U.S. v. Crabtree, 76-1065
| Decision Date | 03 December 1976 |
| Docket Number | No. 76-1065,76-1065 |
| Citation | 545 F.2d 884 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Richard Neil CRABTREE, Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Thomas H. Pollok, Richmond, Va. (court-appointed), for appellant.
Douglas M. Martin, Asst. U. S. Atty., Charlotte, N. C. (Keith S. Snyder, U. S. Atty., Asheville, N. C., on brief), for appellee.
Before CRAVEN, RUSSELL and WIDENER, Circuit Judges.
Richard Neil Crabtree was convicted of a conspiracy to obtain and sell a controlled substance (LSD) in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846. In this appeal, he makes the following assignments of error: (1) a warrantless search of a parcel by a private air freight company, (2) admission of alleged hearsay statements by a co-conspirator, (3) the modification of his sentence. Finding no merit in any of these contentions, we affirm.
The record shows that defendant's role in the conspiracy was to obtain quantities of LSD in California, and to send it by express shipment to parties in Charlotte, North Carolina. On April 25, 1975, James Allen King took a parcel to the Federal Express in Charlotte to be shipped air freight to the defendant in California. The station agent who received the package became suspicious when King wanted to pay for the charges in cash and refused to leave a billing address, or to disclose the contents of the package. After King's departure, the agent opened the package and discovered some 8000 tablets of LSD, $250 in cash, and a note. He then contacted an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration who performed a field test on the tablets which indicated that they contained LSD. After resealing the package, it was returned to Federal Express for ordinary delivery in California, where DEA agents had been notified to expect its arrival. Defendant was arrested at the airport after he claimed the package.
Although no pre-trial motions to suppress were filed, defendant now asserts that this inspection constituted a warrantless search by a de facto government officer, thus requiring the exclusion of the tablets and invalidating his arrest. It is contended that Federal Express is an agent of the federal government since it carries the mail and is subject to various federal regulations. However, the record clearly shows that Federal Express is a small private air shipper with no connection with the government. The station agent was acting as a private citizen with authority from his employer to open and inspect parcels consigned to his care. 1 Furthermore, he was not supervised in this undertaking or requested to perform the inspection by any agent of the government. As the court said, when dealing with an identical situation in United States v. DeBerry, supra, 487 F.2d at 450: "We therefore accept the Government's proposition that the search . . . did not infringe upon appellants' fourth amendment rights."
Crabtree also argues that it was error for the Court to admit testimony by King as to his statements and actions and those of Gunner, another co-conspirator, since he asserts that the conspiracy had terminated by the time King received the tablets. There can be no doubt that the conspiracy was a continuing one. The reason for returning the tablets was their poor quality. Gunner's role in the conspiracy is shown by...
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