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Authors ›› Blackmun
[Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132]... held that a warrantless search of an automobile, based upon probable cause to believe that the vehicle contained evidence of crime in the light of an exigency arising out of the likely disappearance of the vehicle, did not contravene the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment.
In United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, decided in 1982, we held that a warrantless search of an automobile under the Carroll doctrine could include a search of a container or package found inside the car when such a search was supported by probable cause. In addition to this clarification, Ross distinguished the Carroll doctrine from the separate rule that governed the search of closed containers. See 456 U.S., at 817. The Court had announced this separate rule, unique to luggage and other closed packages, bags, and containers, in United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1 (1977). In Chadwick, federal narcotics agents had probable cause to believe that a 200-pound double-locked footlocker contained marijuana. [T]the United States urged that the search of movable luggage could be considered analogous to the search of an automobile. The Court rejected this argument because, it reasoned, a person expects more privacy in his luggage and personal effects than he does in his automobile. In Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. 753 (1979), the Court extended Chadwick 's rule to apply to a suitcase actually being transported in the trunk of a car. In Ross, the Court endeavored to distinguish between Carroll, which governed the Ross automobile search, and Chadwick, which governed the Sanders automobile search. It held that the Carroll doctrine covered searches of automobiles when the police had probable cause to search an entire vehicle, but that the Chadwick doctrine governed searches of luggage when the officers had probable cause to search only a container within the vehicle. Until today, this Court has drawn a curious line between the search of an automobile that coincidentally turns up a container and the search of a container that coincidentally turns up in an automobile. We now agree that a container found after a general search of the automobile and a container found in a car after a limited search for the container are equally easy for the police to store and for the suspect to hide or destroy. In fact, we see no principled distinction in terms of either the privacy expectation or the exigent circumstances between the paper bag found by the police in Ross and the paper bag found by the police here. [...]
...[A]ccording to the common-law view of the exemption of a co-conspirator's statement from the hearsay definition, an offering party was required to establish, as preliminary factual matters, the existence of a conspiracy and a defendant's participation therein by evidence apart from the co-conspirator's statement. [...] The Court's [...] argument in favor of abandonment of the independent-evidence rule might best be characterized as an attempt at pragmatic or "real world" analysis. The Court suggests that, while a co-conspirator's statement might be presumed unreliable when considered in isolation, it loses this unreliability when examined together with other evidence of the conspiracy and the defendant's participation in it.
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It is at least heartening, however, to see that the Court reserves the question whether a co-conspirator's statement alone, without any independent evidence, could establish the existence of a conspiracy and a defendant's participation in it. [...] If the statement alone could establish its own foundation for admissibility, a defendant could be convicted of conspiracy on the basis of an unsupported remark by an alleged conspirator...
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The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit "reluctantly agreed with the government" [that a seemingly excessive civil forfeiture was constitutional] and affirmed. United States v. One Parcel of Property, 964 F.2d 814, 817 (1992). Although it thought that "the principle of proportionality should be applied in civil actions that result in harsh penalties," and that the Government was "exacting too high a penalty in relation to the offense committed," the court felt constrained from holding the forfeiture unconstitutional.
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[T]he question is not, as the United States would have it, whether forfeiture under §§ 881(a)(4) and (a)(7) is civil or criminal, but rather whether it is punishment.
In considering this question, we are mindful of the fact that sanctions frequently serve more than one purpose. We need not exclude the possibility that a forfeiture serves remedial purposes to conclude that it is subject to the limitations of the Excessive Fines Clause. We, however, must determine that it can only be explained as serving in part to punish. [...] In sum, even though this Court has rejected the "innocence" of the owner as a common-law defense to forfeiture, it consistently has recognized that forfeiture serves, at least in part, to punish the owner. [...] We turn next to consider whether forfeitures under 21 U.S.C. §§ 881(a)(4) and (a)(7) are properly considered punishment today. We find nothing in these provisions or their legislative history to contradict the historical understanding of forfeiture as punishment. [...]
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