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488 F.2d 94

Docket No. 73-2964

United States v. Brown

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals

Decided Dec. 6, 1973.

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1973-12-06

2 counsel of record

Relies on Isbell Enterprises, Inc. v. Citizens Casualty Co. of New York · Burns v. United States · United States of America Ex Rel. Herbert Sperling, Relator-Appellant v. Walter v. Fitzpatrick, Warden, West Street House of Detention

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Opinion by (per_curiam) · Decided 1973-12-06

How this case has been cited

Cited by 61 later decisions — most recently July 2018 · most notably State ex rel. Wright v. Ohio Adult Parole Authority (1996), United States v. Winsett (1975)

28 federal appellate · 1 district · 21 state decisions — followed in 15 states

27019731980199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1Summary Calendar.*

¶2*95Stephen K. Johnson, Gainesville, Fla. (court-appointed), for defendant-appellant.

¶3William H. Stafford, Jr., U. S. Atty., Pensacola, Fla., Clinton Ashmore, Asst. U. S. Atty., Tallahassee, Fla., for plaintiff-appellee.

¶4Before GEWIN, COLEMAN and MORGAN, Circuit Judges.

¶6PER CURIAM:

¶7Appellant Brown has pursued this appeal from an order revoking his probation following an evidentiary hearing. Claiming to be a lay minister in a religious organization, The Children of God, the appellant went to a shopping center to preach. His enthusiastic efforts were not welcomed, complaints were made by patrons of the center, and he was arrested for trespassing after warning. A subsequent search uncovered a controlled substance in the appellant’s possession. Criminal charges were dropped, but this activity or the failure to report it to his probation officer or both facts served as the basis for his probation revocation.

¶8Appellant contends that his arrest was not based upon probable cause and that the fruits of the unreasonable search should have been suppressed at his probation revocation hearing. Even assuming appellant is correct regarding the constitutionality of his arrest and search, he admits that the exclusionary rule does not apply to probation revocation hearings absent police harassment of probationers.1 2Upon a review of this record we find inadequate evidence of police misconduct or harassment to support an application of the exclusionary rule. Furthermore, we note that regardless of the legality of the arrest and search, appellant was charged with failure to report the incident to the Probation Officer.2 Probation revocation is a matter entrusted to the sound discretion of the district court, and only upon a clear showing of abuse of that discretion will the district court’s decision be disturbed.3

¶9Affirmed.

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