United States v. Davis
| Decision Date | 07 April 1970 |
| Docket Number | No. 27139.,27139. |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Felder M. DAVIS and Houston Felder Davis, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
A. Pope Gordon (court appointed), Montgomery, Ala., for defendants-appellants.
Ira DeMent, U. S. Atty., D. Broward Segrest, Asst. U. S. Atty., Montgomery, Ala., for plaintiff-appellee.
Before GEWIN, COLEMAN and DYER, Circuit Judges.
Appellants, Felder M. Davis and his son, Houston F. Davis, were convicted by a jury in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama of forcibly assaulting FBI agents while the agents were engaged in the performance of their official duties. Felder was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and sentenced to three years imprisonment; Houston was convicted of simple assault and was placed on probation for a period of three years. On this appeal, Felder contends that the district court erroneously admitted in evidence a pistol seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Houston contends that the court erred in refusing certain requested charges and that the evidence of his "criminal intent" to commit the crime is insufficient to support the verdict. After a careful review of the record, we find Houston Davis's contentions without merit1 and accordingly, his conviction is affirmed. We find Felder Davis's contention well taken and for the reasons set out herein, his conviction is reversed.
The pertinent facts are as follows: On March 13, 1968, FBI agents Graybill, Martz and Graffagnini arrested appellants at the rural home of Houston Davis in Elmore County, Alabama. They were arrested under a warrant charging unlawful interstate flight to avoid prosecution for larceny of an automobile. Their arrest for assault was precipitated by Felder Davis's impetuous escape, after the arrest on the charge of unlawful interstate flight.
When Felder Davis learned that the agents had placed him under arrest, he bolted from his son's home. All three agents and Houston Davis pursued Felder who did not stop running until he reached his own home which was located nearby. When Felder turned to face his shouting, would-be captors, he brandished a .38 caliber pistol. The agents responded by drawing their own weapons. Houston Davis, unarmed, attacked agent Martz in an attempt to keep him from shooting Felder. In the ensuing melee, the agents fired four shots at Felder Davis who immediately disposed of his pistol and surrendered unharmed. Houston Davis was not so fortunate. He received serious bullet wounds in his struggle with agent Martz. When order was restored, the agents were quite busy caring for Houston Davis until the arrival of an ambulance which they had called. Although one of the agents made a cursory search of the area, Felder's pistol was not discovered. Houston Davis, accompanied by agent Martz, left the scene in an ambulance at about 7:00 p.m. The other two agents left shortly thereafter and proceeded to Montgomery where they jailed Felder Davis and arrived back at their offices at approximately 8:00 p.m.
Later that same evening, three other FBI agents drove to the Felder Davis home to search for the missing weapon. They did not have a search warrant. One of these agents testified that they arrived about 10:30 p.m. and discovered the pistol immediately upon alighting from their car. It is undisputed that the weapon was recovered from the yard or within the curtilage of the Davis home.
Felder contends that his pistol was the product of an unconstitutional search of his home and was erroneously admitted in evidence at his trial. After a thorough hearing on a motion to suppress, the district court found that its seizure was justifiable under either of two theories: First, the court held that if a search did take place, it was "incident to a lawful arrest", or justified by an emergency situation, and therefore did not violate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures. In the alternative, the court found that no search occurred because the pistol was in "plain view."
We first consider whether the pistol was the product of a search.2 The district court's decision that no search occurred is based on its interpretation of the "plain view" rule as it appears in Miller v. United States3 and Harris v. United States.4 In Harris, incriminating evidence was discovered in the defendant's car after it had been impounded by police. The search which produced the evidence was found lawful because it was made pursuant to a police department regulation designed to protect the car and any valuables it contained. The Court stated the "plain view" rule as follows:
It has long been settled that objects falling in the plain view of an officer who has a right to be in the position to have that view are subject to seizure and may be introduced in evidence. Ker v. State of California, 374 U.S. 23, 42-43, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 1634, 10 L.Ed.2d 726, 743 (1963); United States v. Lee, 274 U.S. 559, 47 S.Ct. 746, 71 L.Ed. 1202 (1927); Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57, 44 S.Ct. 445, 68 L.Ed. 898 (1924).5
The main consideration in applying this rule is to determine whether the observing officer had "a right to be in the position to have that view."6 Many of the cases involving the "plain view" doctrine concern evidence recovered from automobiles located in public places. The rule lends itself to application in these situations because the observing officer is not required to trespass on private property in order to have a clear view of articles inside an automobile.7 However, where police officers trespass in order to secure the view, we have not hesitated to find a search.8 A person's home holds a favored position in the list of those areas which are protected from unreasonable searches and seizures. Different considerations apply to movable property such as boats and motor vehicles.9 The high degree of judicial sanctity which the courts have accorded to dwellings is based upon the concept of privacy and the right to be left alone. The security of homes should not be left to the sole discretion of police officers. The decisions have repeatedly stressed and emphasized the concept that the underlying purpose of the Fourth Amendment is to protect and shield citizens from unwarranted intrusions into their private domain.10 Here we are dealing with a severe invasion of privacy by the intrusion of officers into the curtilage of a private home at nighttime.
In the instant case, the FBI agents went to Felder Davis's home at least three and one-half hours after his arrest for the sole purpose of looking for his pistol. They drove their automobile into the curtilage of his home and proceeded, unannounced, to look for the weapon. It was found immediately, according to the testimony of one officer, because of the reflection of the porch light on the surface of the gun. This was an unconstitutional search in the classic sense. The government will not be heard to say that the "plain view" rule applies where the observing officer has physically invaded a constitutionally protected area in order to secure the view.11
Is the search which produced the pistol justifiable as a search incident to a lawful arrest? To resolve this issue we shall briefly consider the scope of the doctrine of search incident to a lawful arrest.12 Our analysis begins with the Fourth Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Since a search incident to arrest is a warrantless search, it must ultimately be defined in terms of reasonableness.
The reasonableness of a search is not something which can be determined abstractly. As stated by Justice Frankfurter:
To say that the search must be reasonable is to require some criterion of reason. It is no guide at all either for a jury or for district judges or the police to say that an `unreasonable search\' is forbidden — that the search must be reasonable. What is the test of reason which makes a search reasonable? The test is the reason underlying and expressed by the Fourth Amendment: the history and the experience which it embodies and the safeguards afforded by it against the evils to which it was a response.13
Historically, warrantless searches incident to lawful arrests have been found reasonable under certain limited circumstances for several impelling reasons. The reasons justifying the existence of the rule must be examined to define its temporal and spatial limits. These reasons were outlined in Preston v. United States which concerned the search of an automobile after the occupants had been arrested, searched and taken to police headquarters and the car had been impounded:
The rule allowing contemporaneous searches is justified, for example, by the need to seize weapons and other things which might be used to assault an officer or effect an escape, as well as by the need to prevent the destruction of evidence of the crime — things which might easily happen where the weapon or evidence is on the accused\'s person or under his immediate control. But these justifications are absent where a search is remote in time or place from the arrest. * * * The search of the car was not undertaken until petitioner and has companions had been arrested and taken in custody to the police station and the car had been towed to the garage. At this point there was no danger that any of the men arrested could have used any weapons in the car and could have destroyed any evidence of a crime * * *.14
If applicable to the instant case, Preston seems to be dispositive. The factors justifying a search...
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