United States v. Ventura, No. 04-41524 (Fed. 5th Cir. 4/20/2006)
| Decision Date | 20 April 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. 04-41524.,04-41524. |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. LEONEL VENTURA, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, (USDC No. 5:04-CR-1436-ALL).
Before REAVLEY, HIGGINBOTHAM and CLEMENT, Circuit Judges.
The Government appeals the district court's grant of defendant Leonel Ventura's motion to suppress evidence of marijuana discovered in the exterior luggage bin of a commercial bus during an immigration checkpoint stop. We reverse.
Leonel Ventura was a passenger on a commercial bus that arrived at a fixed immigration checkpoint on Interstate 35 near Laredo, Texas in the early morning hours of June 21, 2004. Routinely, two Border Patrol agents would perform bus inspections, with one agent questioning the passengers and inspecting the restrooms for concealed persons and drugs, while the other used a canine to sniff the bus and run through the exterior luggage compartment, where hidden undocumented aliens were often discovered. Because Ventura's bus arrived at 12:30 a.m., at the moment an agent shift change occurred, Agent Ian Clevenger, a canine handler, was the only agent available to conduct the immigration inspection of the bus.
Agent Clevenger first entered the bus's passenger compartment and conducted an immigration inspection of the fifteen or so visible passengers, passing from front to back asking citizenship and requesting documents if necessary. Ventura told the agent that he was going to San Antonio and returning later that day and that he had no luggage. Agent Clevenger later recalled that he found it "kind of awkward" that somebody would be making such a brief round trip, but he did not question Ventura further.
After questioning the passengers and checking the restroom, Agent Clevenger left the bus, got his canine and, opening the undercarriage luggage bins, commanded the dog to get in and search. The dog, which was trained to detect both concealed people and narcotics, alerted to two bags. Agent Clevenger later testified that approximately three and one-half minutes elapsed between the time he began his questioning of the bus's passengers and the time the dog alerted in the luggage compartment.
Agent Clevenger got back on the bus and asked all the passengers to claim their luggage. After this process, one of the two bags to which the dog had alerted remained unclaimed. The bus driver declared the bag abandoned and Agent Clevenger opened it, discovering three bundles of marijuana inside. The claim ticket on the bag revealed that it had been loaded onto the bus in Laredo where, the passenger manifest revealed, Ventura was one of only two people who had boarded. Ventura consented to being searched and Agent Clevenger found the matching claim ticket to the offending bag in Ventura's shoe.1 The drug possession charges underlying this case followed.
Ventura moved to suppress the drug evidence on the grounds that the drug evidence against him was the fruit of an illegally extended seizure. The district court granted Ventura's motion and the Government appeals.
When analyzing a ruling on a motion to suppress, this court reviews questions of law de novo and findings of fact for clear error. United States v. Portillo-Aguirre, 311F.3d 647, 651-52 (5th Cir. 2002). In our review, we must view the evidence in the light most favorable to Ventura, as the party that prevailed below. United States v. Ellis, 330 F.3d 677, 679 (5th Cir. 2003).
In United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 96 S. Ct. 3074 (1976), the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of immigration checkpoints at which government agents stop travelers without individualized suspicion for questioning about immigration status. We have recognized that the scope of such immigration checkpoint stops "is limited to the justifying, programmatic purpose of the stop: determining the citizenship status of persons passing through the checkpoint." United States v. Machuca-Barrera, 261 F.3d 425, 433 (5th Cir. 2001). "The permissible duration of an immigrant checkpoint stop is therefore the time reasonably necessary to determine the citizenship status of the persons stopped." Id. This includes the time necessary to ascertain the number and identity of the occupants of the vehicle, inquire about citizenship status, request identification or other proof of citizenship, and request consent to extend the detention. Id.
If the initial, routine questioning generates reasonable suspicion of other criminal activity, the stop may be lengthened to accommodate its new justification. Id. at 434. Thus, an agent at an immigration stop may investigate non-immigration matters beyond the permissible length of the immigration stop if the initial lawful stop creates a reasonable suspicion warranting further investigation. Id. Accordingly, illegal drug interdiction may be carried out at immigration checkpoints, though not as the primary purpose of those checkpoints. Id. at 431. In this vein, we have recognized that the use of drug-sniffing dogs at immigration stops is permissible so long as such use does not lengthen the stop beyond the time necessary to verify the immigration status of a vehicle's passengers. United States v. Garcia-Garcia, 319 F.3d 726, 730 (5th Cir. 2003).
While Ventura does not challenge the legality of the initial immigration stop, he argues that the agent violated his Fourth Amendment rights by extending the detention to conduct a search for drugs, after the lawful immigration purpose of the stop had terminated. Ventura contends that the legitimate immigration purpose of the checkpoint stop ended when Agent Clevenger, satisfied that all visible passengers aboard the bus were lawfully present in the country, exited the passenger compartment; and thus, Ventura was unlawfully detained without reasonable suspicion, probable cause, or consent, while the exterior luggage bins were inspected.
The Government responds that since agents routinely ran a trained canine through the exterior luggage compartment to detect any concealed persons, this action did not unlawfully extend the stop. The Government argues that, because detection and interdiction of concealed, undocumented aliens is just as much a part of the immigration inspection as questioning the visible passengers on a bus, the immigration purpose of the stop had not yet been completed at the time the dog alerted to luggage in the exterior bin.
The general question then is whether the Border Patrol agent unlawfully extended the immigration checkpoint stop beyond its permissible duration. Our inquiry as to the constitutionality of the stop's duration considers only Agent Clevenger's actions up to the point at which Ventura consented to a search of his person, as after the defendant consents, the agent needs no justification to prolong the encounter. Machuca-Barrera, 261 F.3d at 435. Ventura characterizes this inquiry as factual, relying on our decision in United States v. Chacon, 330 F.3d 323 (5th Cir. 2003). We disagree.
Chacon was remanded because the district court had not made an explicit factual finding as to whether the agent had completed his immigration inspection at the time further questioning aimed at drugs occurred. Id. at 329. However, in Chacon all of the actions of the agent in question took place in the passenger compartment of the commercial bus on which Chacon was riding. Id. at 325. Another agent was contemporaneously conducting the exterior luggage bin inspection. Id. Thus, the subjective inquiry as to when the top side agent was satisfied that the compartment contained only legal travelers was important to the determination of whether he switched his focus to drug interdiction after his immigration purposes were complete. Here, it is undisputed that Agent Clevenger had satisfied himself that the visible passengers riding on the top side of the bus were lawfully present in the United States but, absent a partner, he went on to inspect the exterior luggage bins himself.
We believe the inquiry in this case is broader, considering whether Agent Clevenger's general method of inspection passes constitutional muster. The legal question presented is whether an agent's satisfaction with the status of the visible passengers of a bus concludes the permissible scope of a checkpoint stop; or, in other words, whether the sweep for persons hidden in the exterior luggage compartment of a commercial bus is within the programmatic purpose of a Border Patrol checkpoint and concomitant immigration inspection.
The Supreme Court has recognized that the principal problem with illegal immigration arises from surreptitious entries. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. at 552, 96 S. Ct. at 3080. Martinez-Fuerte specifically identified the smuggling of hidden aliens as a legitimate concern justifying the existence of fixed immigration checkpoints. Id. at 552, 556-57. The Sentencing Commission has specified such conduct as deserving of a sentence enhancement for reckless endangerment. U.S. SENTENCING GUIDELINES MANUAL § 2L1.1, cmt. n.6 (2005).
Policy considerations notwithstanding, Ventura asserts that, because the Supreme Court in Martinez-Fuerte stated that "the inspection of a vehicle is limited to what can be seen without a search" (429 U.S. at 558, 96 S. Ct. at 3083), the scope of a suspicionless immigration check is limited to the visible passengers in the bus. Ventura apparently concludes that, since the exterior luggage compartments are not readily visible, any inspection of those compartments is ancillary to the top side immigration check and must be completed before the quiz of the visible passengers is finished to avoid prolonging the detention. If the law were otherwise, Ventura asserts, the Border Patrol would be able to search every trunk and compartment in every vehicle that...
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