U.S. v. Hyde

• Decision Date: 28 September 1994
• Docket Number: No.93-7790,93-7790
• Citation: 37 F.3d 116
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Jewel Rose HYDE; Patricia Yvonne Gray; Karen Boothe, a/k/a Karen Boothe-Waller, a/k/a Karen Ann Marie Boothe.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

Page 116

37 F.3d 116

UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Jewel Rose HYDE; Patricia Yvonne Gray; Karen Boothe, a/k/a Karen Boothe-Waller, a/k/a Karen Ann Marie Boothe.

No.93-7790.

United States Court of Appeals Third Circuit.

Argued April 19, 1994.

Decided Sept. 28, 1994.

Hugh P. Mabe, III, U.S. Atty., Azekah E. Jennings, Asst. U.S. Atty., Christiansted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, Kathleen A. Felton (argued), U.S. Dept. of Justice, Appellate Section, Crim. Div., Washington, DC, for appellant.

Bennett Chan, Deverita C. Sturdivant, Dudley, Clark & Chan, Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, for appellee Jewel Rose Hyde.

Henry V. Carr, III, Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, for appellee Patricia Yvonne Gray.

Thurston T. McKelvin, Federal Public Defender, Laura M. Palguta (argued), Asst. Federal Public Defender, Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, for appellee Karen Boothe, a/k/a Karen Boothe-Waller, a/k/a Karen Ann Marie Boothe.

Rosalie Simmonds Ballentine, Atty. Gen., Paul L. Gimenez, Sol. Gen., Pamela Lynn Wood (argued), Asst. Atty. Gen., Virgin Islands Dept. of Justice, Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, for amicus curiae Government of the Virgin Islands.

BEFORE: STAPLETON, ALITO and WEIS, Circuit Judges.

OPINION OF THE COURT

STAPLETON, Circuit Judge:

Jewel Rose Hyde ("Hyde"), Patricia Gray ("Gray"), and Karen Boothe-Waller ("Boothe-Waller") were subjected to pat-down searches by customs officers at the St. Thomas airport as they were leaving the Virgin Islands for Miami, Florida. The district court suppressed the cocaine seized as a result of those searches on the ground that the customs officers had no probable cause to search the women and the search therefore violated their Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. We hold that routine customs searches of persons and their belongings without probable cause as they leave the Virgin Islands for the continental United States are not unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. We will therefore reverse the district court's suppression order.

I.

The facts of this case are not in dispute. In March of 1993, persons leaving the Virgin Islands were required to fill out customs declaration forms and go through a preclearance inspection station where they could be questioned by customs officials, and where their persons and their luggage could be searched. Hyde, Gray, and Boothe-Waller went to the St. Thomas airport with the intention of boarding a flight to Miami, Florida. Hyde, who entered the airport first and appeared to be traveling alone, was questioned about her trip to the Virgin Islands by Senior Customs Inspector Gloria A. Lambert ("Lambert"). Hyde told Lambert that she had stayed in the Virgin Islands for two days, and that the purpose of her trip was to shop. Hyde had not, however, declared any merchandise on her customs form, and Lambert did not find any merchandise in Hyde's luggage.

At this point, Lambert overheard another inspector questioning Boothe-Waller, who also claimed that she had stayed in the Virgin Islands for two days. Lambert told Hyde to wait while she went over to question Boothe-Waller and Gray, who was standing next to Boothe-Waller. In response to a question from Lambert, Boothe-Waller stated that the reason for her short stay on the island was that her employer had called her back to the United States. Gray apparently said little, but, in Lambert's opinion, appeared to be nervous. Lambert searched the luggage of both Boothe-Waller and Gray but found nothing unusual. Lambert, who had become suspicious, then directed all three women to a secondary search area where she performed a pat-down search of each of them. During the pat-downs, Lambert discovered a bulge under the clothing of each of the women. Upon further inspection, Lambert discovered that each had a package of cocaine taped to her body.

Hyde, Boothe-Waller, and Gray were arrested and subsequently charged with conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States in violation of 21 U.S.C. Secs. 963 and 952 and with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute in violation of 21 U.S.C. Sec. 841(a)(1). They each made a motion to suppress the evidence seized by Lambert on the grounds that Lambert did not have probable cause, or even reasonable suspicion, to conduct the searches.

Following an evidentiary hearing, the district court granted the defendants' suppression motions. Because Lambert lacked even reasonable suspicion to detain and search the defendants, the district court concluded that the cocaine had to be suppressed as fruit of a Fourth Amendment violation unless, as the government urged, the "border search" doctrine of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence applied under these facts. The district court found the border search doctrine inapplicable because Hyde, Gray, and Boothe-Waller were traveling from St. Thomas to Florida and there is no national border between the Virgin Islands and the continental United States.

The government does not contend that the district court erred when it found that Lambert lacked reasonable suspicion of criminal activity when she conducted the searches. Therefore, the issue before us is whether an individual leaving the Virgin Islands for one of the fifty states may be subjected to a routine customs ¹ search prior to departure in the absence of any degree of suspicion that the individual is engaged in wrongdoing. We exercise plenary review over this legal question. Curcio v. John Hancock Mutual Life Insur. Co., 33 F.3d 226 (3d Cir.1994).

II.

The Fourth Amendment prohibits only unreasonable searches and seizures. Harris v. United States, 331 U.S. 145, 150, 67 S.Ct. 1098, 1101, 91 L.Ed. 1399 (1947). What is reasonable "depends upon all of the circumstances surrounding the search and seizure and the nature of the search and seizure itself." United States v. Montoya de Hernandez, 473 U.S. 531, 537, 105 S.Ct. 3304, 3308, 87 L.Ed.2d 381 (1985). The general rule is that "warrantless searches are presumptively unreasonable." Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128, 133, 110 S.Ct. 2301, 2306, 110 L.Ed.2d 112 (1990). The courts, however, have fashioned exceptions to the general rule which recognize that in certain limited situations the government's interest in conducting a search without a warrant outweighs the individual's privacy interest. Montoya de Hernandez, 473 U.S. at 537, 105 S.Ct. at 3308 ("The permissibility of a particular law enforcement practice is judged by 'balancing its intrusion on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests against its promotion of legitimate governmental interests.' "). Border searches are one such exception.

The principle that searches at a border, without probable cause and without a warrant, are nonetheless "reasonable" is "as old as the Fourth Amendment itself." United States v. Ramsey, 431 U.S. 606, 619, 97 S.Ct. 1972, 1980, 52 L.Ed.2d 617 (1977). As early as Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 6 S.Ct. 524, 29 L.Ed. 746 (1886), the Supreme Court noted that the border search doctrine was not subject to the general warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment. The Court explained that the first Congress, which proposed the Bill of Rights, also authorized warrantless border searches to collect customs duties and therefore did not intend such searches to come within the prohibitions of the Fourth Amendment:

The seizure of stolen goods is authorized by the common law; and the seizure of goods forfeited for a breach of the revenue laws, or concealed to avoid the duties payable on them, has been authorized by English statutes for at least two centuries past; and the like seizures have been authorized by our own revenue acts from the commencement of the government. The first statute passed by Congress to regulate the collection of duties, the act of July 31, 1789, 1 stat. 29, 43, contains provisions to this effect. As this act was passed by the same Congress which proposed for adoption the original amendments to the Constitution, it is clear that the members of that body did not regard searches and seizures of this kind as "unreasonable," and they are not embraced within the prohibition of the amendment.

Id. at 623, 6 S.Ct. at 528 (footnote omitted).

The justification for the border search exception was explained by the Supreme Court in a series of cases in the 1970s. In United States v. 12 200-Ft. Reels of Film, 413 U.S. 123, 125, 93 S.Ct. 2665, 2667, 37 L.Ed.2d 500 (1973), the Court observed that "searches of persons and packages at the national borders rest on different considerations ... from domestic regulations. The Constitution gives Congress broad, comprehensive powers '[t]o regulate commerce with foreign Nations.' Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 3. Historically, such broad powers have been necessary to prevent smuggling and to prevent prohibited articles from entry."

Soon thereafter, in United States v. Ramsey, 431 U.S. 606, 620, 97 S.Ct. 1972, 1980-81, 52 L.Ed.2d 617 (1977), the Court elaborated further, stating that "[t]he border-search exception is grounded in the recognized right of the sovereign to control, subject to substantive limitations imposed by the Constitution, who and what may enter the country." The inapplicability of the Fourth Amendment to border searches was, to the Court, evident: "That searches made at the border, pursuant to the long-standing right of the sovereign to protect itself by stopping and examining persons and property crossing into this country, are reasonable simply by virtue of the fact that they occur at the border, should, by now, require no extended demonstration." Id. at 616, 97 S.Ct. at 1978. The Court also noted that there are "limited justifiable expectations of privacy" when persons or goods are presented for entry into the United States. Id. at 623 n. 17, 97 S.Ct. at 1982 n. 17. "[A] port of entry is not a traveler's home." Id. at 618, 97 S.Ct. at 1980 (quo...