Opinion ID: 687706
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Search Conducted at the Roadblock

Text: 14 Plaintiffs next contend that the initial search conducted by defendants at the roadblock was an unreasonable search prohibited by the Fourth Amendment. The search consisted of ordering Ms. Romo to open the doors and trunk of the car, the dog's sniff of the vehicle, and the dog's sniff of Ms. Romo's and Misty Gardner's bodies. Plaintiffs also allege that, while the dog was sniffing Misty Gardner, its nose touched the private area of [her] lap. 15 It is well-established that an individual's privacy interest in her automobile is constitutionally protected. California v. Carney, 471 U.S. 386, 390, 105 S.Ct. 2066, 2068, 85 L.Ed.2d 406 (1985). And this protection clearly extends to a car's trunk. See California v. Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565, 111 S.Ct. 1982, 114 L.Ed.2d 619 (1991) (holding that same Fourth Amendment standards apply to all vehicle searches regardless of the particular area searched, including searches of a car's trunk). By ordering Ms. Romo to open the doors and trunk of her car--independent of the sniff of their persons by the drug-sensing dogs--the conduct of defendants certainly infringed on plaintiffs' constitutionally protected privacy interests. Thus, if defendants had executed the search for traditional law enforcement purposes, they presumptively would have needed probable cause. See Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 327, 107 S.Ct. 1149, 1153, 94 L.Ed.2d 347 (1987) (holding that, absent special operational necessities, probable cause is presumptively required). 16 Government officials do not need probable cause to conduct a search, however, when 'special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement, make the warrant and probable-cause requirement impracticable.'  Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 873, 107 S.Ct. 3164, 3168, 97 L.Ed.2d 709 (1987) (quoting New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 351, 105 S.Ct. 733, 747, 83 L.Ed.2d 720 (1985) (Blackmun, J., concurring)). In the presence of such special governmental needs, it is necessary to balance the individual's privacy expectations against the Government's interests to determine whether it is impractical to require a warrant or some level of individualized suspicion in the particular context. National Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656, 665-66, 109 S.Ct. 1384, 1390-91, 103 L.Ed.2d 685 (1989); see also Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Ass'n, 489 U.S. 602, 619, 109 S.Ct. 1402, 1414, 103 L.Ed.2d 639 (1989) (where search is justified by special needs, a reviewing court must balance the governmental and privacy interests to assess the practicality of the warrant and probable-cause requirements in the particular context). 17 We therefore evaluate the constitutionality of a special needs search under the Fourth Amendment's more general requirement of reasonableness, Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 665-66, 109 S.Ct. at 1390-91, balancing the need to search against the invasion which the search entails, Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 537, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 1735, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967). And whether a particular search is reasonable depends on the context within which [the] search takes place. T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 337, 105 S.Ct. at 740. Thus, the appropriate inquiry in each specific case is whether the government's need outweighs the individual's privacy interest. Dunn v. White, 880 F.2d 1188, 1193 (10th Cir.1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1059, 110 S.Ct. 871, 107 L.Ed.2d 954 (1990). That is, we assess whether the asserted government interest justifies the privacy intrusions at issue absent a warrant or individualized suspicion. Skinner, 489 U.S. at 621, 109 S.Ct. at 1415. 18 There can be little doubt that the search conducted by defendants in this case was executed pursuant to special needs independent of traditional criminal law enforcement. As this court stated in Dunn, [t]he government's interest in the operation of a prison presents 'special needs' beyond law enforcement that may justify departures from the usual warrant and probable-cause requirements. 880 F.2d at 1194 (internal quotation omitted). The purpose of the search here was to intercept narcotics that prison visitors were attempting to take to inmates. As we have stated, the duty to keep drugs out of a prison is part of prison administrators' responsibility to maintain a correctional center's institutional security. Newman, 559 F.2d at 291. We therefore must apply the balancing test required by the reasonableness clause of the Fourth Amendment: The search conducted at the roadblock was constitutional if the government's interest in keeping narcotics out of the prison outweighed the intrusion on plaintiffs' privacy interests. 19 In applying this balancing test to the search at issue here, three factors are particularly significant. First, because they were visiting a prison, plaintiffs' expectations of privacy were diminished by the exigencies of prison security. Blackburn v. Snow, 771 F.2d 556, 563 (1st Cir.1985); see also Boren v. Deland, 958 F.2d 987, 988 (10th Cir.1992). Although persons visiting a prison possess a legitimate expectation of privacy, Boren, 958 F.2d at 988, they  'cannot credibly claim to carry with them the full panoply of rights they normally enjoy,'  id. (quoting Blackburn, 771 F.2d at 563). Thus, the intrusion on plaintiffs' privacy was significantly less than it would have been had the search been conducted outside the context of a prison security operation. Second, as we have discussed, the governmental objectives in conducting the search were substantial; the government has a paramount interest in [a prison's] institutional security, Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 528, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 3201, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984), and intercepting narcotics is certainly a reasonable element of a prison's security operation, Hunter, 672 F.2d at 674. Third, as we stated earlier, prison authorities must be afforded wide-ranging discretion in adopting policies designed to preserve institutional security. Whitley, 475 U.S. at 321-22, 106 S.Ct. at 1085. 20 Considering all of the circumstances surrounding the search at the roadblock, we find that each element of the procedure comported with the Fourth Amendment's requirement of reasonableness. First, although the opening of the vehicle's doors and trunk was an invasion of Ms. Romo's protected privacy interest in her car, the officers did not physically search through the car or trunk; rather, opening the door and trunk merely facilitated the dog's sweep of the vehicle. Given plaintiffs' reduced expectation in privacy, this was reasonable when balanced against the government's strong interest in keeping narcotics out of the prison. 21 Next, the dog's sweep of the vehicle did not infringe on any constitutionally protected privacy interest. As this court recognized in United States v. Morales-Zamora, 914 F.2d 200 (10th Cir.1990), when the odor of narcotics escapes from the interior of a vehicle, society does not recognize a reasonable privacy interest in the public airspace containing the incriminating odor. Id. at 205. Where government officials have lawfully detained a vehicle, a dog's sniff is not a 'search' within the meaning of the fourth amendment. Id. at 203; see also United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 707, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 2644, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983) (holding that the exposure of an individual's luggage, which was located in a public place, to a drug-sensing dog was not a search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment). 22 Finally, while the dog's sniff of plaintiffs' bodies was clearly more intrusive than its sniff of the vehicle, it nevertheless was reasonable in light of all the relevant circumstances. Again, plaintiffs' expectations in privacy were reduced because they were visiting a prison, and a dog's sniff of the area surrounding one's body is not terribly intrusive. To the extent that the dog's nose physically touched Misty Gardner, that contact was purely incidental. Such a brief, unintentional touch cannot make an otherwise reasonable search unconstitutional. In sum, while elements of the defendants' conduct at the roadblock clearly infringed on plaintiffs' privacy interests, that intrusion was outweighed by the significant governmental interests at stake. 23 Plaintiffs plausibly argue that the procedure at the roadblock was per se unreasonable because defendants lacked individualized reasonable suspicion when they conducted the search. Indeed, in most cases in which the Supreme Court has upheld warrantless searches conducted without probable cause, the government has possessed at least individualized suspicion, even where the search was executed pursuant to special governmental needs. See, e.g., Griffin, 483 U.S. at 872-73, 107 S.Ct. at 3167-68 (upholding warrantless search of a probationer's home in context of state's special need in operating its probation system where search was carried out pursuant to state regulation requiring reasonable grounds); T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 342, 105 S.Ct. at 743 (holding that, in context of state's special need of preserving school discipline, a search of a student by school authorities is constitutional when there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the student has violated or is violating either the law or the rules of the school); cf. O'Connor v. Ortega, 480 U.S. 709, 725, 107 S.Ct. 1492, 1501, 94 L.Ed.2d 714 (1987) (holding that individualized suspicion may have justified warrantless search of government employee's office by supervisor executed pursuant to work-related, noninvestigatory reasons or to uncover work-related employee misconduct). Nevertheless, the Supreme Court has made clear that individualized suspicion is not a constitutional prerequisite in all cases. United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 560-61, 96 S.Ct. 3074, 3084, 49 L.Ed.2d 1116 (1976). 3 [A] showing of individualized suspicion is not a constitutional floor, below which a search must be presumed unreasonable. Skinner, 489 U.S. at 624, 109 S.Ct. at 1417; see also Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. at 560-61, 96 S.Ct. at 3084 (stating that, while some quantum of individualized suspicion is usually a prerequisite to a constitutional search or seizure[,] ... the Fourth Amendment imposes no irreducible requirement of such suspicion) (citation and footnote omitted). This court likewise stated in Dunn that  '[i]n limited circumstances, where the privacy interests implicated by the search are minimal, and where an important governmental interest furthered by the intrusion would be placed in jeopardy by a requirement of individualized suspicion, a search may be reasonable despite the absence of such suspicion.'  880 F.2d at 1193 (quoting Skinner, 489 U.S. at 624, 109 S.Ct. at 1417). 24 Plaintiffs also point out that other courts have stated that the Fourth Amendment requires individualized reasonable suspicion for searches of prison visitors. For instance, in Spear v. Sowders, 33 F.3d 576 (6th Cir.1994), the Sixth Circuit recently stated that the 'reasonable suspicion' standard ... [applies] to official searches of citizens who are visiting inmates. Id. at 580 (citation omitted). But every decision establishing a reasonable suspicion standard for searches of prison visitors has involved a strip search. See, e.g., Spear, 33 F.3d at 582 (officials performed visual and manual body cavity searches); Cochrane v. Quattrocchi, 949 F.2d 11, 12-13 (1st Cir.1991) (prison visitor strip searched), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 2965, 119 L.Ed.2d 586 (1992); Daugherty v. Campbell, 935 F.2d 780, 782 (6th Cir.1991) (officials performed visual body cavity search), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 1060, 112 S.Ct. 939, 117 L.Ed.2d 110 (1992); Thorne v. Jones, 765 F.2d 1270, 1271 (5th Cir.1985) (prison visitor strip searched), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1016, 106 S.Ct. 1198, 89 L.Ed.2d 313 (1986); Hunter, 672 F.2d at 674 ([T]he Constitution mandates that a reasonable suspicion standard govern strip searches of visitors to penal institutions.). A strip search is a far cry from the routine, rather nonintrusive search initially conducted by defendants at the roadblock. As this court has stated, the strip search of an individual by government officials,  'regardless how professionally and courteously conducted, is an embarrassing and humiliating experience.'  Boren, 958 F.2d at 988 n. 1 (quoting Hunter, 672 F.2d at 674). Requiring reasonable suspicion for strip searches of prison visitors is not inconsistent with our holding today that the routine preliminary search of plaintiffs and their vehicle, although executed without individualized suspicion, was reasonable. 25 Weighing the government's interest in preventing narcotics from being smuggled into penal institutions against the intrusion on plaintiffs' privacy in this case, we find that defendants' initial investigative procedure at the roadblock was reasonable. As a result, the initial search at the roadblock did not violate plaintiffs' rights under the Fourth Amendment.