United States v. McDaniel
| Decision Date | 11 September 1957 |
| Docket Number | Cr. No. 980-56. |
| Citation | 154 F. Supp. 1 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Lindsey McDANIEL and Thomas Williams, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
Oliver Gasch, U. S. Atty., and Frederick G. Smithson, Asst. U. S. Atty., Washington, D. C., on behalf of the Government.
James J. Laughlin and Albert J. Ahern, Jr., Washington, D. C., for defendant McDaniel.
This is a motion to suppress certain evidence on the ground that it was seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The defendants McDaniel and Williams join in this motion.
The seized article was a towel which was found in a room of which the defendant McDaniel was a sub-tenant, he having sub-rented the room from the defendant Williams. The defendant Williams claims ownership of the seized property. Consequently, under the rule of the Jeffers case (Jeffers v. United States, 88 U.S.App.D.C. 58, 187 F.2d 498, affirmed 342 U.S. 48, 72 S.Ct. 93, 96 L.Ed. 59), each of the defendants has a standing to make the motion and the court will, therefore, consider the motion on the merits as to each of the two defendants.
The salient facts bearing upon this motion are not in dispute. The defendants McDaniel and Williams had been arrested on a charge of murder involved in this case. While they were in custody at police headquarters, two police officers went to the Williams apartment for the purpose of interviewing two women who were also living there. In the course of the interview and without making any search, one of the officers saw a torn towel in the room in which the interview was being conducted. Having had information that a towel was involved in the commission of the homicide, he took possession of the towel.
The moving defendants now seek to suppress this towel as evidence. The defendants invoke the well-established principle that ordinarily a home may not be searched without a search warrant except as incidentally to an arrest that takes place in the premises. Admittedly, there was no search warrant in this instance.
In determining matters under the Fourth Amendment, we must bear in mind the basic principle that, of course, is obvious, but it stands repetition because it is the obvious that is very often forgotten and overlooked, namely, that it is only unreasonable searches that are proscribed by the Fourth Amendment, but not all searches. Whether a particular search is or is not unreasonable must be determined largely by the facts of the particular case.
To be sure, there are certain guides that have been laid down by judicial decisions, but these guides are not rigid or inexorable. One of the guides is that the interior of a home may not be searched without a search...
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State v. Warner
...States, 356 F.2d 63, 68 (5th Cir.1966). See also People v. Davis, 188 Cal.App.2d 718, 10 Cal.Rptr. 610 (1961); United States v. McDaniel, 154 F.Supp. 1, 2 (D.C.C.1957), aff'd, 103 U.S.App.D.C. 144, 255 F.2d 896, cert. demined, 358 U.S. 853, 79 S.Ct. 82, 3 L.Ed.2d 87; Ellison v. United State......
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Lebedun v. State
...evidence of a bloody struggle, and from which house a trail of blood led to a body brutally beaten to death. United States v. McDaniel, 154 F.Supp. 1, (D.C.1957). At this time the officers became possessed of that degree of knowledge sufficient to warrant them in the reasonable belief that ......
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...has standing to challenge the use of the property as evidence against him. 1 In accord with the foregoing analyses: United States v. McDaniel, 154 F.Supp. 1 (D.C.D.C.1957); Lord v. Kelley, 223 F.Supp. 684 (D.C.Mass.1963); Hinchcliff v. Clarke, 230 F.Supp. 91, 103 (D.C.N.D. Ohio E.D.1963). S......
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