Lawson v. United States, 15917

• Decision Date: 29 April 1958
• Docket Number: No. 15917,15918.,15917
• Citation: 254 F.2d 706
• Parties: Harold E. LAWSON, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee. James Wesley McMURRY, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

254 F.2d 706 (1958)

Harold E. LAWSON, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.

James Wesley McMURRY, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.

Nos. 15917, 15918.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

April 29, 1958.

Pat Malloy, Tulsa, Okl., for appellants.

O. J. Taylor, Asst. U. S. Atty., Kansas City, Mo. (Edward L. Scheufler, U. S. Atty., Kansas City, Mo., was with him on the brief), for appellee.

Before GARDNER, Chief Judge, and VOGEL and VAN OOSTERHOUT, Circuit Judges.

GARDNER, Chief Judge.

Appellants were informed against, tried and convicted of violating Section 1262, Title 18 U.S.C.A., which prohibits the transportation of intoxicating liquors into a state wherein the sale of intoxicating liquors is prohibited by law. They were charged with attempting to transport intoxicating liquors from the State of Missouri into the State of Oklahoma in which state the sale of intoxicating liquors without the requisite permits, with exceptions not here material, is prohibited by law. In the course of this opinion we shall refer to the appellants as defendants.

Upon their arraignment defendants entered pleas of not guilty. When the case was called for trial they interposed a motion to suppress certain evidence allegedly obtained from their possession by reason of an unlawful search and seizure. At the hearing of this motion it was stipulated that the court might hear the evidence on the motion and that if the motion were overruled the guilt or innocence of the defendants would be determined on the basis of the evidence so presented, a jury trial being specifically waived. After hearing all the evidence produced the court denied the motion to suppress and on the evidence so produced found the defendants guilty as charged and in due course entered judgments of conviction. On these appeals the sole issue presented is whether or not the court erred in denying defendants' motion to suppress the evidence secured by the alleged unlawful seizure of property in the possession of defendants. The property involved consisted of intoxicating liquor which was taken from the possession of defendants by government revenue officers while it was being transported by the defendants in an automobile on a public highway.

It is contended by defendants that rights guaranteed them by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution were violated when revenue officers without a warrant seized and took from their possession certain intoxicating liquors being transported by them. If the search and seizure violated the Fourth Amendment then, manifestly, the motion to suppress interposed by defendants should have been sustained. This Fourth Amendment is in the nature of a guarantee of privacy and may be invoked by any citizen, whether innocent or guilty. As said by us in Kroska v. United States, 8 Cir., 51 F.2d 330, 332:

"An unjustified search and seizure violates the Fourth Amendment, whatever the character of the property seized, whether it was in the home, in an office, or in an automobile, and whether taken by force, by stealth or by fraud. The Fourth Amendment protects the citizen, whether innocent or guilty, against every unjustifiable intrusion by the government upon his privacy, and it has been said that these amendments confer, as against the government, `the right to be let alone.\'"

In Go-Bart Importing Co. v. United States, 282 U.S. 344, 51 S.Ct. 153, 158, 75 L.Ed. 374, Mr. Justice Butler, speaking for the Supreme Court, said:

"The first clause of the Fourth Amendment declares: `The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.\' It is general and forbids every search that is unreasonable; it protects all, those suspected or known to be offenders as well as the innocent, and unquestionably extends to the premises where the search was made and the papers taken."

The Fourth Amendment, however beneficent, does not forbid all searches and seizures but only such as are unreasonable. The propriety of the seizure of property without a search warrant is dependent upon the facts and circumstances existing at and prior to the time of seizure and known to the seizing officers. Seizure may be lawfully made from an automobile illegally transporting intoxicating liquors if the search is upon probable cause. Probable cause may be shown by facts and circumstances of such a character as to lead a reasonably discreet and prudent man to believe that liquor is illegally contained in the automobile to be searched and it is not necessary that the officer should have had before him legal evidence of the suspected illegal act. The question for determination is whether the seizing officers in this case had knowledge of facts and circumstances sufficient to warrant a reasonably discreet and prudent man to believe that the vehicle contained liquor subject to seizure. Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 283, 69 L.Ed. 543; Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 93 L.Ed. 1879; Kroska v. United States, supra; Day v. United States, 8 Cir., 37 F.2d 80; United States v. McCall, 10 Cir., 243 F.2d 858. In Carroll v. United States, supra, in an opinion by Chief Justice Taft, it is among other things said:

"On reason and authority the true rule is that if the search and seizure without a warrant are made upon probable cause, that is, upon a belief, reasonably arising out of circumstances known to the seizing officer, that an automobile or other vehicle contains that which by law is subject to seizure and destruction, the search and seizure are valid. The Fourth Amendment is to be construed in the light of what was deemed an unreasonable search and seizure when it was adopted, and in a manner which will conserve public interests as well as the interests and rights of individual citizens."

We must therefore consider what facts and circumstances were known to the seizing officers at the time of the search and seizure in the instant case. These may be summarized as follows:

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