U.S. v. Jacobsen

• Decision Date: 27 July 1982
• Docket Number: No. 81-2158,81-2158
• Citation: 683 F.2d 296
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Bradley Thomas JACOBSEN and Donna Marie Jacobsen, Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 296

683 F.2d 296

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Bradley Thomas JACOBSEN and Donna Marie Jacobsen, Appellants.

No. 81-2158.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

Submitted May 20, 1982.

Decided July 27, 1982.

James M. Rosenbaum, U. S. Atty., Janice M. Symchych, Asst. U. S. Atty., D. Minn., Minneapolis, Minn., for appellee.

Friedberg & Peterson, Mark W. Peterson, Minneapolis, Minn., for appellants.

Before LAY, Chief Judge, HEANEY, Circuit Judge, and BECKER, ^* Senior District Judge.

LAY, Chief Judge.

The fundamental issue in this appeal is whether federal drug agents' warrantless search of a package damaged in transit and inspected by employees of a private carrier was a violation of the warrant clause of the fourth amendment. We find the search unconstitutional.

The facts may be briefly stated. A supervisor for Federal Express, a private freight carrier, discovered a damaged package. Pursuant to company policy, a manager examined the contents of the package. The package consisted of a cardboard box wrapped in brown paper. Inside the box was a tube of duct tape. Inside the tube were four clear plastic bags, one inside the next, the innermost containing white powder. Federal Express employees, thinking the powder might be a controlled substance, notified the Drug Enforcement Agency. The manager then placed the bags back in the tube, leaving them visible from the tube's end, and placed the tube back in the box.

When DEA Agent Jerry Kramer arrived, the manager gave him the box. Kramer removed the tube from the open box, took the bags out of the tube, and extracted a sample of the powder. He thereafter conducted a field test on the powder which indicated the powder was cocaine. A short time later another sample was removed for further testing. The package was then rewrapped and Federal Express was directed to deliver the package to the addressee shown on the label. The package was addressed to Mr. D. Jacobs, 7300 West 130th Street, Apple Valley, Minnesota.

Drug enforcement agents determined Bradley Jacobsen lived at this address. He was mentioned in at least two previous DEA investigative files relating to cocaine distribution. On the basis of this information and the field test, the drug enforcement agents obtained a warrant from a magistrate to search the defendants' home.

During the afternoon of May 1, 1981, DEA Agent James Lewis went to the Jacobsen home with the package. Dressed in ordinary street clothes, Lewis delivered the package to Donna Jacobsen, Bradley's wife. Lewis returned to the home approximately one hour later with eight to ten other officers. When Lewis identified himself, Bradley Jacobsen slammed the door, knocking Lewis down, and yelled, "It's the police-flush it." The officers forced the door open and searched the house. Cocaine traces, cocaine paraphernalia, and burned remnants of the package were found. The Jacobsens were arrested.

Defendants moved to suppress the evidence seized in their home as fruit of an illegal search of the package. Magistrate Floyd E. Boline recommended the motion be denied because the government's search did not exceed the scope of the private search. Over defendants' objection, the district court, Judge Harry H. MacLaughlin presiding, refused to suppress the evidence.

Bradley and Donna Jacobsen were tried before a jury and convicted on one count of possession with intent to distribute cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846. Bradley Jacobsen was also convicted of assault on a federal officer in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 111. This appeal followed entry of judgment.

We find that the evidence should have been suppressed and thus reverse the defendants' convictions for possession with intent to distribute cocaine and for conspiracy. We find the evidence sufficient to sustain a finding that Bradley Jacobsen assaulted a federal officer and thus sustain his conviction on that count. ¹

Since Ex parte Jackson, 96 U.S. 727, 24 L.Ed. 877 (1877), it has been the law that letters and sealed packages are protected from government inspection. The Jacobsens had a reasonable expectation that the contents of the package would remain private. See Walter v. United States, 447 U.S. 649, 651-52, 654, 100 S.Ct. 2395, 2398-99, 65 L.Ed.2d 410 (1980) (material carried by private carrier); United States v. Van Leeuwen, 397 U.S. 249, 251-52, 90 S.Ct. 1029, 1031-32, 25 L.Ed.2d 282 (1970). Contra United States v. Barry, 673 F.2d 912 (6th Cir. 1982) (Edwards, C. J., dissenting). ²

The government argues that the fourth amendment does not forbid evidentiary use of the fruits of a private search conducted without government participation or encouragement. Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 487-90, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 2048-50, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971); Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U.S. 465, 475, 41 S.Ct. 574, 576, 65 L.Ed. 1048 (1921). Defendants do not argue that the Federal Express employees opened the package pursuant to any form of government directive. They assert, however, that the federal agents' search exceeded the scope of the private search.

In Walter v. United States, 447 U.S. 649, 100 S.Ct. 2395, 65 L.Ed.2d 410 (1980), a private carrier delivered a number of sealed packages to the wrong company. Employees of the company opened the packages and found boxes of film. The boxes contained suggestive drawings and explicit descriptions of the films' contents. An employee of the private carrier removed a reel of film and attempted to view it by holding it against a light, but he could not see its contents and no attempt was made to project the film. The employees contacted the FBI. Without obtaining a warrant, FBI agents took possession of the packages and screened the films.

The Court, in a five to four decision, ³ found the agents' actions violated the fourth amendment. The plurality held that the agents were lawfully in possession of the films, but should have obtained a warrant authorizing them to view the films. The screening of the films was an investigation which yielded incriminating evidence not disclosed on the films' containers. The viewing was deemed a search. Id. at 653-54, 100 S.Ct. at 2399-2400.

In Walters, the private search exposed the boxes to government scrutiny. The plurality held, however, that government scrutiny must be strictly confined to what is exposed by the private search. Id. at 656-57, 100 S.Ct. at 2401-02 (comparing limitation to that imposed by terms of warrant). Justice Stevens concluded:

Prior to the Government screening, one could only draw inferences about what was on the films. The projection of the films was a significant expansion of the search that had been conducted previously by a private party and therefore must be characterized as a separate search. That separate search was not supported by any exigency, or by a warrant even though one could have easily been obtained.

Id. at 657, 100 S.Ct. at 2402 (footnotes omitted).

See also United States v. Haes, 551 F.2d 767, 771 (8th Cir. 1977).

In this case, the Federal Express employees removed the plastic bags from the tube, but did not remove or in any way analyze any of the powder; they subsequently replaced the bags back in the tube. The DEA agents removed the bags, took several samples of the powder, and subjected the samples to tests in order to determine their composition.

The private search in this case exposed bags of powder, but the Jacobsens' initial reasonable expectation that the package's contents would remain private was not entirely frustrated by the private search. In Walter, Justice Stevens wrote:

The fact that the cartons were unexpectedly opened by a third party before the shipment was delivered to its intended consignee does not alter the consignor's legitimate expectation of privacy. The private search merely frustrated that expectation in part. It did not simply strip the remaining unfrustrated portion of that expectation of all Fourth Amendment protection.

Id. at 658-59, 100 S.Ct. at 2402-03 (footnotes omitted).

The DEA agents' extension of the private search precisely parallels that in Walter. In both cases, viewing the objects with unaided vision produced only an inference of criminal activity. In both cases, government agents went beyond the scope of the private search by using mechanical or chemical means to discover the hidden nature of the objects. The governmental activity represents a significant extension of the private searches because it revealed the content of the films in Walter and, here, the composition of the powder. In the absence of exigent circumstances, which the government does not allege, we hold the agents were required to obtain a warrant authorizing the taking of samples and analysis thereof. ⁴

In this case, the government does not assert and we do not perceive any circumstances justifying the agents' failure to obtain a warrant authorizing examination of the contents of the package. Cf. United States v. Ross, --- U.S. ----, 102 S.Ct. 2157, 72 L.Ed.2d --- (1982) (automobile exception). As the Supreme Court stated in Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971):

The warrant requirement has been a valued part of our constitutional law for decades, and it has determined the result in scores and scores of cases in courts all over this country. It is not an inconvenience to be somehow "weighed" against the claims of police efficiency. It is, or should be, an important working part of our machinery of government, operating as a matter of course to check the "well-intentioned but mistakenly overzealous executive officers" who are a part of any system of law enforcement.

Id. at 481, 91 S.Ct. at 2045 (footnote omitted).

See also Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 390, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 2412, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978). We find that the agents' removal of the plastic bags, the taking of...