Crouch v. United States

• Decision Date: 19 October 1981
• Docket Number: No. 81-5009,81-5009
• Citation: 102 S.Ct. 491,70 L.Ed.2d 259,454 U.S. 952
• Parties: Gary Carwell CROUCH and Mary Crouch v. UNITED STATES
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

454 U.S. 952

102 S.Ct. 491

70 L.Ed.2d 259

Gary Carwell CROUCH and Mary Crouch

v UNITED STATES

No. 81-5009

Supreme Court of the United States

October 19, 1981

On petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

The petition for writ of certiorari is denied.

Justice WHITE, with whom Justice BRENNAN joins, dissenting.

This case raises the question of how "plain" objects in "plain view" must be in order to justify a warrantless search. Specifically, it raises the question whether documents that must be read before their incriminating nature becomes evident are in plain view.

Petitioners are Mary Crouch and her son, Gary. On July 3, 1978, Gary Crouch was released for a 3-day furlough from Goodman Correctional Institute, where he was an inmate. Prior to his release, agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration had received information that indicated that Gary and Mary Crouch might be engaged in the manufacture of methamphetamine.¹ On July 3, agents obtained a warrant authorizing a search of the Crouch residence for "chemicals, laboratory equipment, and other paraphernalia, which are used in the illegal manufacture of methamphetamines in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1)." The warrant was executed on the afternoon of July 6.² The officers found chemicals, laboratory equipment, and empty gelatin capsules, but no methamphetamine. During the course of the search, agents discovered, in a drawer of a desk, a bundle of letters in open envelopes addressed to Gary at the state penitentiary from Mary. The agents removed the letters, examined their contents and found that they contained information concerning the manufacture of methamphetamine. Subsequently, the agents found another batch of letters, from Gary to Mary, in Mary's purse (the purse does not seem to have been in her possession). These letters contained additional incriminating evidence. Both sets of letters were seized as evidence.

Petitioners unsuccessfully moved to suppress the letters at trial. Both were convicted of attempting to manufacture methamphetamine and of conspiring to manufacture and distribute that substance.

Petitioners appealed the failure to suppress the letters to the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. That court held the seizure of the letters to have been proper under the plain-view doctrine. 648 F.2d 932 (1981). It found that the agents acted within the scope of the search warrant in removing the letters from the envelopes to search for the chemicals and paraphernalia named in the warrant. The writings were thereby exposed and, the court concluded, they were "clearly and immediately incriminating." By this, however, the court did not mean that it was not necessary to read the letters in order to establish their incriminating nature. Rather, it held that the "brief perusal" of an item does not render its incriminating nature any the less immediately apparent. Id., at 933.

Although the Solicitor General argues in his response to the petition for certiorari that the search/reading of the letters was within the scope of the term "paraphernalia" as used in the warrant, the Court of Appeals did not rely on this reasoning. I find this argument sufficiently strained that I would not accept it without further development in the lower courts.³ Therefore, the case, as it comes here, presents only the question of whether a warrantless reading of documents is permissible under the plain-view doctrine; this is the basis upon which the Court of Appeals approved of the search.

Regardless of other disputes as to the scope of the plain-view exception to the warrant requirement, see Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 510, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 2060, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971) (WHITE, J., concurring and dissenting), it is common ground that the doctrine may justify the search and seizure of items only if the incriminating character of the items is immediately apparent:

"Of course, the extension of the original justification is legitimate only where it is immediately apparent to the police that they have evidence before them; the 'plain view' doctrine may not be used to extend a general exploratory search from one object to another until something incriminating at last emerges." Id., at 466, 91 S.Ct., at 2038 (plurality opinion).

Since Coolidge, this Court has not had occasion to develop the limits of the concept "immediately apparent." In the absence of authoritative direction from this Court, a number of Courts of Appeals have held that a plain-view seizure of certain documents is permissible even though their incriminating nature is not apparent absent some reading of their contents. United States v. Ochs, 595 F.2d 1247 (CA2 1979) (loansharking records contained on loose ledger sheets and index cards); United States v. Pugh, 566 F.2d 626 (CA8 1977) (stationery containing drug weight and price quotations, and a calendar book containing a log of drug distributions); United States v. Gargotto, 476 F.2d 1009 (CA6 1973) (betting records); United States v. Damitz, 495 F.2d 50 (CA9 1974) (notebook used for recording weights of marijuana bricks); United States v. Smith, 462 F.2d 456 (CA8 1972) (lease); United States v. Maude, 156 U.S.App.D.C. 378, 481 F.2d 1062 (1973) (identification cards). Although in each of ...