United States v. De La Cruz
| Citation | 420 F.2d 1093 |
| Decision Date | 15 January 1970 |
| Docket Number | No. 17105-17107.,17105-17107. |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Antonio Marin DE LA CRUZ, Rafaela Munoz Taguas, and Catalina Munoz Taguas, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit) |
Patrick J. Hughes, Jr., Joseph E. McHugh, Daniel A. Becco, Walter H. Moses, Jr., Chicago, Ill., for appellant.
Thomas A. Foran, U. S. Atty. John Peter Lulinski, Michael B. Nash, Asst. U. S. Attys., of counsel, for appellee.
Before CASTLE, Chief Judge, KILEY, Circuit Judge, and GORDON, District Judge.
The three defendants were tried jointly before a jury on narcotics charges. Each was convicted of violating 21 U.S.C. § 174 by concealing and transporting heroin. They were also convicted of conspiring to import heroin into the United States.
At the trial, the defendants contended that they had no knowledge that the smuggled substance was heroin. Such knowledge is an element of the offenses charged.
The appellants have raised several assignments of error, but we find it necessary to discuss only one of them. We have examined the others and believe they do not constitute prejudicial error.
The error which we consider to be sufficiently serious to require a new trial involves certain expressions and admissions which Mr. De La Cruz allegedly made in response to questions during a customs search before being warned of his constitutional rights.
Some time before the defendants arrived in Chicago, customs agents at O'Hare Airport had received eight pictures with a list of names of persons under suspicion of smuggling heroin. Among these eight pictures were those of the three defendants; their names were on the list.
When the defendants arrived at O'Hare Airport, a customs officer recognized them. A routine check of their baggage revealed no contraband. Then a customs officer asked for their passports and directed them into a separate room. In that room, the defendants' luggage was re-examined, but no drugs were found.
Agents Kline and Bowers and investigators Smith and Wolken then separated Mr. De La Cruz from the two female defendants and took him into another room. There Agent Kline put his hand under Mr. De La Cruz's coat and, upon feeling a large bulge under his clothes, asked him in Spanish what he had. Mr. De La Cruz responded "Chemicals".
Agent Kline testified that he next asked Mr. De La Cruz "Drogas?" and that Mr. De La Cruz nodded affirmatively. "Drogas" is the Spanish word for "drugs". Agent Kline further testified that he then asked in Spanish "The other women, too?", and that Mr. De La Cruz again nodded affirmatively.
After this questioning, Agent Kline left to get someone who spoke Spanish fluently. Mr. Kline returned with an interpreter who then advised Mr. De La Cruz of his rights and also informed him that he was under arrest. Officers photographed Mr. De La Cruz with and without his clothing; women agents in the adjoining room similarly warned the other defendants of their rights, arrested them, and photographed them with and without their clothing.
At the trial, testimony about the events and conversations described above were admitted into evidence over the defendants' objections. The defendants contend that the alleged admissions of Mr. De La Cruz made while he was in the interrogation room and before he was warned of his rights, were not admissible under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). The prosecution disagrees, arguing that the Miranda warnings were not required because this was a customs search, and that Mr. De La Cruz was not under restraint or in custody.
We believe it is clear that Miranda warnings are unnecessary in a routine customs search. As the court noted in Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 154, 45 S.Ct 280, 285, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925):
"Travellers may be so stopped in crossing an international boundary because of national self protection reasonably requiring one entering the country to identify himself as entitled to come in, and his belongings as effects which may be lawfully brought in."
Such detention and questioning as ordinarily occur in the context of routine customs inspection are accepted as a standard burden of international travel. Indeed, most travelers would be greatly surprised at being given the Miranda warnings in a generalized customs search since they sense...
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