United States v. Rivera

Decision Date23 October 2014
Docket NumberCriminal No. 2014-31
PartiesUNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff, v. JAHMAL A. RIVERA, Defendant.
CourtUnited States District Courts. 3th Circuit. District of the Virgin Islands

FOR PUBLICATION

ATTORNEYS:

Ishmael Meyers, AUSA

Ronald Sharpe, USA

St. Thomas, VI

For the United States of America,

Martial Webster, Sr.,

St. Croix, VI

For Jahmal A. Rivera.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

GÓMEZ, J.

Before the Court is defendant Jahmal A. Rivera's motion to suppress. The central question presented by the motion is whether a post-flight checkpoint erected at the St. Thomas airport to screen only passengers arriving from St. Croix for guns and drugs, absent a warrant or individualized suspicion, was permissible under the Fourth Amendment.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On April 29, 2014, Jahmal Rivera (defendant or "Rivera") boarded a nonstop commuter flight from St. Croix to St. Thomas. Prior to boarding, in accordance with airline policy, Rivera checked a bag at plane side. The bag was stored in the luggage compartment underneath the aircraft. After the aircraft landed at the St. Thomas airport, Rivera retrieved his bag at plane side and proceeded toward the airport exit. On his way to the exit, but while still on the airport ramp,1 Rivera and the other arriving St. Croix passengers were stopped by Customs and Board Protection ("CBP") agents and local police. The CBP agents announced that they would be inspecting the bags of all passengers arriving from St. Croix. Transcript of July 17, 2014 Hearing ("Tr.") at 11, 29-31.

CBP agents told Rivera and the other arriving passengers to place their bags through a mobile X-ray machine, housed in avan, which had been set up as a temporary "baggage screening checkpoint." Opposition to Motion to Suppress ("Opposition") at 2. [ECF No. 38]; Tr. at 11, 27, 29-31. This checkpoint was erected on the periphery of the airport ramp, on the path taken by arriving passengers on their way to the airport exit. There was testimony that Rivera attempted to go around the checkpoint, but he was stopped by supervising CBP agent Ralph Dasant and told that "all bags have to be checked."2 Tr. at 32.

An X-ray scan of Rivera's bag revealed what appeared to be a loaded firearm. Tr. at 13. CBP agent Dasant immediately detained Rivera at that point by placing him up against a wall. Fellow CBP agent Latisha Etienne then physically searchedRivera's bag.3 That search uncovered a loaded handgun. Tr. at 34. Rivera was arrested and charged with carrying a loaded firearm on an aircraft in violation of 49 U.S.C. § 46505(b)(2).

On June 23, 2014, Rivera moved to suppress evidence of the loaded firearm as the product of an unlawful search and seizure. The Government countered that the "baggage screening checkpoint" was a permissible administrative search.4 It acknowledged that the checkpoint was established to "address the threat of gun violence during Carnival"5 but insisted that the search alsoserved to protect personnel and aircraft on the airport ramp, which is a secure area. Alternatively, the Government argued that Rivera "impliedly consented to the search when he decided to fly from St. Croix to St. Thomas." Id. at 6.

At the July 17, 2014 evidentiary hearing, the CBP agents who conducted the search of Rivera's bag both testified that the purpose of the search was to interdict the flow of guns and drugs into St. Thomas during Carnival. Tr. at 10, 22, 29 (search done because of movement of weapons and drugs between the islands). The Government reinforced this position at closing. Id. at 58 ("[T]he compelling reason was Carnival and the influx of drugs and guns and the escalation of violence during Carnival. That's why this particular search was done.").

Agent Dasant testified that the baggage screening checkpoint was in operation at the St. Thomas airport only on the day Riviera was searched, only between the hours of 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and only for passengers arriving on commuter flights from St. Croix. Tr. at 28, 96-97.6 Passengers arrivingat the St. Thomas airport that day by commercial jet from the continental United States were not subject to search, nor were passengers arriving from St. Croix after 5:00 p.m. Id. at 87-88. Agent Dasant also testified that he had no reason to suspect that Rivera's bag contained a firearm, until he was alerted by the results of the X-ray scan. Id. at 28, 32.7

DISCUSSION

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 person or thing to be seized.

U.S. CONST. AMEND. IV.8 "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 (2000); United States v. Hartwell, 436 F.3d 174, 178 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 549 U.S. 945 (2006).

Two of those "limited exceptions" are "special-needs and administrative search cases, where 'actual motivations' do matter." Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, ___ U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 2074, 2080-81 (2011) (emphasis added) (quoting United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 122 (1995)). "A judicial warrant and probable cause are not needed where the search or seizure is justified by special needs beyond the normal need for law enforcement." Al-Kidd, 131 S.Ct. at 2081 (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted); Chandler v. Miller, 520 U.S. 305, 313-14 (1997) (same).

In administrative search cases, the motive or purpose behind the search is of critical importance. Edmond, 531 U.S. at 40 ("[W]hat principally distinguishes [unlawful] checkpoints from those we have previously approved is their primary purpose."); Al-Kidd, 131 S.Ct. at 2080 (in administrative search cases "actual motivations do matter"). Where the primary purpose of a checkpoint search is to ensure the safety or efficiency of a regulated activity, the administrative search exception applies, and the search is permissible even without a warrant or individualized suspicion. Al-Kidd, 131 S.Ct. at 2081.

Where the checkpoint search is intended to detect ordinary criminal wrongdoing, however, the administrative search exception does not apply. Edmond, 531 U.S. at 41; Al-Kidd, 131 S.Ct. at 2081 ("[The] exception [does] not apply where the officer's purpose is not to attend to the special needs or to the investigation for which the administrative inspection is justified."). Checkpoint searches that are designed "primarily to serve the general interest in crime control" require a warrant or probable cause. Edmond, 531 U.S. at 42. Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 811-12 (1996) ("[T]he exemption from the need for probable cause (and warrant), which is accorded to searches made for the purpose of inventory oradministrative regulation, is not accorded to searches that are not made for those purposes.") (emphasis in original). On this point, the Supreme Court was emphatic: "We have never approved a checkpoint program whose primary purpose was to detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing." Edmond, 531 U.S. at 41 (emphasis added).

This rule applies in the context of airport checkpoints as well. Pre-boarding security screenings at an airport are generally "permissible administrative search[es] under the Fourth Amendment, even though [they are] initiated without individualized suspicion and [are] conducted without a warrant." George v. Rehiel, 738 F.3d 562, 577 (3d Cir. 2013); Hartwell, 436 F.3d at 178. "[S]creening passengers at an airport is an administrative search because the primary purpose is not to determine whether any passenger has committed a crime but rather to protect the public from a terrorist attack." Electronic Privacy Info. Ctr. v. U.S. Dep't of Homeland Sec., 653 F.3d 1, 10 (D.C. Cir. 2011); see Hartwell, 436 F.3d at 179-80 (airport checkpoints serve compelling Government interest of "prevent[ing] terrorist attacks on airplanes"); accord United States v. Aukai, 497 F.3d 955, 960 (9th Cir. 2007) (en banc).

Airport checkpoints remain subject to the Fourth Amendment, however. Rehiel, 738 F.3d at 562 (detention at airportcheckpoint at hands of TSA was "at the outer boundary of the Fourth Amendment"); see Hartwell, 436 F.3d at 180 n.10. A particular airport screening search is constitutionally reasonable only where it is no more extensive nor intensive than necessary to ensure the safety of air travel. See Aukai, 497 F.3d at 962. "In other words, an airport search remains a valid administrative search only so long as the scope of the administrative search exception is not exceeded; once a search is conducted for a criminal investigatory purpose, it can no longer be justified under the administrative search rationale." United States v. McCarthy, 648 F.3d 820, 831 (9th Cir. 2011) (internal quotations and citations omitted).

ANALYSIS

The Court's Fourth Amendment analysis proceeds in three stages. "First [the Court] ask[s] whether a Fourth Amendment event, such as a search or seizure has occurred. Next, [it] consider[s] whether that search or seizure was reasonable. If it was not, [the Court] then determine[s] whether the circumstances warrant suppression of the evidence." United States v. Dupree, 617 F.3d 724, 730 (3d Cir. 2010) (citation omitted).

I. Application of the Fourth Amendment to the Stop and Search of Rivera

"The first step in Fourth Amendment analysis is to identify whether a search or seizure has taken place." Hartwell, 436 F.3d at 177. The Government concedes that the initial X-ray scan of Rivera's bag constituted a search for Fourth Amendment purposes.9

Stopping Rivera at the "baggage screening checkpoint" and preventing him from leaving...

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