United States v. Snow
| Decision Date | 23 December 1925 |
| Docket Number | No. 6208.,6208. |
| Citation | 9 F.2d 978 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. SNOW et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
Harold P. Williams, U. S. Atty., and George R. Farnum, Asst. U. S. Atty., both of Boston, Mass.
Joseph V. Carroll, of Boston, Mass., for defendants.
These are motions to quash a search warrant and suppress evidence, and a petition for the return of property seized. They were heard together in open court. The only evidence submitted was the original search warrant with the annexed affidavit. It was agreed that books, papers, and documents, substantially as stated in the petition, had been seized by the United States officers and are now held by the government with the intention to use them as evidence against the defendants.
The search warrant was issued by a United States commissioner. It recites that he has received an affidavit, "naming and describing certain property and papers that he (the affiant) has reason to believe and does believe have been used and are being used as a means of committing a felony in violation of title XI of the Espionage Act aforesaid, section No. 37 of the Criminal Code of the United States, namely letters, tickets, papers, records and books" (search warrant). The place to be searched was sufficiently described; there is no question on that part of the warrant. The affidavit is annexed to and incorporated in the warrant. It sets forth that the affiant, King, took a message from "a French schooner, a rum runner," to the defendants at a certain office in Boston; that he was afterwards engaged by the defendants to carry messages to "various vessels on Rum Row and back pertaining to arrangements for importing liquor into the United States"; that during this work he delivered to the defendants "various letters and papers containing suggestions, plans, and arrangements for supplying the various vessels on Rum Row with stores and necessities (sic), and for bringing in the liquor through the Coast Guard blockade into the country, which letters he had seen from time to time among the files in said office"; that he had seen there various tickets which are commonly in use for the purpose of obtaining deliveries of liquor from vessels on Rum Row, and other papers, records, and books, pertaining to the business of rum-running conducted by said defendants, in said office; that he saw said letters, papers, tickets, and books at said office on the day before his affidavit. There is no allegation in the affidavit that at the time when the search warrant was issued the defendants were using the letters, books, papers, and documents referred to in the commission of a crime, nor does the affidavit taken as a whole show that such was the fact.
It has been held in the strongest terms by the Supreme Court of the United States that a search warrant cannot be used to obtain evidence: "They search warrants may not be used as a means of gaining access to a man's house or office and papers solely for the purpose of making search to secure evidence to be used against him in a criminal or penal proceeding, but that they may be resorted to only when a primary right to such search and seizure may be found in the interest which the public or the complainant may have in the property to be...
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State v. Rose
...reference' which specifically refer to the affidavit. Moore v. United States, 149 U.S.App.D.C. 150, 461 F.2d 1236, 1238; United States v. Snow, 9 F.2d 978, 979 (D.Mass.). Some courts have actually required that there be an express reference in the warrant to the affidavit in order for the w......
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...may be read together. See Dwinnels v. Boynton, 3 Allen 310, 312--313; Fry v. United States, 9 F.2d 38, 39 (9th Cir.); United States v. Snow, 9 F.2d 978, 979 (D.Mass.); People v. Grossman, 19 Cal.App.3d 8, 96 Cal.Rptr. 437; United States v. Moore, 263 A.2d 652, 653 (D.C.App.), aff'd. sub nom......