Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

9 F.2d 621

Docket No. 4657.

Cline v. United States

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

Decided November 23, 1925.)

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1925-11-23

2 counsel of record

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““ * * * the officers did nothing to induce the defendant to acquire the contraband. They merely offered to buy that which they were advised the defendant was ready to sell. This does not constitute entrapment”

quoted by 1 later decision, including State v. Hernandez

Relies on Butts v. United States · Dœring v. State · Peru v. United States

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1925-11-23

How this case has been cited

Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently September 1967

7 federal appellate · 1 district · 4 state decisions

7019251930194019501960decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶11. Arrest <@=>71 — Officer entitled to make search only when arrest is legal.

¶2Officers making arrest are entitled to search person arrested, but only when arrest is legal.

¶32. Arrest <@=>63(4)— Criminal law <@=>395 — Arrest of dope peddler without warrant and search of person held legal.

¶4Where accused was arrested for violation of Comp. St. § 10oO9, and Comp. St. Ann. Sup-p. 1923, § 8801, a felony, just as he completed a sale of morphine, at which time the officer was advised of two previous sales, held, in view of Pen. Code Ariz. 1918, § 854, authorizing arrest for felony without warrant, the arrest was lawful, and morphine and money procured by search of defendant’s person was admissible in evidence.

¶53. Arrest <@=>68 — State procedure applicable to arrests for violation of federal law.

¶6The procedure for making arrests which obtains under the state practice is applicable to arrests made for crimes against the United States.

¶74. Criminal law <@=>37 — Purchase of narcotics by officers held not entrapment.

¶8Offer by officers to buy narcotics which defendant had for sale, without doing anything to induce defendant to acquire contraband, held not entrapment.

¶9In Errar to the District Court of the United States for the District of Arizona; P. C. Jaeobs, Judge.

¶10Jess Cline was convicted on three counts charging a violation of the Narcotic Act, and he brings error.

¶11Affirmed.

¶12Herman Lewkowitz and Harold J. Jan-son, both of Phœnix, Ariz., for plaintiff in error.

¶13Geo. T. Wilson and George It. Hill, Asst. U. S. Attys., both of Phœnix, Ariz.

¶14Before HUNT, RUDKIN, and McCAMANT, Circuit Judges.

¶15MeCAMANT, Circuit Judge.

¶16When the defendant was arrested, he was searched and the officers removed from his person a phial of morphine and some money, which he had just received from a woman to whom he had sold morphine. An objection and exception were reserved to the reception of the morphine and money in evidence, on the ground that the search was illegal.

¶17[1] It is familiar law that officers making an arrest are entitled to search the party arrested, but this principle is applicable only to a legal arrest. Defendant contends that lie was arrested without a warrant and that the arrest was for that reason unlawful.

¶18[2,3] The offense with which defendant is charged is a felony. Barnes’ Code, § 10038, 35 Stat. 1152 (Comp. St. § 10509); Barnes’ 1924 Supp. § 8375, 42 Stat. 596 (Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1923, § 8801). Under section 854 of the Penal Code of Arizona an officer is entitled to arrest without warrant a person who has committed a felony, though not in the officer’s presence. At the time when defendant was arrested, he had just completed the sale of morphine charged in the sixth count of the indictment. The officer making the arrest was also advised of the two previous sales made by the defendant and charged in the fourth and fifth counts. The procedure for making arrests which obtains- under the state practice is applicable to arrests made for crimes against the United States. 1 Ops. Attys. Gen. 85, 86; U. S. v. Rundlett, 2 Curt. 41, Fed. Cas. No. 16,208; U. S. v. Horton, 2 Dill. 94, Fed. Cas. No. 15,393; In re Acker (C. C.) 66 F. 290. Moreover, the Arizona practice, above referred to, conforms to the common law and to the practice followed in the states generally. 2 R. C. L. 447; Rohan v. Sawin, 5 Cush. (Mass.) 281, 284, 285; Doering v. State, 49 Ind. 56, 58, 59, 19 Am. Rep. 669; Eanes v. State, 6 Humph. (Tenn.) 53, 44 Am. Dec. 289.

¶19The defendant cites Peru v. U. S. (C. C. A.) 4 F.(2d) 881, 884. The charge preferred in that ease was a misdemeanor. A party charged with a misdemeanor is not subject to arrest without warrant, unless the misdemeanor is committed in the presence of the officers. The arrest of defendant was lawful, and the morphine and money seized were admissible in evidence.

¶20[4] Defendant moved for a verdict of acquittal on the ground that the evidence showed that he had been entrapped into the commission of the offense. The sale charged in the sixth count was made to a woman who had no association with the government service. The other two sales were made to a government informant, hut the evidence is not to be distinguished from that before the court in Fiunkin v. U. S. (C. C. A.) 265 F. 1, and Johnstone v. U. S. (C. C. A.) 1 F.(2d) 928 In those eases the court held that there was no entrapment. In those eases, as in this, the officers did nothing to induce the defendant to acquire the contraband. They merely offered to buy that which they were advised the defendant was ready to sell. This does not constitute entrapment under the decisions of this court, or under the decisions in the *622Sixth and Eight Circuits. Ramsey v. U. S. (C. C. A.) 268 F. 825; Butts v. U. S. (C. C. A.) 273 F. 35, 37, 18 A. L. R. 143.

¶21Defendant cites U. S. v. Pappagoda (D. C.) 288 F. 214, 216. This decision is not in conflict with.the eases ¿rom this circuit, supra, nor does the evidence bring defendant within the protection of the rule announced in U. S. v. Pappagoda.

¶22There are no other exceptions reserved or urged.

¶23The judgment is affirmed.

/9/f2d/621 · .json · Public domain