U.S. v. Mason

Citation523 F.2d 1122,173 U.S.App.D.C. 173
Decision Date21 November 1975
Docket NumberNo. 74-1813,74-1813
PartiesUNITED STATES of America v. Daniel C. MASON, Appellant.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (District of Columbia)

Peter R. Kolker, Washington, D. C. (appointed by this court), for appellant.

Hamilton P. Fox, III, Asst. U. S. Atty., with whom Earl J. Silbert, U. S. Atty., John A. Terry, James F. McMullin and John H. Bayly, Jr., Asst. U. S. Attys., were on the brief for appellee.

Before BAZELON, Chief Judge, MacKINNON, Circuit Judge, and CHRISTENSEN, * United States Senior District Judge for the District of Utah.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge MacKINNON.

Opinion filed by Chief Judge BAZELON, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

MacKINNON, Circuit Judge:

Following his convictions for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle in violation of D.C. Code § 22-2204 and for two federal firearms violations, 1 appellant Mason now contends that the trial court committed reversible error when it (1) refused to suppress certain evidence, (2) refused to turn over to defense counsel a portion of an FBI agent's report, and (3) refused to sever for trial the vehicle charge from the firearms offenses. We affirm.

I The Facts Concerning the Arrest and Seizure of the Firearm and the Car Keys

Under our view of this case, it is only necessary to set forth the facts concerning the arrest of Mason and the seizure of the sawed-off shotgun and the car keys.

As of March 4, 1974, Special Agent James K. Murphy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had been looking for Mason for some time to arrest him on warrants issued by federal courts in Florida and Virginia, charging bail bond violation and car theft respectively. Murphy had previously learned that Mason sometimes stayed at 800 Southern Ave. S.E., Washington, D. C., in an apartment rented by Miss Alfreida P. Williams, his girlfriend. At about 1:30 or 2:00 p. m. on March 4th, the building superintendent of the apartment house telephoned Murphy's office and reported that Mason was in Miss Williams' apartment. The message was relayed to Murphy, and he radioed for assistance from other FBI agents. Upon their arrival at the apartment building, Murphy noticed a Lincoln Continental and a Volkswagen, which he knew Mason had been driving. He was also aware that the Lincoln was a stolen vehicle (Tr. 24). 2 Murphy then obtained a key to Miss Williams' apartment from the building manager and stationed agents at various exits to prevent Mason's escape.

Murphy next knocked at the door of Miss Williams' apartment, identified himself and stated his purpose but received no response. He then attempted to enter the apartment using the key, but the door was secured by a chain lock. He again identified himself. Still receiving no response, he and Special Agent Bailey broke into the apartment. As they entered, they saw Mason coming out of the rear bedroom, arrested him, handcuffed his hands behind his back (Mo. Tr. 47) and advised him of his rights. As previously noted, the agents were executing the federal bench warrants from Florida and Virginia (Tr. 41), but no search warrant for the apartment had been obtained.

At the time of his arrest, Mason was not wearing his shoes. When he asked to be allowed to put them on, the agents took him back into the rear bedroom and seated him on the bed and Agent Bailey put the shoes on his feet without removing the handcuffs. (Mo. Tr. 48-49). Mason then complained that the handcuffs were too tight and asked that he be allowed to use the bathroom. Agent Murphy accompanied him to the bathroom, removed the handcuffs and allowed him to use the facilities. When he finished, Murphy replaced the handcuffs, this time with his hands in front of his body. (Mo. Tr. 49-50).

Mason then stated that he wanted to put on his leather jacket which he said was in the bedroom closet. To comply with this request, the agents returned him to the bedroom, and Murphy opened the closet door. The closet contained around 30 to 40 hangers of men's clothing and a partially-open white suitcase located on a shelf above the rod (Mo. Tr. 53). 3 At this point, according to Murphy's testimony:

When I went to the closet the doors were partially open and I pulled them open a little more and I said which one, and he pointed to it and said, I'll get it, and started to step over. At that time Agent Bailey attempted to stop him and I intended to let him come over and get the jacket and I advised him I was going to take the handcuffs off. The only portion of the closet which I could not see into was a white suitcase, and it was partially open.

(Mo. Tr. 51-52). 4 Something was jammed towards the back of the suitcase, causing it to stay open. (Mo. Tr. 56). When Murphy saw the suitcase, he decided to move it out of the way so Mason could not get his hands on it when he selected the jacket. In the attempt to move it, Murphy placed his fingers inside the open lid and felt a metal object which he recognized as the barrel of a firearm. He then pulled the suitcase out of the closet and found it contained a sawed-off shotgun which was broken down into three parts and wrapped in a sweater.

Following the discovery of the sawed-off shotgun, Mason was handed his jacket and allowed to put it on (Mo. Tr. 64). Agent Bailey then took him out of the bedroom and seated him at the dining room table. In doing so, Bailey noticed some car keys lying in plain view on the table, one of which bore an emblem of a Lincoln Continental. He recalled that Agent Murphy had stated that Mason was driving a silver Continental which Murphy had pointed out to Bailey in the parking lot before they entered the building. Bailey thus picked up the keys, showed them to Murphy, and asked him if he wanted to keep them. Murphy said he did and Bailey then gave Murphy the keys (Tr. 80).

II The Motion to Suppress

Prior to trial, appellant made a timely motion to suppress two items of evidence seized in the apartment when he was arrested the sawed-off shotgun, which formed the basis for the federal firearms charges, and the keys to the stolen Lincoln Continental, which was the automobile involved in the local motor vehicle offense. It is appellant's principal contention that the seizure of these two items violated the principles announced by the Supreme Court in Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969). The Government replies that the seizure of the firearm was the result of a valid search incident to the execution of an arrest warrant and that the car keys were validly seized under the plain view doctrine. Ancillary to appellant's motion to suppress this evidence is his claim that the seizure of the firearm and the car keys was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment because the circumstances required the agents to obtain a search warrant before seizing said evidentiary items.

In Chimel, Justice Stewart reviewed the prior decisions of the Supreme Court relating to searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment and announced the principles that must govern this case:

When an arrest is made, it is reasonable for the arresting officer to search the person arrested in order to remove any weapons that the latter might seek to use in order to resist arrest or effect his escape. Otherwise, the officer's safety might well be endangered, and the arrest itself frustrated. In addition, it is entirely reasonable for the arresting officer to search for and seize any Evidence on the arrestee's person in order to prevent its concealment or destruction. And the area into which an arrestee might reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary items must, of course, be governed by a like rule. A gun on a table or in a drawer in front of one who is arrested can be as dangerous to the arresting officer as one concealed in the clothing of the person arrested. There is ample justification, therefore, for a search of the arrestee's person and The area "within his immediate control" Construing that phrase to mean the area from within which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence.

There is no comparable justification, however, for routinely searching any room other than that in which an arrest occurs or, for that matter, for searching through all the desk drawers or other closed or concealed areas in that room itself. Such searches, in the absence of well-recognized exceptions, may be made only under the authority of a search warrant. The "adherence to judicial processes" mandated by the Fourth Amendment requires no less.

395 U.S. at 762-763, 89 S.Ct. at 2040. (emphasis added). The opinion in Chimel also quoted from United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 66, 70 S.Ct. 430, 434, 94 L.Ed. 653 (1950) that "the reasonableness of searches . . . (depend upon) the total atmosphere of the case."

When we apply these principles to the discovery and seizure of the sawed-off shotgun, we must conclude that the seizure was lawful. When appellant requested his leather jacket from the closet and stepped forward to a point within three or four feet of the closet before he was stopped, he brought within his immediate control the area where the gun was concealed in the suitcase. This conclusion is based on our examination of the testimony, the photographs of the closet, and the markings placed on the diagram of the closet by the witnesses (Mo. Tr. 53, 56, 57; Defendant's Exhibits 1, 2 and 3). 5 That he was handcuffed necessarily restricted the area within his reach but did not reduce it sufficiently so as to exclude the closet. Since his arms were handcuffed in front of him, it would have been very easy for him to reach the suitcase within three or four feet of where he was standing (Tr. 53, 56, 57). The agent would have been derelict in his duty to protect the other agent and himself if he had not taken the necessary precaution to examine the suitcase, which was partially open and which apparently was...

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