Opinion ID: 777310
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Search by Detective Martin

Text: 54 We next examine whether Detective Martin's perusal of the money orders likewise comported with the Fourth Amendment. 17 Claimant's sole argument on this point is that the briefcase was closed after the airport security personnel looked through it and that Martin's opening of the briefcase constituted a new search for Fourth Amendment purposes. We agree with the district court that the closing of the briefcase is irrelevant to the Fourth Amendment inquiry. As long as Detective Martin's search of the briefcase was of no greater scope or intensity than the airport security personnel's, then no additional invasion of [claimant's] privacy interest occurred and there was no additional search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. See Hicks, 480 U.S. at 325, 107 S.Ct. 1149; United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 117, 104 S.Ct. 1652, 80 L.Ed.2d 85 (1984) (holding that it was no search for government to reexamine contents of package already legitimately opened and partially repackaged because [t]he Fourth Amendment is implicated only if the authorities use information with respect to which the expectation of privacy has not already been frustrated.); see also United States v. Knoll, 16 F.3d 1313, 1320 (2d Cir.1994) (reasonable expectation of privacy in closed files existed only insofar as they had not already been legitimately searched); United States v. Menon, 24 F.3d 550, 563 (3d Cir.1994) (where one officer legitimately saw characteristics of an object during a search, a second officer was entitled to look at the object to the same extent as the first without negating plain-view applicability). 55 Moreover, even if Detective Martin's search had been more intrusive than the initial search by airport security personnel, only the information attributable to that additional search would require suppression. 18 As noted above, the airport security personnel legitimately viewed the money orders' volume, their undesignated/unsigned nature, and their small denominations. Detective Martin's viewing of the money orders to that same extent did not constitute an additional search under the Fourth Amendment.