United States v. Eugene M. Fike

WISDOM, Circuit Judge:

This appeal involves an allegedly unreasonable search of a stolen automobile and the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine.

On October 15, 1969, Eugene Marion Fike, defendant-appellant, accompanied by co-defendants Glen Wayne White and James Lawrence Davis, 1 drove a 1967 Pontiac into a used-car lot in Andalusia, Alabama. Fike and Davis went for a test drive in a Ford Ranchero, leaving the keys to the Pontiac with a car salesman on the lot. White was asleep in the Pontiac. When Fike failed to return with the Ranchero within two hours, the salesman called the Andalusia…