Opinion ID: 891622
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Fourth Amendment Protection: The Private Search Doctrine

Text: {16} In the context of searches, the Fourth Amendment protects against the infringement of an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to consider reasonable. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 113, 104 S.Ct. 1652. Such protection, however, does not extend to searches conducted by private citizens because the Fourth Amendment only restrains unreasonable actions by the government. Id. at 113-14, 104 S.Ct. 1652. Once the expectation of privacy has been lost due to a private search, the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit governmental use of the now-nonprivate information. Id. at 117, 104 S.Ct. 1652. The private search doctrine allows government officials to search a container without a warrant if a private individual, without participation by the government, searched the container and reveals its contents to the government agent. Id. at 116, 104 S.Ct. 1652; but see Illinois v. Andreas, 463 U.S. 765, 773, 103 S.Ct. 3319, 77 L.Ed.2d 1003 (1983) (discussing that although the expectation of privacy may be lost by a private search, it can be potentially regained where there is a substantial likelihood that the contents have been changed during a gap in surveillance). The rationale for this doctrine is that by conducting a search subsequent to the private search, the agent is not learning anything that he did not already know as a result of what was disclosed by the private search. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 119-20, 104 S.Ct. 1652. It follows, however, [t]he additional invasions of respondents' privacy by the Government agent must be tested by the degree to which they exceeded the scope of the private search. Id. at 115, 104 S.Ct. 1652. {17} In Jacobsen, employees of a private freight carrier opened a damaged package, and beneath eight or nine layers of wrappings discovered clear plastic bags containing a white powdery substance. Id. at 111, 104 S.Ct. 1652. After replacing the contents in the box, employees notified the DEA. A DEA agent then arrived on the scene, re-opened the package, and conducted a field test on the powdery substance. Id. at 111-12, 104 S.Ct. 1652. The United States Supreme Court held that the opening of the package by the employees of the freight carrier, whether accidental or deliberate, and whether reasonable or unreasonable, did not violate the Fourth Amendment because of their private character. Id. at 115, 104 S.Ct. 1652. As for the actions of the agent upon arrival, the Court held that [t]he additional invasions of [defendants'] privacy by the Government agent must be tested by the degree to which they exceeded the scope of the private search. Id. Once frustration of the original expectation of privacy occurs, the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit governmental use of the now nonprivate information. Id. at 117, 104 S.Ct. 1652. Therefore, a manual inspection of the tube and its contents would not tell [the agent] anything more than he already had been told.... [And t]he agent's viewing of what a private party had freely made available for his inspection did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 119-20, 104 S.Ct. 1652. {18} The Court applied the private search doctrine as an exception to the warrant requirement, even when the items to be searched are not in plain view. Even if the white powder was not itself in plain view because it was still enclosed in so many containers and covered with papers, there was a virtual certainty that nothing else of significance was in the package and that a manual inspection of the tube and its contents would not tell [the agent] anything more than he already had been told. Id. at 118-19, 104 S.Ct. 1652. The Court held that based on what had been learned from the private individual who had previously searched the package, the act of resealing the package could not create any privacy interest with respect to the package that would not otherwise exist. Id. at 120 n. 17, 104 S.Ct. 1652. Thus, removal of the clear plastic bags from a tube within the package and a visual inspection of the contents enabled the agent to learn nothing that had not previously been learned during the private search. Id. at 120, 104 S.Ct. 1652. {19} The Jacobsen Court also upheld the constitutionality of a field test of the contents of the clear bags because this expansion of the private search was de minimis and the safeguards of a warrant would only minimally advance Fourth Amendment interests. Id. at 125, 104 S.Ct. 1652. The Court reasoned that the subsequent field test did not further compromise any legitimate interest in privacy because the field test only confirmed for the agent that the substance was cocaine. Id. at 122-23, 104 S.Ct. 1652. Also, the suspicious nature of the material made it virtually certain that the substance tested was in fact contraband. Id. at 125, 104 S.Ct. 1652. [T]hus governmental conduct that can reveal whether a substance is cocaine, and no other arguably `private' fact, compromises no legitimate privacy interest. Id. at 123, 104 S.Ct. 1652. The Court also reasoned that the likelihood that official conduct of the kind disclosed by the record will actually compromise any legitimate interest in privacy seems much too remote to characterize the testing as a search subject to the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 124, 104 S.Ct. 1652. {20} In this case, analyzing the Fourth Amendment under Jacobsen, if a private search occurred in Denver, Agent Perry's actions, including cutting into the bundle, would not violate the Fourth Amendment. The private search authorized Agent Perry to re-examine the contents as long as he did not unreasonably exceed the scope of the private search. We are confident that the United States Supreme Court would conclude that by re-opening the package in Albuquerque, Agent Perry learned nothing more than what he had been told by the bus company employees, and therefore did not infringe upon any privacy rights of Defendant. {21} Although cutting into an opaque bundle exceeded the scope of the private search, this would likely still be permissible under Jacobsen since Defendant's privacy interest in the package contents had been compromised by the private search in Denver. Id. Although the bundles were not transparent, as was the case in Jacobsen, we believe the United States Supreme Court would conclude that the additional intrusion of cutting into a bundle was de minimis since Agent Perry believed the bundles contained marijuana. Id. at 121, 104 S.Ct. 1652. Requiring Agent Perry to obtain a warrant would only minimally advance Fourth Amendment interests, id. at 110, 104 S.Ct. 1652, and would be unnecessary under Jacobsen in light of the certainty of the contents and the fact that the previous search had largely compromised Defendant's privacy interest in the package. Id. at 121, 104 S.Ct. 1652. Therefore, Agent Perry did not unreasonably expand the private search under the Fourth Amendment.