Henderson v. United States

• Decision Date: 14 April 1926
• Docket Number: No. 2348.,2348.
• Citation: 51 ALR 420,12 F.2d 528
• Parties: HENDERSON v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

51 ALR 420, 12 F.2d 528 (1926)

HENDERSON v. UNITED STATES.

No. 2348.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

April 14, 1926.

L. O. Wendenburg, of Richmond, Va. (Wendenburg & Haddon, T. Gray Haddon, and Alfred J. Kirsh, all of Richmond, Va. on the brief), for plaintiff in error.

Alvah H. Martin, Asst. U. S. Atty., of Norfolk, Va. (Paul W. Kear, U. S. Atty., of Norfolk, Va., and Callom B. Jones, Asst. U. S. Atty., of Richmond, Va., on the brief), for the United States.

Before WADDILL, ROSE, and PARKER, Circuit Judges.

PARKER, Circuit Judge.

The plaintiff in error, defendant in the court below and so designated in this opinion, was convicted of violating the Harrison Anti-Narcotic Act (Comp. St. §§ 6287g-6287q). The principal point presented by his assignments of error relates to the action of the trial court in admitting as evidence against him cocaine and marked money which one Woodside, an official of the government, testified to having found while making a search of his bedroom. Defendant contends that this search was unlawful and unreasonable and violative of his constitutional rights because made without a search warrant. The contention of the government is that the search, although admittedly made without a warrant, was lawful on the theory that it was incidental to a lawful arrest. The case hinges upon the legality of the search. If it was lawful, defendant has no ground of complaint. If it was in violation of his constitutional rights, the court erred in permitting the evidence thus obtained to be used against him. Agnello v. United States, 269 U. S. 20, 46 S. Ct. 4, 70 L. Ed. ___; Gouled v. United States, 255 U. S. 298, 41 S. Ct. 261, 65 L. Ed. 647; Amos v. United States, 255 U. S. 313, 41 S. Ct. 266, 65 L. Ed. 654.

Defendant, who is an aged colored man, runs a small grocery store in the city of Richmond. He lives in the building in which his store is situate, the storeroom being in the front and being partitioned off from the part used as a dwelling. On the night of September 2, 1924, Woodside and Rocchiccioli, agents of the government, suspecting that defendant was unlawfully dealing in narcotic drugs, gave marked money to two colored informers and sent them to purchase cocaine from him. The officers waited some distance from defendant's store while the informers went to make the purchase. In a short while the informers returned and reported having purchased from the defendant cocaine which they delivered to the officers. The officers thereupon accompanied the informers to the store where admission was gained by the informers. The officers went into the store with them and notified the defendant that they were going to place him under arrest for the illegal sale of narcotics. They asked the informers to point out the person from whom they bought the cocaine, and, upon defendant's being pointed out, they demanded that he tell them where the money was which had been paid to him. Upon defendant's refusing to give them any information and protesting that they had no right to search without a warrant, Woodside handcuffed him to one of the informers and made him sit in a chair. He then placed Rocchiccioli over defendant with a black-jack and with instructions to "knock him in the head" if he attempted to get out of the chair and proceeded to search the part of the building used as a dwelling. He testified that the cocaine and marked money offered in evidence were found by him in the course of this search on a dresser in defendant's bedroom.

It is admitted that the government officers had no warrant either for the arrest of the defendant or for the search of his premises. There is no showing or contention that it was necessary to arrest defendant without a warrant to prevent his escape, and a careful consideration of the evidence leads irresistibly to the conclusion that the search of his dwelling was made, not as an incident of the arrest, but as the chief object which the officers had in view in entering upon his premises. Instead of the search being incidental to the arrest, therefore, the arrest was incidental to if not a mere pretext for the search. The question is whether a search made under such circumstances violates the constitutional rights of the defendant. We think that it does.

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution provides that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

As said by Mr. Justice Day in Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383, 34 S. Ct. 341, 58 L. Ed. 652, L. R. A. 1915B, 834, Ann. Cas. 1915C, 1177: "The effect of the Fourth Amendment is to put the courts of the United States and federal officials, in the exercise of their power and authority, under limitations and restraints as to the exercise of such power and authority, and to forever secure the people, their persons, houses, papers and effects against all unreasonable searches and seizures under the guise of law. This protection reaches all alike, whether accused of crime or not, and the duty of giving to it force and effect is obligatory upon all entrusted under our federal system with the enforcement of the laws. * * * The efforts of the courts and their officials to bring the guilty to punishment, praiseworthy as they are, are not to be aided by the sacrifice of those great principles established by years of endeavor and suffering which have resulted in their embodiment in the fundamental law of the land."

In the Gouled Case, 255 U. S. 298, 41 S. Ct. 261, 65 L. Ed. 647, having under review the rights of a citizen under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution, Mr. Justice Clarke, speaking for the unanimous court, said: "It would not be possible to add to the emphasis with which the framers of our Constitution and this court citing cases have declared the importance to political liberty and to the welfare of our country of the due observance of the rights guaranteed under the Constitution by these two amendments. The effect of the decisions cited is that such rights are declared to be indispensable to the `full enjoyment of personal security, personal liberty and private property'; that they are to be regarded as of the very essence of constitutional liberty; and that the guaranty of them is as important and as imperative as are the guaranties of the other fundamental rights of the individual citizen — the right, to trial by jury, to the writ of habeas corpus and to due process of law. It has been repeatedly decided that these amendments should receive a liberal construction, so as to prevent stealthy encroachment upon or `gradual depreciation' of the...