UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, APPELLEE,
v.
FRED S. BERRYMAN, DEFENDANT, APPELLANT

1st Cir. | 1983-10-11
No. 82-1194
Before CAMPBELL, Chief Judge, COFFIN, BOWNES and BREYER, Circuit Judges.
717 F.2d 650 United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (1983) Positive Treatment
Cited by 10 cases

Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM.

After reviewing the record in this case and the panel’s opinions, 717 F. 2d 651, we conclude that the district court’s judgment should be affirmed for the reasons set forth in the panel’s dissent. This conclusion rests primarily upon our having found that Ber-ryman’s decisions to answer the DEA agents’ questions and to allow them to look through his bag were voluntary. Berry-man, of course, could have refused to speak with the agents. As the United States Attorney acknowledged at oral argument, such a refusal would not, and could not, have provided any legal justification for even brief involuntary detention. The exercise of one’s constitutional rights is not the sort of “specific and articulable fact[ ],” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1880, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), that will itself, or in combination with other less-than-sufficient facts, justify a Terry -type investigative stop. Berryman, however, did not choose to stand on his rights. He voluntarily answered the agents’ questions. Under these circumstances we see no violation of the Constitution.

The decision of the district court is

Affirmed.

Dissent
BOWNES, Circuit Judge

BOWNES, Circuit Judge

(dissenting).

I respectfully dissent for the reasons set forth in the majority opinion of the original panel.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

Previewing 3 of 5 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw