United States v. Burch

• Decision Date: 26 May 1977
• Docket Number: Crim. A. No. 77-36.
• Citation: 432 F. Supp. 961
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. George Richard BURCH, William Albert Jaegers, Jr., Thomas Morris, and Paul Brian Owens, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Delaware

432 F. Supp. 961

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. George Richard BURCH, William Albert Jaegers, Jr., Thomas Morris, and Paul Brian Owens, Defendants.

Crim. A. No. 77-36.

United States District Court, D. Delaware.

May 26, 1977.

Alan J. Hoffman, Asst. U. S. Atty., Wilmington, Del., for plaintiff.

James B. Tyler, III, of Young, Conaway, Stargatt & Taylor, Wilmington, Del., for defendant Burch.

Henry A. Wise, Jr., of Wise & Windfield, Wilmington, Del., for defendant Jaegers.

Charles P. Brandt, Wilmington, Del., for defendant Morris.

Carl Schnee, of Schnee & Castle, Wilmington, Del. for defendant Owens.

STAPLETON, District Judge:

The defendants in this action have been charged with possession of automobile tires which had been stolen from an interstate shipment and with conspiracy, both in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 659. Presently before the Court is a motion by William Jaegers, one of the defendants, to suppress the allegedly stolen automobile tires on the ground that they were seized in the course of an illegal search. Jaegers also moves to dismiss the indictment on the ground that there was an unreasonable delay between the alleged crime and the date of indictment. For the reasons that follow, the motion to suppress is granted; the motion to dismiss the indictment is denied.

I.

The challenge to the search and seizure in this case is based on the breadth of the search authorized by the warrant issued by this Court. There is no allegation that the warrant was issued without probable cause or that the officers who executed the warrant exceeded the scope of their authority under the warrant.

On May 7, 1976, as a predicate for obtaining a search warrant, a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation presented an affidavit to the Court detailing the facts the Agent knew or, on the basis of reports of an informant of proven reliability, believed to be true. In the affidavit, the Agent outlined in general terms several incidents related to thefts of auto tires and other goods from the Penn Central Railroad in Wilmington in which the defendants were said to have been involved. He then described in detail an incident he had observed the previous night and early the morning of May 7th. The Agent stated that, while conducting a surveillance in the Penn Central Edgemoor Yard, he observed four males loading tires onto two vans, one of which fit the description of and had the same license plate as a van belonging to Jaegers. The Agent reported that the same van was seen a short time later at Jaegers' home. The Agent sought authorization to search the van and an adjacent garage belonging to Jaegers. The Court approved the search warrant as requested.

The warrant authorized search of the van and Jaegers' garage for "automobile tires and a green 1975 Dodge van with Delaware license C-99175 and other unknown articles which are believed and reported to be stolen from Penn Central Railroad. . . ." The same day, pursuant to the warrant, federal agents went to Jaegers' home and conducted a search of the van and the garage. They seized forty-two tires, a tool box, a power lawnmower, ninety-six rolls of toilet tissue, a portable radio, an electric generator and several other items. Except for the tires, much of the seized property has since been returned. The tires are the only fruits of the search that the Government wishes to introduce at trial.

Jaegers does not quarrel with the specificity of the warrant's description of the tires but he contends that the inclusion of permission to search for "other unknown articles which are believed and reported to be stolen from the Penn Central Railroad" transformed the warrant into a general warrant. The Fourth Amendment outlaws general warrants and general searches by requiring that a warrant "particularly describe the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." The purpose of this requirement is to prevent "general exploratory rummaging in a person's belongings", Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 467, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 2038, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971), and "the seizure of one thing under a warrant describing another. As to what is to be taken, nothing is left to the discretion of the officer executing the warrant". Marron v. United States, 275 U.S. 192, 196, 48 S.Ct. 74, 76, 72 L.Ed. 231 (1927). The question presented here is whether the warrant before the Court, read as a whole, sufficiently circumscribed the discretion of the executing officers, or, to the contrary, allowed them to conduct a general, unlimited search.

Last term, the Supreme Court considered a case similar in several respects to the one before this Court and made it clear that a warrant is not per se invalid because it includes language permitting seizure of "other fruits" or "other unknown articles". Andresen v. Maryland, 427 U.S. 463, 96 S.Ct. 2737, 49 L.Ed.2d 627 (1976). The warrants challenged in Andresen authorized search for a lengthy and detailed list of documents, taken "`together with other fruits, instrumentalities and evidence of crime at this time unknown'". 427 U.S., at 481, n. 10, 96 S.Ct., at 2748. The defendant argued that the phrase ". . . other fruits" rendered the warrant fatally general. The Supreme Court disagreed. The Court said that the phrase under attack had to be read in context and that the context revealed plainly that the warrant authorized search only for evidence relating to a single crime, the crime of false pretenses with respect to the sale of a single piece of property. Emphasizing this limitation in the warrant to evidence related to a single, specified crime, the Court held that the warrant did not permit an unrestricted search and, thus, that the evidence seized pursuant to it was admissible in a prosecution for that crime.

Implicit in the Supreme Court's holding was the recognition that, by limiting the search to evidence of a single crime, the warrant gave executing officers a means to distinguish among Andresen's files and documents and to identify those they were authorized to seize. The warrant under consideration here differs in this critical respect: it was not limited to a search for evidence or fruits of any particular crime or crimes. On its face, the warrant permitted a search for anything which could have been stolen at any time from Penn Central in Wilmington. Because of the wide array of goods that are shipped by rail and which, thus, might fall into this category, the FBI agents might reasonably have concluded that the warrant authorized them to seize virtually...