U.S. v. Carrasquillo

• Decision Date: 06 June 1989
• Docket Number: No. 87-3098,87-3098
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. Elias CARRASQUILLO, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 73

877 F.2d 73

278 U.S.App.D.C. 138

UNITED STATES of America v. Elias CARRASQUILLO, Appellant.

No. 87-3098.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued April 24, 1989.

Decided June 6, 1989.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (Criminal Action No. 87-00271-01).

Steven M. Buckman, for appellant. Steven R. Kiersh and Karen L. Hochstein Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for appellant.

Thomas C. Black, Asst. U.S. Atty., with whom Jay B. Stephens, U.S. Atty., and Michael W. Farrell and Robert G. Andary, Asst. U.S. Attys., Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for appellee.

Before WALD, Chief Judge, and EDWARDS and D.H. GINSBURG, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge HARRY T. EDWARDS.

HARRY T. EDWARDS, Circuit Judge:

The defendant-appellant, Elias Carrasquillo, entered a conditional plea of guilty following the District Court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence of drug violations found in a garment bag that he was carrying on an Amtrak train from Orlando, Florida, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Carrasquillo claims that the agents who stopped and questioned him mid-route lacked reasonable suspicion to do so, thereby tainting his statements disclaiming ownership of the bag and making the agents' warrantless search of the bag illegal. Because we find no error, we affirm the judgment of the District Court.

I. FACTS

The facts of this case are relatively straightforward and largely uncontested. There are no disputed issues of fact on appeal.

On May 28, 1987, Ronald Ford, a law enforcement investigator at Amtrak, was assigned to monitor computer reservations to check for persons who might be engaged in illegal drug traffic. Ford focused on "cocaine source cities" (primarily on routes between Florida and the Northeast Corridor); he was looking for "suspicious" characteristics, such as one-way travel, reservations made shortly before travel, arrival at the station immediately before departure, and payment of cash for the ticket. Transcript of Motions Hearing, Sept. 1, 1987 ("Tr.") at 13.

Ford noticed a reservation made on May 27 in the name of R. Johnson for one-way travel that evening in a roomette from Orlando to Philadelphia. Ford learned that, sixteen minutes prior to departure, a person had arrived at the ticket counter, changed the name to E. Davis, and switched the reservation to a coach seat for travel the following day. The person provided no contact phone number to the reservation agent.

Ford contacted the reservation agent the next day. As they were talking on the telephone, twenty-three minutes before the train was due to leave, the agent saw the defendant arrive to pick up the ticket and observed him pay in cash. The agent described the defendant to Ford and told Ford that the defendant was the same person who had made the booking the previous day.

Ford then contacted Special Agent Moss in Richmond, Virginia, and told him to board the train when it arrived in Richmond the next day. Moss did so, and when the train arrived two hours later at Union Station in Washington, D.C., Moss met Ford and Agent Geraldine Sacco of the Drug Enforcement Administration ("DEA"). Moss told Ford and Sacco that a man matching the description given by the reservation agent was aboard the train, seated with his feet on a footrest and with a folded garment bag directly under his legs, and that the man had not left his seat during the trip from Richmond to Washington, D.C.

Moss told Ford and Sacco where the defendant was seated; Ford and Sacco then boarded the train and approached the defendant. Both Ford and Sacco were dressed in plain clothes and were carrying weapons that were not visible. They identified themselves as police officers and asked the defendant in a normal tone of voice if he would mind talking to them for a minute. The defendant agreed to speak with them. Ford testified that the agents would have left if the defendant had refused. Tr. 67-68.

Ford asked to see the defendant's ticket, which he produced, and asked him where he was going. He replied that he was traveling to New York, although the ticket read Philadelphia. The name on the ticket was "E. Davis," and when Ford asked if that was his name, Ford testified that the defendant became fidgety and nervous, began sweating, and replied that a friend had bought the ticket for him. Tr. 35, 77. Ford then asked for identification, and the defendant showed the officers a driver's license and library card with the name "Elias Carrasquillo." Ford promptly returned the ticket and identification to the defendant. ¹

Ford then asked the defendant if he had any luggage, and the defendant responded that he had only a small paper bag with food in it. Ford asked if the garment bag under his feet belonged to him, and the defendant replied that it did not, that it was there when he boarded the train. Ford asked, "you chose a seat where you think somebody else's luggage was under it?" The defendant replied, "Yeah, that's right." Tr. 37. Ford then asked if the defendant objected to a search of the bag, and the defendant answered that he had no objection because the bag was not his. Id.

Ford picked up the garment bag, which had a small lock securing it. Ford told the defendant that he was going to carry the bag off the train onto the platform in order to have a narcotics detection dog sniff it, and asked the defendant if he would mind accompanying him onto the platform. The defendant was not told he was under arrest and the District Court found that the defendant went voluntarily. 670 F.Supp. at 50 n. 2. However, Ford testified that he would not have allowed the defendant to leave at that point. Tr. 39.

On the platform, the dog sniffed the bag and indicated the presence of narcotics. The defendant was again asked if he minded if Ford opened the bag, and the defendant stated that he did not because it was not his bag. The defendant denied having a key to the lock, and Ford then cut off the lock and searched the bag. Inside, the officers found a sizeable quantity of cocaine, and they then placed the defendant under arrest. The defendant was subsequently charged with possession of controlled substances with the intent to distribute. 21 U.S.C. Sec. 841(a)(1) (1982).

The defendant brought a motion to suppress the evidence found during the search of the garment bag. The District Court denied the motion under two alternative theories. Under the first theory, the court found that the officers had acted properly in approaching the defendant in a public place and asking him if he was willing to answer questions, 670 F.Supp. at 50, that they had reasonable suspicion of criminal activity to warrant a temporary seizure, id., and, after the dog alerted the agents to the presence of narcotics, that the officers had probable cause to justify the search of the bag and the arrest, id. at 51. Alternatively, the trial court found that the defendant's repeated disavowal of ownership of the bag, untainted by any improper action by the agents, deprived him of any expectation of privacy in the luggage. Id. After the court denied his motion, the defendant entered a conditional plea of guilty pending appeal of the denial of the motion.

II. ANALYSIS

We agree with the District Court that the government agents acted properly at each stage of the investigation and that their search of the garment bag did not violate the Fourth Amendment.

The agents first identified the defendant as a suspected drug runner by using a drug courier profile. While the elements of such profiles do not necessarily establish reasonable suspicion or probable cause in any given case, profiles are clearly a lawful starting point for police investigations. See Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 493 & n. 2, 502, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1322 & n. 2, 1326, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983) (plurality opinion); United States v. Sokolow, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 1587, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989).

It was also perfectly lawful for the agents to approach the defendant on the train and ask him if he was willing to answer some questions, whether or not the agents had reasonable suspicion. See Royer, 460 U.S. at 497, 103 S.Ct. at 1323 (plurality opinion) ("[L]aw enforcement officers do not violate the Fourth Amendment by merely approaching an individual on the street or in another public place, by asking him if he is willing to answer some questions, [and] by putting questions to him if the person is willing to listen...."). The defendant argued that he felt compelled to answer the agents' questions, Tr. 82-83, but the subjective belief of the person approached is irrelevant to whether a Fourth Amendment seizure has occurred. See Michigan v. Chesternut, 486 U.S. 567, 108 S.Ct. 1975, 1979-80, 100 L.Ed.2d 565 (1988). The agents testified that defendant was free to refuse to answer their questions or to leave the train, Tr. 67-68, and we can find no evidence to the contrary. Carrasquillo "faced none of the factors typically found to intimidate persons into thinking that compliance is obligatory: no visible weapons; no physical intimidation; no threats; no unusual setting or time." United States v. Brady, 842 F.2d 1313, 1314 (D.C.Cir.1988). Nor were the circumstances of the encounter otherwise so intimidating as to make the defendant's answers involuntary. See INS v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, 216, 104 S.Ct. 1758, 1762, 80 L.Ed.2d 247 (1984). The officers simply approached the defendant and identified themselves. This, "without more, [does not] convert the encounter into a seizure requiring some level of objective justification." Royer, 460 U.S. at 497, 103 S.Ct. at 1323 (plurality opinion).

Consequently, we find nothing to taint the defendant's responses on the train, when he disclaimed ownership of the garment bag. Because the defendant denied ownership, and no other person claimed it, the bag was legally "abandoned" and the agents were free to search it...