United States v. Charles A. Hunter

This appeal is from conviction of mail theft. The question presented is whether the mail, which was the subject of the theft, should have been suppressed as the product of an unlawful search and seizure.

Appellant was a passenger in a car, stopped for making an illegal change of lane. Under these circumstances an investigative stop was perfectly proper. See United States v. Smith, 441 F.2d 539 (9th Cir. 1971).

Appellant and the driver were told to get out of the car and were then subjected to a pat-down search. Appellant makes much of the contended illegality of this procedure, but it produced…