Fowler v. United States
| Decision Date | 29 December 1932 |
| Docket Number | No. 4818.,4818. |
| Citation | 62 F.2d 656 |
| Parties | FOWLER v. UNITED STATES. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
John A. Royse, of Indianapolis, Ind., for appellant.
George R. Jeffrey, U. S. Atty., and Alexander G. Cavins, and Telford B. Orbison, Asst. U. S. Attys., all of Indianapolis, Ind.
Before ALSCHULER, EVANS, and SPARKS, Circuit Judges.
This appeal from judgment of appellant's conviction for violation of the National Prohibition Act (27 USCA) presents the single question of the admissibility of evidence secured by search and seizure of appellant's property under a purported state search warrant which was admittedly void.
It is clear that, if the federal authorities sustained no relation to the unlawful search and seizure, the evidence of what was thereby revealed and taken was admissible in the federal prosecution.
As was said in the somewhat similar case of Byars v. United States, 273 U. S. 28, 47 S. Ct. 248, 250, 71 L. Ed. 520: "Similar questions have been presented in a variety of forms to the lower federal courts, but nothing is to be gained by attempting to review the decisions, since each of them rests, as the present case does, upon its own peculiar facts."
The "peculiar facts" of the instant case are in small compass and not in serious dispute.
For a number of years the Indianapolis police department maintained a "booze squad" whose duties related specially to violations of liquor laws. The squad co-operated with the federal prohibition director's office, which was short of men. It was the long practice for one or more of the squad to call almost daily at the federal prohibition office, and there to confer in reference to violations of the National Prohibition Law in and about the city. The squad, while employed and paid by the city, was always at the service of the prohibition department and at its call, and at times when not co-operating with the federal department did other police work.
It had for years been the general understanding and practice between the local police and the federal prohibition officers that when the police squad made seizures of liquor or arrests they would submit the cases to the prohibition department, which had the first option of prosecuting such of them as it desired. The practice had been that if the seizure of liquor was small the state would take the case, and if it was large the federal authorities would take it. It was not the general practice for both the police squad and the federal officers actually to participate in the making of the same raid or seizure; but the raid would be made in the light of the above understanding, and the liquor seized, together with the person arrested, would be held by the police until the case could be submitted to the federal authorities, and, if the quantity of liquor seized was large, the case was customarily turned over to them for prosecution.
The police did not notify the federal authorities before taking out the invalid search warrant against appellant and making this search and seizure, and no federal officer actually participated in the search. After the seizure was made and appellant was arrested, he was booked with the state authorities for the purpose of holding him until communication...
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