roll-down, garage-like doors on these units had been forced open. Johnson briefly entered several of the burglarized units to see if the burglars were still present and to ascertain whether anything had been taken.

When Johnson reached Unit 69 he noticed that the lock had been sawed off and the door forced open approximately three feet. Johnson pushed open the door the rest of the way and entered the unit. Inside he found a 1963 red Corvette and "a pile of something in the back covered up, but [he] didn't know what it was." (J.A. 16). Noticing that dust on the car had been recently disturbed, Johnson quickly decided to go back to his car and retrieve his fingerprint kit. Before he left the unit, though, Johnson checked around the interior of the mini-warehouse to see if anyone was present. (J.A. 14). Satisfied that there was no one in the warehouse, Johnson returned to his car to get the fingerprint tools.

Once back inside, Johnson began to lift fingerprints from the Corvette. As he worked his way to the rear of the car, Johnson for the first time noticed an "old weapon" lying on top of the blanket-draped pile in the rear of the unit. Upon further inspection Johnson concluded that it was an antique handgun in questionable working order. Johnson then noticed two leather pouches lying on the ground near the concealed stack. According to Johnson the pouches were "shaped like something that would house a handgun." JA at 19. Johnson opened the pouches and found a fully loaded .357 "magnum" and a fully loaded .357 "trooper special." "Out of curiosity", (J.A. 20), Johnson proceeded to lift up the blanket. Underneath he saw "butts of rifles" and concluded that he had discovered a cache of stolen weapons. He did not see any automatic weapons. Leaving the weapons undisturbed, Johnson then replaced the blanket and left Unit 69 to confer with other officers who had arrived at the warehouse.

Johnson reported the find to two of his colleagues (Bunker and Blair) and gave them a tour of the burglarized warehouses. After twenty minutes the trio returned to Unit 69 to take a closer look at the weapons stack. Johnson showed Blair and Bunker the handguns and then pulled back the blanket so they could see the stack of rifles. Johnson then left for ten minutes and when he returned Bunker and Blair showed him the contents of a camouflaged case that they had opened. All three men agreed that the case held an automatic weapon with a silencer. At this point Officer Bunker decided to call for expert intelligence assistance. The search was temporarily halted while the officers waited for reinforcements.

At 10:30 A.M. a team of weapons experts from the Greensboro police force and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms resumed the search. Each one of the weapons was removed from the stack, examined, and inventoried. In all, nearly 300 weapons were uncovered. Some of the weapons were still packed in the original boxes in which they had been bought. Others were wrapped in pillowcases or concealed in leather pouches. By the time the search of the stack was complete, the officers had found five fully automatic unregistered weapons and two M-1 conversion kits. Up to this point the officers had been operating without a warrant of any kind.

At 12:15 P.M., after the stack had been fully disassembled, Officer Blair left the warehouse to obtain a search warrant authorizing a search of the remainder of the warehouse. Blair listed the automatic weapons uncovered in the stack as probable cause to search for additional weapons. Within two hours a warrant was issued. The warrant authorized a search of Unit 69 in its entirety for "weapons of mass death and destruction." The search that then ensued produced one additional unregistered automatic weapon. It had been stored inside a locked vault that police locksmiths pried open.

Three months after the search, Dart was indicted on eight counts of possessing an unregistered automatic weapon in violation of 26 U.S.C. Secs. 5841, 5861(d) and 5871. Dart filed a motion to suppress the guns, which was denied. Dart then pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful possession of an automatic weapon on the condition that his right to appeal the constitutionality of the search be preserved. Pending the outcome of this appeal, Dart was sentenced to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

II.

The fourth amendment proscribes all unreasonable searches. Mincey v. Arizona 437 U.S. 385, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978). "Searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment--subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions." Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 514, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). The district court held, and the government argues on appeal, that two of these exceptions--the "exigent circumstances" exception and the plain view doctrine--are applicable here. We disagree. In our view neither exception justified the government's failure to obtain a warrant before lifting the blanket and disassembling the stack of weapons.

A.

Under certain "exceptional" or exigent circumstances law enforcement officers need not obtain a warrant before searching a private dwelling. Where, for example, officers are responding to an emergency, see, e.g., United States v. Jeffers, 342 U.S. 48, 72 S.Ct. 93, 96 L.Ed. 59 (1951); McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451, 456, 69 S.Ct. 191, 193, 93 L.Ed. 153 (1948), are in hot pursuit of a fleeing felon, see, e.g., Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967), or are confronted with imminent destruction of evidence, see, e.g., Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1966), the Supreme Court has ruled that warrantless searches do not violate the fourth amendment. The exigent circumstances exception has also been extended to situations in which police officers believe a killer is still at the scene of a homicide, Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 392, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 2413, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978), or where "there is a need to protect or preserve life or avoid serious injury." Wayne v. United States, 318 F.2d 205, 212 (D.C.Cir.1963), quoted in Mincey, 437 U.S. at 392-93, 98 S.Ct. at 2413-14. See generally, Lafave, Search and Seizure, Secs. 6.5(b)(c)(d) and (e) (1978). ¹ As a general rule "the burden rests on the State to show the existence of such an exceptional situation." Vale v. Louisiana, 399 U.S. 30, 34, 90 S.Ct. 1969, 1972, 26 L.Ed.2d 409 (1970); Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969).

Unquestionably Officer Johnson's initial warrantless entry into Unit 69 did not violate the fourth amendment. The warehouse had clearly been burglarized, and Johnson had reason to believe that the perpetrators were still on the premises. Personal safety, therefore, required a cursory look in the burglarized units. Mincey at 392-93, 98 S.Ct. at 2413-14.

It is apparent from the record, however, that Johnson's decision to look under the blanket was not motivated by fear for personal safety and was entirely unrelated to the initial search he made to determine if any of the burglars were still on the premises. Johnson testified that when he first entered Unit 69 to look around he noticed the blanket-draped stack against the far wall. (J.A. 16). Johnson did not bother to examine the stack for a hidden burglar. To the contrary, Johnson testified that when he left to retrieve the fingerprint kit he had concluded that there was nobody in the warehouse:

A. Hadn't you satisfied yourself before you went back and got your kit and devoted your attention to processing the Corvette for prints, that there was nobody in that area, in Storage House 69?

A. Yes, to a certain degree.

Q. You hadn't called for any other officers?

A. Not at that time.

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Q. When you...