# Harold B. Dorman v. United States

> Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit · April 15, 1970 · 435 F.2d 385

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9456307

## Case

- **Full name:** Harold B. DORMAN, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
- **Decided:** April 15, 1970
- **Citations:** 435 F.2d 385; 140 U.S. App. D.C. 313; 1970 U.S. App. LEXIS 9785
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Bazelon
- **Judges:** Bazelon, Wright, McGowan, Tamm, Leventhal, Robinson, MacKinnon, Robb
- **Cited by:** 511 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9456307

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- recognizing that “the restrictive requirement for a warrant is more likely to be retained, and the need for proceeding without a warrant found lacking, when the offense is what has been sometimes referred to as one of the ‘complacent’ crimes, like gambling”
- noting several factors — absent in this case— establishing sufficient exigency to justify war-rantless entry of a home, including whether "a grave offense is involved, particularly one that is a crime of violence,” a suspect is "reasonably believed to be armed,” and there is “…
- recognizing that “[d]elay in arrest of an armed felon may well increase danger to the community meanwhile, or to the officers at time of arrest”

## Opinion text

BAZELON, Chief Judge
(concurring in the result).
I am inclined to agree with Judge Wright, infra, that the nighttime search of Dorman’s apartment was not exempted from the fourth amendment’s warrant requirement by Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294 , 87 S.Ct. 1642 , 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967). I need not reach this question, however, because I conclude that any error in admitting the fruit of this search was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 , 87 S.Ct. 824 , 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967). Almost from the time of the robbery itself, the evidence implicating Dorman was overwhelming (e. g., the abandoned probation papers and the eyewitness identifications). Just as this evidence reduced the need for Hat/dew-like pursuit of a fleeing, unknown suspect, it also establishes that any error here was harmless under Chapman . See Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250 , 89 S.Ct. 1726 , 23 L.Ed.2d 284 (1969).

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9456307. Public record. Not legal advice.