Opinion ID: 5328
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Masha

Text: A strip search conducted at the border passes fourth amendment muster if it is supported by reasonable suspicion.4 Given the diminished expectation of privacy at our borders, a detention satisfies the fourth amendment if the border agent's reasonable suspicion is based upon a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person of alimentary canal smuggling.5 Masha contends that the government did not have reasonable suspicion to warrant his detention and strip search. He relies heavily on statistics offered at the suppression hearing that approximately 800 strip searches at the border had yielded only one case of ingested contraband. The government counters that the evidence supporting reasonable suspicion in this case far exceeds that found sufficient by the Supreme Court in Montoya de Hernandez. Therein a 16-hour incommunicado detention of a suspected alimentary smuggler was deemed reasonable because she: arrived in Los Angeles from Bogota, Colombia with a passport showing multiple recent trips from Colombia to Los Angeles and Miami; was unable to speak English 3 United States v. Castaneda, 951 F.2d 44 (5th Cir. 1992). 4 United States v. De Gutierrez, 667 F.2d 16 (5th Cir. 1982). 5 Montoya de Hernandez, 473 U.S. at 541-42. 5 and had no friends or relatives here; claimed to be on a shopping trip for her husband's store but had no appointments or firm plans to meet with merchants; carried $5000 in cash; had no hotel reservations; and carried nearly empty luggage. The strip search revealed a firm abdomen. The district court made the following relevant findings supportive of the customs agent's reasonable suspicion that Masha was an alimentary canal smuggler: (1) he carried a passport from Nigeria, a known narcotics source country;6 (2) he came from central Mexico with negligible luggage; (3) he and his traveling companion were extremely nervous and conferred in their native tongue before responding to the agent's questions; and (4) two informants had alerted authorities about Masha and possible internal body smuggling of contraband accompanied by another. These factors provided a reasonable suspicion justifying a border strip search.7 Assuming the validity of the evidence of the 800 or so fruitless searches, those numbers are alarming and very distressing, but that evidence is not dispositive in the case at bar because of the facts found by the trial court. The strip search revealed that Masha's stomach was firm and distended, a finding consistent with alimentary canal smuggling. 6 See United States v. Esieke, 940 F.2d 29 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 112 S.Ct. 610 (1991). 7 See De Gutierrez, 667 F.2d at 19 (resemblance to drug courier profile is factor which may be considered in reasonable suspicion determination). 6 The agents were justified in detaining Masha for a reasonable period during which normal bodily functions would be expected to confirm or allay their suspicions. We must now determine whether the period of the detention during which Masha was not allowed contact with anyone other than the agents and hospital personnel violated the fourth amendment. It was over 48 hours before the first heroin-filled balloon was passed. In Montoya de Hernandez the defendant refused an x-ray and was detained only 16 hours awaiting a bowel movement. The Supreme Court held that detention for the period necessary to either verify or dispel the suspicion was not unreasonable.8 The Court also made clear that delay attributable to a suspect's heroic efforts to resist natural bodily functions is to be put in perspective and not counted in the equation as a negative against the government.9 Our colleagues in the Second and Eighth Circuits10 have permitted detentions at the border for extended periods made necessary by a detainee's remarkable control of bodily functions. The case at bar differs in that Masha consented to an x-ray which demonstrated the foreign substances in his body. Masha was detained thereafter for an additional 40 hours before he had a 8 473 U.S. at 544. 9 Id. at 543. 10 Esieke, 940 F.2d at 35; see United States v. Odofin, 929 F.2d 56 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 112 S.Ct. 154 (1991); United States v. Oyekan, 786 F.2d 832, 836 (8th Cir. 1986). 7 bowel movement expelling some of the balloons. The district court found that Masha was properly detained until his bodily functions confirmed the presence of contraband, and that he contributed to the delay by refusing all food, drink, or laxatives during that period. We agree.