United States v. James Andrew Colbert and Michael Beryl Reese

THORNBERRY Circuit Judge:

Appellants Colbert and Reese were convicted in the district court of possession of unregistered sawed-off shotguns in violation of 26 U.S.C.A. § 5861(d). A panel of this court overturned the convictions on appeal holding the police searches which produced the weapons invalid under the Fourth Amendment.1 Having agreed to rehear this case en banc, we vacate the judgment of the panel and affirm the convictions.

The panel opinion set out the facts fully, and we repeat here only a somewhat abbreviated version. In the late afternoon of October 24, 1970, appellants Colbert…