United States v. Lukas

• Decision Date: 05 November 1929
• Docket Number: No. 8851.,8851.
• Citation: 35 F.2d 599
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. LUKAS.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

35 F.2d 599 (1929)

UNITED STATES v. LUKAS.

No. 8851.

District Court, D. Massachusetts.

November 5, 1929.

Frederick H. Tarr, U. S. Atty., and Elihu D. Stone, Asst. U. S. Atty., both of Boston, Mass.

Arthur D. Cooper, of Boston, Mass., for defendant.

BREWSTER, District Judge.

The defendant has been indicted for the illegal transportation of intoxicating liquor. He has filed a motion to suppress evidence obtained by a federal prohibition agent as a result of a search of defendant's automobile. The search and seizure were made without a search warrant.

The ground upon which the motion is based is that the facts and circumstances within the agent's knowledge, and of which he had reasonably trustworthy information, were insufficient in themselves "to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that intoxicating liquor was being transported in the automobile" which was stopped and searched.

The question is to be decided upon the following facts:

The federal prohibition department received a written communication to the effect that liquor was being transported from a certain house in East Dedham in an automobile. The registration number of the car was given in the communication. This communication was turned over to one Whiting, a federal prohibition agent, who interviewed the writer of the communication. After the interview and certain inquiries made concerning his informant, he believed that the information was trustworthy. He thereupon made several visits to the vicinity of the premises in question, saw the defendant about the place, and, upon inquiries in the neighborhood, learned his name. On at least one occasion while passing the house he detected an odor of distillation.

On the morning of the search he saw the defendant come out of the house with a bundle wrapped in burlap and place it in an automobile which bore a registration number identical with that concerning which he had received previous information. The defendant drove away, and the agent followed him to South Boston, where he stopped the car, and, upon searching, found therein a quantity of intoxicating liquors.

There was nothing seen in the conduct of the defendant which, independent of other facts, would excite suspicion, nor did the agent obtain any knowledge by the exercise of his senses respecting the contents of the package which he saw the defendant put in his car.

It is settled in Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 45 S. Ct. 280, 69 L. Ed. 543, 39 A. L. R. 790,...