U.S. v. Cady, 81-1015
| Decision Date | 17 July 1981 |
| Docket Number | No. 81-1015,81-1015 |
| Citation | 651 F.2d 290 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Gerald Millis CADY, Arnold Clay Melton and Phillip Irving Goodman, III, Defendants-Appellants. Summary Calendar. . Unit A |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Burnett & Ahders, Associated, Warren Burnett, Odessa, Tex., for defendants-appellants.
Jimmy L. Tallant, Asst. U. S. Atty., Fort Worth, Tex., for plaintiff-appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Before GEE, RUBIN and RANDALL, Circuit Judges.
The appellants, pilot and pick-up men in an airborne marijuana smuggling operation were convicted of and sentenced for federal drug offenses at a bench trial, conducted on stipulated evidence. On this appeal they complain that most of this evidence should have been suppressed on their motion, filed and denied before the stipulation was made. Their points for reversal are founded on circumstances surrounding the installation and monitoring of an electronic beacon, or beeper, on their aircraft. By its use they were located and caught redhanded.
Appellants contend that the installation of the beeper, an act that required physical entry of the aircraft, was an act sufficiently intrusive as to be deemed a search. This is not certain, 1 but for purposes of argument we shall assume it. If so, the search was authorized by a validly issued warrant based, as appellants do not dispute, on probable cause.
The court below found that the two appellant pick-up men, who were merely meeting the aircraft, lacked standing to challenge the beeper installation or monitoring. These appellants attack that finding before us. Since, however, the convicted pilot's standing to make that challenge is not disputed, we need not decide this issue either: his complaint requires discussion of the last point urged for reversal, and our disposition of it decides the appeal.
Appellants' final claim is that the warrant in question is invalid in its entirety as not specifying a reasonable time limit on the monitoring that it authorizes. 2 The overall time specified in the warrant, both for installation of the beeper and for monitoring it after installation, is 90 days, a period that appellants claim is unreasonable. In the actual event, the beeper was installed within hours of the warrant's issuance, and the appellants were caught within 17 days of it. Appellants invite us to focus exclusively on the 90-day authorization period specified in the warrant, ignoring the actual authority exercised under it. 3 The suggestion is an appealing one but, we conclude, too exquisite for a real world of dope smuggling and law enforcement. We think a two-stage approach more realistic and appropriate.
The fourth amendment is our sole guide and concern here. It is too familiar to require citation that resistance to the issuance of general warrants, unrestrained as to persons, times, or places, supplied much of the incentive for its adoption. Did we contemplate in this case an authorization, unlimited as to even one of these factors time or of such duration as to be unlimited as a practical matter, w...
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U.S. v. Webster
...by a warrant issued on probable cause. See, e.g., United States v. Kupper, 693 F.2d 1129, 1130 n. 1 (5th Cir.1982); United States v. Cady, 651 F.2d 290, 291 (5th Cir.1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 919, 102 S.Ct. 1274, 71 L.Ed.2d 459 (1982). In United States v. Butts, 710 F.2d 1139, 1147 (5th......
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U.S. v. Butts
...the propriety of warrantless beeper installation in the interior of a vehicle is a question that remains open. In United States v. Cady, 651 F.2d 290 (5th Cir.1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 919, 102 S.Ct. 1274, 71 L.Ed.2d 459 (1982), the court assumed without deciding that a beeper installat......
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U.S. v. Flynn, 79-5406
...intrusion into the conveyance. United States v. Michael, 645 F.2d at 262 (opinion of Tate, J., dissenting). See also United States v. Cady, 651 F.2d 290 (5th Cir. 1981) (assuming without deciding that beeper installation requiring physical entry of aircraft is full-scale search).10 In Spine......
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United States v. Strmel, Crim. A. No. 83-317.
...dissenting) (emphasis in original). Other cases have assumed that interior beeper installation constitutes a search. See U.S. v. Cady, 651 F.2d 290, 291 (5th Cir.1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 919, 102 S.Ct. 1274, 71 L.Ed.2d 459 (1982) (installation of a beeper which requires physical entry ......