Opinion ID: 222448
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Defining Search Scope

Text: The crux of the issue, then, involves two related questions: (1) when did Andrade’s administrative search for explosives truly end, and become a wholly independent search for evidence of child pornography?; and (2) which of Andrade’s actions exceeded the scope of the administrative search by becoming “more extensive [or] intensive than necessary, in the light of current technology, to detect the presence of weapons or explosives”? Davis, 482 F.2d at 913. In a typical case, lines of permissibly cabined and impermissibly extended search actions are easy to identify—in Aukai, for instance, we noted that a TSA screening of airline passengers and their carry-on luggage was appropriately limited where TSA screeners escalated the invasiveness of their search after each level of screening produced a reason to search more closely. 497 F.3d at 962. We reasoned that taking such a stairstep approach—first wanding a passenger after a magnetometer alerted to the presence of metal on the passenger’s body, then asking the passenger to remove items from his pocket, and ultimately only feeling the outside of the passenger’s pocket after the passenger failed to remove all of the contents upon request—was both minimally intrusive and respectful of personal privacy. Each level of increased invasiveness in the search was necessary and tailored to dispel the safety concerns presented. See id. [8] By contrast, where an action is taken that cannot serve the administrative purpose—either because the threat necessitating the administrative search has been dismissed, or UNITED STATES v. MCCARTY 10033 because the action is simply unrelated to the administrative goal—the action clearly exceeds the scope of the permissible search. Cf. United States v. Miles, 247 F.3d 1009, 1014-15 (9th Cir. 2001) (police officer exceeded scope of permissible Terry frisk where he continued to manipulate a box in a defendant’s pocket after having concluded that the box could not possibly be a weapon, as “[h]e had no cause to shake or manipulate the tiny box on the pretext that he was still looking for a weapon”); United States v. $557,933.89, 287 F.3d 66, 82 (2d Cir. 2002) (suggesting that airport security personnel would exceed permissible search scope if they “looked into areas or opened packages which could not possibly contain weapons or explosives”). [9] Here, the scope of the permissible search—mandated by the TSA protocol—was defined by the point at which the screener was convinced the bag posed no threat to airline safety. Once Andrade was sufficiently certain that there were no explosives or other safety hazards hidden inside McCarty’s bag, the administrative search was over—nothing else was required to detect threats to aircraft safety. As the district court correctly reasoned, any search actions taken thereafter would impermissibly extend the scope of the search beyond what was necessary, because they could not possibly meet the requirement that the screener’s actions be “ ‘strictly tied to and justified by the circumstances which rendered [the search’s] initiation permissible.’ ” Davis, 482 F.2d at 911 n.49 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 19 (1968)); see also Aukai, 497 F.3d at 962. [10] Andrade conceded that, at the point when she read the content of the letters and looked at the newspaper articles and advertisements, she was no longer searching for explosives. Rather, at that point, she had abandoned the search for safety hazards and was reviewing the items to confirm her feeling that the photographs were contraband evidencing children in harm’s way. DCD #57 at 81-85. These actions were indisputably part of an effort to verify the presence of child pornogra10034 UNITED STATES v. MCCARTY phy. Thus, the actions taken in this portion of the search clearly fell outside the permissible scope of the lawful administrative search and violated McCarty’s Fourth Amendment rights because they were more extensive and intrusive than necessary to detect air travel safety concerns. See Davis, 482 F.2d at 913. But the district court found that other portions of Andrade’s search exceeded the scope of the lawful administrative search as well. Based on Andrade’s “testimony and lack of credibility, the court specifically [found] that [she] searched the photographs in the envelope not for sheet explosives but for evidence of child pornography.” McCarty, 672 F. Supp. 2d at 1097 n.8. It thus cabined the extent of the lawful search to just the first few photographs that spilled onto the search table, and found that the photographs and other items in the envelope had only been discovered as a result of an “overbroad investigation into the criminal nature of the photographs.” See id. at 1099. We are mindful that factual findings of this type are entitled to great deference and should be reversed only where a thorough reading of the record leads us to the “definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made.” Husain, 316 F.3d at 835 (internal quotation marks omitted). Nonetheless, we can find no support in the record for the district court’s conclusion that Andrade searched the photographs in the envelope for evidence of child pornography. At one point in its decision, the district court asserted that Andrade had conceded that she was reviewing the contents of the envelope—including the photographs therein—solely out of concern for the children depicted. McCarty, 672 F. Supp. 2d at 1094 (referencing DCD #57 at 81-83). It is upon this statement that the district court based its factual finding that Andrade was not searching for sheet explosives when she looked through the photographs in the envelope. Id. at 109798. However, a review of the transcript reveals that Andrade’s UNITED STATES v. MCCARTY 10035 concession was limited to a statement that when she read lines from the newspaper clippings and the letters—which occurred after she had inspected the initially spilled photographs and a small portion of the photographs in the envelope—her reading was focused on determining whether the children had been harmed. DCD #57 at 61-62, 81-82. Andrade did not at any point state that she had abandoned her primary search for aircraft safety hazards at the time she viewed the photographs in the envelope. The district court also stated that “Andrade testified that she went through some of the photographs on the table because she ‘felt that the children were in a harmful way’ and ‘needed to see more before I called my lead.’ ” McCarty, 672 F. Supp. 2d at 1097 (citing DCD #57 at 61-62). The record contradicts this conclusion. Although the long question posed to Andrade before she made those statements did reference her perusal of the photographs as part of a chronology of her actions, the part of the question soliciting an answer did not; it merely asked Andrade “why did you go through those testimonies?” DCD #57 at 61-62 (referring to Andrade’s having read a few lines of the letters).17 Andrade went on to clearly and repeatedly testify that she viewed the photographs in the envelope for the purpose of investigating the “possible mas17 The complete inquiry reads as follows: Q: So procedurally I want to go through what happened at that point when you decided to go through these items. Okay. When you went through the items, you looked at you said less than half the photographs, there was these other items that you testified to, these ads, newspaper clippings, and letters, why did you go through those testimonies? A: Because I felt the children were in a harmful way. THE COURT: I’m sorry, I did not understand your answer. THE WITNESS: I felt that I needed to see more than what I saw before I called my lead. DCD #57 at 61-62. 10036 UNITED STATES v. MCCARTY sive dark area” on which the CTX machine alarmed, and to determine if any sheet explosives were hidden therein. See DCD #57 at 63 (“I needed to go through the envelope itself because of the possible massive dark area.”); 76 (correcting defense counsel when he suggested that she began looking through the materials in the envelope to see what the contents were about: “Not check exactly what it was. I needed to finish my check as far as the massive dark area.”); 86 (noting that, after looking at the photographs that spilled onto the table but before looking at the newspaper clippings or letter, she “went into the envelope to see if there was anything hidden in the envelope”); 89 (noting that she could not determine that there was no safety concern, with respect to explosives, just by pulling the photographs out of the envelope; she had to do a physical search of the items); 95 (correcting defense counsel’s assertion that at the point she pulled the photographs out of the envelope, she was no longer concerned with the safety of the dense mass identified by the scanner: “I still was.”). Indeed, defense counsel asked Andrade repeatedly whether she was still searching for explosives and other safety concerns when she read materials from the envelope, and Andrade confirmed on each occasion that she was concerned only about the children in the photos at that point. Id. at 8385 (confirming four times that at the time she began to read the other items in the envelope—including the newspaper articles and the letters—she was no longer concerned with safety but needed to know what the nude pictures were about). However, when defense counsel asserted that Andrade had searched all of the items in the envelope for the purpose of determining what the nude photographs were about, Andrade corrected him, stating “No . . . I need to determine if there was anything hidden in the pictures — rest of the pictures in the envelope . . . . Because of the massed area. I needed to continue my search.” Id. at 85.18 18 Indeed, the prosecutor objected to defense counsel’s question on this point as misstating Andrade’s testimony; the district court overruled the objection. DCD #57 at 85. UNITED STATES v. MCCARTY 10037 [11] However unclear Andrade’s testimony was on other points—exactly which images she saw, how many photographs spilled onto the table, and whether she touched or did not touch the photographs on the table before calling the lead officer—she was consistently clear and emphatic that when she looked through the photographs in the envelope, she was still acting to ensure that there were no sheet explosives hidden inside. No testimony in the record contradicted hers on this point. Further, this search intent was consistent with the TSA protocol requiring Andrade to thumb through the photographs in order to clear the bag. The district court’s factual conclusion on this point is without support in the record, and must be vacated.19 [12] Thus, the screener’s review of the photographs in the packet occurred within the scope of the ongoing lawful administrative search. As a result, her discovery of their nature coincided with her search for explosives, rather than followed the formation of an independent and exclusive intent to search for contraband. Accordingly, Andrade’s viewing of the photographs from the envelope was justified by and part of the lawful administrative search, see Aukai, 497 F.3d at 19 That the TSA screener did not flip through the entire stack of photographs before calling her supervisor does not undermine our conclusion. We find it troubling that the district court treated the fact that the search was not completed as a strong indicator that Andrade’s testimony was not credible. See McCarty, 672 F. Supp. 2d at 1098. A review of the testimony presented shows that only a few short minutes passed between the time the CTX machine alarmed on the bag and the time law enforcement was called, DCD #57 at 201, and the TSA lead officer was already in the room when Andrade began the lawful search. Given the timeframe within which the events occurred, we are unsurprised that the TSA screener did not complete the thumb through before her lead came over to see what possible contraband had been found, and we think this fact should not subvert the notion that a complete—or at least further—protocol search would have been required to dispel any safety concerns after viewing the initial photographs. Supporting our reasoning is the fact that although Andrade did not finish clearing the bag of safety concerns herself before calling the lead, TSA Supervisor Kamohai did so. Id. at 95. 10038 UNITED STATES v. MCCARTY 962, and—as we clarified above—even the development of a secondary desire to confirm that the photographs evidenced contraband did not invalidate that search, see Bowhay, 992 F.2d at 231.