United States v. Gloria Jean Nepstead and John Edward Ash

On the morning of August 22, 1968, federal narcotics agents, executing a search warrant issued six days earlier, entered a house in San Francisco and seized laboratory equipment and chemicals used to manufacture d-Lysergic acid diethylamide, commonly known as LSD. Incident to the search three individuals on the premises were arrested. One of those persons, Gloria Jean Nepstead, was subsequently indicted together with John Edward Ash (who was not on the premises at the time of the search), the indictment charging both with unlawful manufacture of LSD, unlawful conspiracy to manufacture LSD, and failing to register their manufacturing establishment with the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare.

Defendants moved to suppress the evidence seized, asserting that the agents executing the warrant had failed to abide by the “forthwith” requirement of Rule 41(c), F.R.Crim.P., although the warrant had been returned within 10 days as required in subsection (d) of that Rule. The district court granted the motion and the government appeals under 18 U. S.C. § 3731. We reverse.

The warrant upon which the search was based directed the agents to “search forthwith” the house during the…