UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE,
v.
WILLIAM HARVEY FLOYD, DAVID MICHAEL FLOYD, GEORGE SAMUEL FLOYD, RONALD MARTIS RAY AND MANUEL BOCARDO GARCIA, JR., DEFENDANTS-APPELLANTS

5th Cir. | 1982-07-19
No. 81-2227
681 F.2d 265 Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (1982) Negative Treatment
Cited by 4 cases

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Holding

The court held that the admission of recorded conversations and the warrantless search of a vehicle's trunk were proper.


Facts & Procedural History

Appellants were convicted of drug offenses. They challenged the admission of recorded conversations and the warrantless search of a car trunk where dr…

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Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM:

PER CURIAM:

Appellants appeal their various drug convictions and we affirm. Two points only merit brief discussion.

Complaint is made of the admission in evidence of certain tapes of a conversation, one ground of complaint being that some of the elements enumerated for admissibility of such tapes in the Eighth Circuit opinion of United States v. McMillan, 508 F. 2d 101 (8th Cir. 1974), were not established. We do not recognize McMillan ’s test in this circuit. United States v. Anderton, 679 F. 2d 1199 (5th Cir. 1982); United States v. Biggins, 551 F. 2d 64 (5th Cir. 1977). All that is required under our rule is proof of

the competency of the operator, the fidelity of the recording equipment, the absence of material .. . alterations in the relevant portions of the recording, and the identification of the relevant speakers.

551 F. 2d at 66. We conclude that the showing made here sufficed, under the broad discretion accorded trial courts in the admission of evidence, to comply with the test of our court.

Appellants also complain of the warrantless search of the trunk of an automobile which one of them, David Michael Floyd, was driving when he was apprehended. The record, however, establishes probable cause for the arresting officers to have believed that the vehicle in question was transporting contraband — the drugs actually discovered by the search. The remaining question raised by the opening of containers discovered in that trunk, containers that may have been opaque,1 has been settled by the intervening decision of the United States Supreme Court in United States v. Ross, - U.S. -, 102 S.Ct. 2157, 72 L.Ed.2d 572 (1982).

AFFIRMED.

. The record is likewise opaque on this point.


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