United States of America, Plaintiff-appellee, v. Jack Nunn, Defendant-appellant, 525 F.2d 958 (5th Cir. 1976)

This appeal from convictions of conspiracy to transport illegal aliens and transportation of illegal aliens challenges the legality of the search and seizure of defendant's vehicle, the district court's lengthy explanation of perjury laws to a government witness, and the court's consideration of its belief that defendant had committed perjury as a factor in determining the sentence. We affirm.

Illegal Search and Seizure

An anonymous caller told an Immigration and Naturalization Service agent that six aliens were lying in the open bed of a two-tone, late model Ford pickup driven by two black men north on a certain highway. A police officer who heard this description on a radio broadcast stopped a three-tone pickup driven by two blacks on that highway. Approaching the vehicle, he saw the aliens lying in back. Defendant contends that the alien witnesses' testimony, as the fruit of an illegal search and seizure, should have been suppressed. But in this circuit, an individual has standing to challenge a government search and seizure only if he has a 'reasonable expectation of privacy' that is violated by the intrusion. United States v. Hunt, 505 F.2d 931, 938--41 (5th Cir. 1974); cf. United States v. Novello, 519 F.2d 1078 (5th Cir. 1975). Ownership of the seized property is relevant in assessing defendant's privacy expectation but not necessarily determinative. Here defendant owned the truck, but was not driving when it was seized.¹  The aliens were lying in the truck's open bed, and defendant cannot now claim any reasonable expectation of privacy in such circumstances.² Explanation of Perjury Laws to the Witness

When a government witness, contrary to government expectations, denied attending a meeting at which defendant allegedly hired the drivers, the defense announced it had a statement in which the witness swore to the same thing. The judge excused the jury and read and explained in detail the perjury laws,³  after which the witness changed his testimony. But defendant's contention that this admonition deprived him of due process is groundless because, unlike Webb v. Texas, 409 U.S. 95, 93 S. Ct. 351, 34 L. Ed. 2d 330 (1972) (per curiam), the judge did not use 'unnecessarily strong terms (that could) have exerted such duress on the witness's mind as to preclude him from making a free and voluntary choice whether or not to testify.' Id. at 98, 93 S. Ct. at 353.

Perjury as a Factor in Assessing Sentence

The judge assessed defendant's sentence after saying that he was considering as a factor in determining length of sentence his belief that defendant had perjured himself during the trial. Defendant argues that consideration of perjury in sentencing represents a kind of conviction for another crime without normal procedural safeguards. Two circuits agree with defendant,⁴  but six disagree.⁵  We now choose to follow the latter line of cases because we agree with Judge Frankel that appellant's argument

ignores the nature of the sentencing process as it exists in our system and of the factors the trial judge may consider in exercising a frequently enormous range of discretion. If there is no clear consensus on these factors, it is certainly clear that they include, as aggravating circumstances, conduct that is not literally 'criminal,' or at least has not been duly adjudged criminal in the case in which sentence is being imposed.The effort to appraise 'character' is, to be sure, a parlous one, and not necessarily an enterprise for which judges are notably equipped by prior training. Yet it is in our existing scheme of sentencing one clue to the rational exercise of discretion. If the notion of 'repentance' is out of fashion today, the fact remains that a manipulative defiance of the law is not a cheerful datum for the prognosis a sentencing judge undertakes. . .. Impressions about the individual being sentenced . . . are, for better or worse, central factors to be appraised under our theory of 'individualized' sentencing. The theory has its critics. While it lasts, however, a fact like the defendant's readiness to lie under oath before the judge who will sentence him would seem to be among the more precise and concrete of the available indicia.

United States v. Hendrix, 505 F.2d 1233, 1235--36 (2d Cir. 1974).

Affirmed.

RIVES, Circuit Judge (specially concurring):

I think that Nunn did have standing to contest the seizure of his pickup truck. The government so conceded on the hearing of the motion to suppress (Appendix pp. 94--95), and I think properly so. The government further conceded on the hearing of the motion to suppress that the seizure occurred when the officer signaled for the truck to stop (Appendix p. 41). Footnote 1 to the majority opinion is in accord with that concession. I cannot justify an actual seizure on a mere anonymous tip. I reach the same result, however, under all of the circumstances of this case by holding the stop of the truck to be a mere brief investigative stop under the authorities cited in Footnote 2 to the majority opinion. On that ground I concur in the judgment of affirmance.