Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-94-02161/USCOURTS-ca10-94-02161-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Timothy Dwayne Austin
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

PUBLISH 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff - Appellee, 

v. 

TIMOTHY DWAYNE AUSTIN, 

Defendant - Appellant. 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit 

SEP 14 1995 

PATRICK FISHER 

Clerk 

No. 94-2161 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW MEXICO 

(D.C. No. 93-480-JB) 

Thomas B. Jameson, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Albuquerque, 

New Mexico, for Appellant. 

Fred J. Federici, Assistant United States Attorney, Las Cruces, 

New Mexico, appearing for Appellee. 

John J. Kelly, United States Attorney for the District of New 

Mexico, and James D. Tierney, Supervisory Assistant United States 

Attorney, Albuquerque, New Mexico, on the brief for Appellee. 

Before TACHA, SETH, and BALDOCK, Circuit Judges. 

TACHA, Circuit Judge. 

A federal grand jury indicted defendant Timothy Dwayne Austin 

on September 9, 1993, charging him with possession of drugs with 

intent to distribute in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a) (1) and 

(b) (1) (B) . Defendant moved to suppress the physical evidence 

obtained by the police. After the district court denied 

Appellate Case: 94-2161 Document: 01019276978 Date Filed: 09/14/1995 Page: 1 
defendant's motion, he entered a conditional guilty plea reserving 

his right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress. We have 

jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm. 

Background 

On the evening of June 26, 1993, Daniel Hollis sat at an 

unoccupied gate in the Albuquerque International Airport during a 

layover between flights. Defendant approached Hollis and asked 

him how long he would be sitting there, to which Hollis replied, 

"a few minutes." Defendant then asked Hollis if Hollis would 

watch his bag, and Hollis agreed. 

As soon as defendant walked away, Hollis regretted agreeing 

to watch a stranger's bag. He recalled reading about various 

terrorism prevention measures, one of which advised travelers not 

to look after luggage belonging to strangers. Hollis moved to a 

seat approximately forty feet away from the bag, but he continued 

to feel nervous. He therefore called airport security. 

Within minutes of receiving Hollis's call, airport police 

officer Dwayne Hoppe arrived at the gate. Hoppe picked up the 

bag, which had no exterior name tag, and unzipped it. He examined 

the contents of the bag, closed it, and then left with the bag. 

Hoppe told Hollis he was taking the bag to the airport's lost and 

found area. 

Approximately fifteen minutes after leaving the bag with 

Hollis, defendant returned to retrieve it. Hollis told defendant 

that he had become uncomfortable with watching the bag and had 

called airport security. After Hollis told defendant that the 

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security officer had taken the bag to the lost and found area, 

defendant left. 

After Hoppe left Hollis, he took the bag to be X-rayed. The 

X-ray revealed no suspicious items. Hoppe then returned to the 

airport police office, where lost and found property is stored. 

Airport police sergeant Felix Sanchez directed Hoppe to inventory 

the bag's contents while another officer observed. While 

inventorying the bag, the officers discovered two plastic bottles 

labeled "boric acid." According to Sanchez's testimony at the 

suppression hearing, he was concerned about these bottles because 

he thought boric acid is flammable and can be employed as a 

component in explosive devices.l Setting the bottles aside, the 

officers completed their search of the bag but found nothing else 

of concern. 

The officers then opened the bottles. Instead of boric acid, 

the bottles contained small plastic-wrapped packets. By fieldtesting the substance in one of the packets, the officers 

discovered that the packets contained heroin. The officers 

replaced the packets into the bottles and contacted federal 

authorities. They left defendant's bag on the counter of the lost 

and found area. 

Sometime later, defendant arrived at the police office. 

Although his bag was on the counter in plain view, defendant did 

1 When defendant filed a motion to reconsider the denial of his 

motion to suppress, he provided an affidavit from a University of 

New Mexico professor of chemistry. In the affidavit, the 

professor contradicted Sanchez's testimony regarding the dangerous 

properties of boric acid. Our decision rests on grounds that do 

not require us to consider the effect of this affidavit. 

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not ask about it or attempt to claim it. Instead, defendant asked 

Sanchez for information concerning outbound flights and left the 

office. 

The district court held a hearing on defendant's motion to 

suppress evidence on February 25, 1994. After hearing the 

witnesses' testimony, the court found that defendant had abandoned 

the bag at the lost and found area in the police office. The 

court based this conclusion on its factual finding that defendant 

spent approximately fifteen minutes in the police office without 

mentioning the bag or expressing any possessory interest in it. 

Because the court found that defendant abandoned the bag, it held 

that defendant had no expectation of privacy in the bag or its 

contents. In addition, the court found that the airport police 

"acted consistent with the FAA policy in handling lost and found 

articles." Consequently, the district court denied defendant's 

motion to suppress the evidence found in his bag. 

Discussion 

I. 

When reviewing a district court's denial of a motion to 

suppress, we accept the district court's findings of fact unless 

they are clearly erroneous. United States v. Bute, 43 F.3d 531, 

534 (lOth Cir. 1994). We consider the evidence in the record in 

the light most favorable to the government, as it was the 

prevailing party in the district court. See United States v. 

McAlpine, 919 F.2d 1461, 1463 (lOth Cir. 1990). If the district 

court did not make necessary findings, we nonetheless uphold the 

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court's denial of a motion to suppress "if there is any reasonable 

view of the evidence to support it." United States v. Neu, 879 

F.2d 805, 807 (lOth Cir. 1989). A trial court's determination of 

abandonment of property is a factual finding, which we therefore 

examine for clear error. See United States v. Hernandez, 7 F.3d 

944, 947 (lOth Cir. 1993). In contrast to our review of the 

district court's factual findings, "[t]he ultimate question of 

whether a search is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment is a 

question of law which we review de novo." Bute, 43 F.3d at 534. 

II. 

"The Fourth Amendment 'protects people from unreasonable 

government intrusions into their legitimate expectations of 

privacy.'" United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 706-07 (1983) 

(quoting United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 7 (1977), 

overruled in part, California v. Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565 (1991)). 

But " [a] warrantless search and seizure of abandoned property is 

not unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment." Hernandez, 7 F.3d 

at 947; see also Abel v. United States, 362 U.S. 217, 241 (1960). 

It is not unreasonable because "[w]hen individuals voluntarily 

abandon property, they forfeit any expectation of privacy in it 

that they might have had." United States v. Jones, 707 F.2d 1169, 

1172 (lOth Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 859 (1983). 

An abandonment must be voluntary, and an abandonment that 

results from a Fourth Amendment violation cannot be voluntary. 

Hernandez, 7 F.3d at 947. Consequently, even if the district 

court correctly concluded that defendant abandoned the bag at the 

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security office, we must determine whether that abandonment was 

the result of an earlier Fourth Amendment violation. Thus, the 

district court should have examined the legality of the search 

from the time of Hoppe's first encounter with Hollis. 

"The test for abandonment is whether an individual has 

retained any reasonable expectation of privacy in the object." 

Jones, 707 F.2d at 1172. "An expectation of privacy is a question 

of intent which may be inferred from words, acts, and other 

objective facts." Hernandez, 7 F.3d at 947. When defendant left 

his bag in Hollis's care, he asked Hollis to watch it for him. He 

clearly intended to return and retrieve the bag. Cf. United 

States v. Morgan, 936 F.2d 1561, 1570 (lOth Cir. 1991) (in 

concluding that the defendant abandoned a gym bag, the court noted 

that the defendant had not "left [the item] to the care or 

responsibility of another"), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 1102 (1992). 

In fact, defendant did return to retrieve the bag approximately 

fifteen minutes after leaving it with Hollis. Based on these 

facts, we conclude that defendant intended to retain a privacy 

interest in the luggage. 

But defendant must show more than his subjective intent. His 

expectation of privacy must be one "that society would recognize . 

. . as objectively reasonable" for the search to have violated the 

Fourth Amendment. United States v. Benitez-Arreguin, 973 F.2d 

823, 827 (lOth Cir. 1992) (emphasis added). "If the inspection by 

police does not intrude upon a legitimate expectation of privacy, 

there is no 'search' subject to the Warrant Clause." Illinois v. 

Andreas, 463 U.S. 765, 771 (1983); see also United States v. 

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McKennon, 814 F.2d 1539, 1544 (11th Cir. 1987) ("Extenuating 

circumstances can erode the reasonableness of a privacy 

expectation to the extent that the interest is not 

constitutionally protected."). Defendant contends that when he 

entrusted his bag to a stranger in an airport he retained a 

legitimate expectation of privacy in that bag. We conclude that 

he did not. 

Defendant left his bag in the care of Hollis; thus, Hollis 

was in lawful possession of it. See Benitez-Arreguin, 973 F.2d at 

827 (holding that a bailee in legal possession and control of a 

suitcase has a legitimate expectation of privacy in its contents) . 

Hollis had control of the bag and the authority to exclude others' 

access to the bag. Id. at 828. Hollis also had the authority, 

however, to allow others access to the object in his lawful 

possession. By leaving his bag in the possession and control of 

Hollis, defendant assumed the risk that Hollis would allow the 

authorities access to the bag. Cf. United States v. Jacobsen, 466 

U.S. 109, 117 (1984) ("It is well settled that when an individual 

reveals private information to another, he assumes the risk that 

his confidant will reveal that information to the authorities, and 

if that occurs the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit governmental 

use of that information."); United States v. Mithun, 933 F.2d 631, 

634 n.3 (8th Cir.) ("[The defendant] assumed the risk that hotel 

employees would discover the contraband and reveal that 

information to authorities."), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 869 (1991). 

Here, Hollis not only allowed governmental access to the bag but 

requested it. Although defendant did not intend for Hollis to 

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turn over care of the bag to airport police, he voluntarily gave 

Hollis the ability to do so. Because "the precipitous nature of 

the transaction hardly supports a reasonable inference that 

[defendant] took normal precautions to maintain his privacy," 

Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98, 105 (1980), we conclude that 

defendant did not have an objectively reasonable expectation of 

privacy in the bag.2 

Conclusion 

Because defendant did not have an objectively reasonable 

expectation of privacy, the search of his bag did not violate the 

Fourth Amendment. We therefore AFFIRM the district court's denial 

of defendant's motion to suppress evidence. 

2 Defendant relies on United States v. Most, 876 F.2d 191 (D.C. 

Cir. 1989), to support his contention that his expectation of 

privacy was reasonable. We disagree. In Most, the court held 

that the defendant retained a legitimate expectation of privacy in 

a bag he left with a store clerk, where the store required all 

customers to surrender their packages as a condition of entry to 

the store. Id. at 199. Here, defendant voluntarily relinquished 

his bag without any conditions or agreements. 

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