U.S. v. Hartwell

• Decision Date: 31 January 2006
• Docket Number: No. 04-3841.,04-3841.
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. Christian HARTWELL, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

436 F.3d 174

UNITED STATES v. Christian HARTWELL, Appellant.

No. 04-3841.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued May 24, 2005.

January 31, 2006.

Albert J. Raman (argued), Philadelphia, PA, for Appellant.

Patrick L. Meehan, Laurie Magid, Robert A. Zauzmer, John N. Joseph (argued), United States Attorney's Office, Philadelphia, PA, for Appellees.

Before SCIRICA, Chief Judge, ALITO and RENDELL, Circuit Judges.

OPINION OF THE COURT

ALITO, Circuit Judge.

Christian Hartwell set off a metal detector at a security checkpoint in an airport. Transportation Security Administration ("TSA") agents then used a magnetic wand to pinpoint any metal on his person. They detected something in Hartwell's pocket and asked to see it. Ultimately, they discovered that the object was crack cocaine and placed Hartwell under arrest. Hartwell argues that the drugs should have been suppressed because the search offended the Fourth Amendment.¹ We hold that it did not.

I.

Hartwell arrived at the Philadelphia International Airport on Saturday, May 17, 2003, intending to catch a flight to Phoenix. He reached the security checkpoint, placed his hand luggage on a conveyor belt to be x-rayed, and approached the metal detector. Hartwell's luggage was scanned without incident, but he set off the magnetometer when he walked through. He was told to remove all items from his pockets and try again. Hartwell removed several items—including a large quantity of cash—from his pocket, and passed through again.

Transportation Security Administration agent Carlos Padua took Hartwell aside after he passed through the metal detector a second time.² Padua used a handheld wand-like magnetometer to discover what set off the metal detector. The wand revealed a solid object in Hartwell's cargo pants pocket.³ Padua asked what it was, but Hartwell did not respond.

What occurred next is the subject of some dispute. Hartwell claims that he was escorted to a private screening room near the checkpoint, where he refused Padua's repeated requests to reveal the contents of his pocket. Frustrated by Hartwell's unresponsiveness, Padua eventually reached into Hartwell's pocket and pulled out a package of drugs. He immediately called the Philadelphia police, who searched Hartwell, found two additional packages of drugs and about $3000 in cash, and promptly arrested him.

The government claims that neither Padua nor the police officer ever reached into Hartwell's pocket without his consent. According to Agent Padua, the following occurred. After requesting private screening, Hartwell refused several requests to empty his pocket, nervously backed away from Agent Padua while he was being questioned, and suddenly dropped his pants. This suspicious behavior prompted Padua to call for backup. A police officer arrived and asked Hartwell to remove any items from his pocket, and Hartwell complied by handing over one package of drugs. He then feigned falling to the floor and dropped a second package of drugs.

The District Court found it unnecessary to resolve these conflicting accounts, finding that the search was justified based on undisputed facts. In particular, the Court observed that "[t]here is no dispute that defendant triggered the magnetometer at least once and that Padua attempted to resolve the alarm through the use of the wand." United States v. Hartwell, 296 F.Supp.2d 596, 603-04 (E.D.Pa.2003). The Court also noted that Hartwell "does not dispute that he was instructed to remove all metal objects from his person prior to each screening and that he was specifically requested to remove the items in his lower pocket several times." Id. at 604. In the District Court's view, these circumstances justified the officers' behavior, regardless of whose version of the rest of the story was true. "Whether defendant voluntarily produced the drugs or whether defendant was frisked," the Court stated, "the search was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment." Id. at 603.

Although the District Court had no difficulty reaching this result, it recognized that courts have not settled on a single framework for analyzing warrantless searches at airport checkpoints. The Court therefore considered three separate justifications for Hartwell's search, and found each sufficient. The Court first held that the search passed muster under the Fourth Amendment's "general proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures." Id. at 602 (quoting United States v. Albarado, 495 F.2d 799, 804 (2d Cir.1974)). See also United States v. Lopez, 328 F.Supp. 1077 (E.D.N.Y.1971). The Court next sustained the search under the theory that it was a "consensual administrative search[]." Hartwell, 296 F.Supp.2d at 602 (citing United States v. Davis, 482 F.2d 893 (9th Cir.1973)). Finally, the Court stated that "by submitting to the screening process, defendant impliedly consented to the search and was lawfully required to complete the search to determine the cause of the alarm." Hartwell, 296 F.Supp.2d at 605. On appeal, Hartwell argues that all three rationales are unfounded. We disagree.

II.

We hold that the search was permissible under the administrative search doctrine. Cf. United States v. Marquez, 410 F.3d 612, 616 (9th Cir.2005) ("Airport screenings of passengers and their baggage constitute administrative searches and are subject to the limitations of the Fourth Amendment."). Finding this rationale sufficient, we deem it unnecessary to evaluate the District Court's alternative holdings on generalized reasonableness and implied consent.

The Fourth Amendment provides:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

U.S. Const. Amend. IV. This provision limits government action in two ways. First, it requires that searches and seizures be reasonable, and second, it states that when a warrant is required—in circumstances not explicitly defined by the text—it must have certain characteristics. See California v. Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565, 581, 111 S.Ct. 1982, 114 L.Ed.2d 619 (1991) (Scalia, J., concurring).

The Supreme Court has read the Amendment's twin commands in tandem, holding that when people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their persons or effects, all searches and seizures must be supported by a warrant, unless they fall into one of the exceptions to that requirement. See Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366, 372-73, 113 S.Ct. 2130, 124 L.Ed.2d 334 (1993) ("Time and again, this Court has observed that searches and seizures conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment—subject only to a few specifically established and well delineated exceptions." (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)).

The first step in Fourth Amendment analysis is to identify whether a search or seizure has taken place. The Government concedes that an airport pre-boarding security screening is a search. See Br. at 19 (citing United States v. Davis, 482 F.2d 893, 904 (9th Cir.1973)).⁴ But this concession obscures the difficult issue of whether Hartwell experienced one prolonged search, or several individual searches. The District Court considered this question and found authority on both sides. Cases like United States v. Skipwith, 482 F.2d 1272, 1275-76 (5th Cir. 1973), appear to analyze an entire checkpoint search, including "[m]etal detectors, visual inspection, and rare but potential physical searches," as a single search. By contrast, cases like United States v. Albarado, 495 F.2d 799, 805, 807 (2d Cir.1974), treat a magnetometer screening and a "frisk" as two separate searches. The District Court concluded that the procedure would be permissible under either view and therefore did not decide which mode of analysis was appropriate. We will employ Skipwith's method of analyzing Hartwell's entire experience as a single search under the administrative search doctrine, and—finding this approach sufficient to resolve the case—do not pass judgment on the Albarado approach.

Thus, we find that Hartwell experienced a single, warrantless search, which was initiated without individualized suspicion. Since it was not conducted pursuant to a warrant, the search must be grounded in an exception to the warrant requirement.

III.

Hartwell's search at the airport checkpoint was justified by the administrative search doctrine.⁵ "A search or seizure is ordinarily unreasonable in the absence of individualized suspicion of wrongdoing. While such suspicion is not an `irreducible' component of reasonableness, [the Supreme Court has] recognized only limited circumstances in which the usual rule does not apply." City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 37, 121 S.Ct. 447, 148 L.Ed.2d 333 (2000) (citations omitted). These circumstances typically involve administrative searches of "closely regulated" businesses,⁶ other so-called "special needs" cases,⁷ and suspicionless "checkpoint" searches.

Suspicionless checkpoint searches are permissible under the Fourth Amendment when a court finds a favorable balance between "the gravity of the public concerns served by the seizure, the degree to which the seizure advances the public interest, and the severity of the interference with individual liberty." Illinois v. Lidster, 540 U.S. 419, 427, 124 S.Ct. 885, 157 L.Ed.2d 843 (2004) (quoting Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 51, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979)) (internal quotations omitted).⁸

Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444, 110 S.Ct. 2481, 110 L.Ed.2d 412 (1990), provides an illustrative example of a permissible suspicionless checkpoint procedure. In that case, Michigan established a sobriety checkpoint along a state road,...