United States v. Joseph N. Basinski

MANION, Circuit Judge.

While investigating Joseph Basinski for jewelry theft, the government learned that his friend William Friedman was storing Basinski’s locked briefcase in a barn in Wisconsin, and that the briefcase probably contained incriminating documents. Ba-sinski had previously instructed Friedman to burn the briefcase, but never gave him the combination for the lock nor explicit permission to open it. Friedman never destroyed the briefcase; instead he and two FBI agents retrieved it from the barn. Although the government concedes that it easily could have obtained a search warrant…