Opinion ID: 780526
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Galloway's Miranda Rights

Text: 12 We review a district court's ruling on a motion to suppress through a mixed standard of review. Findings of fact supporting the court's decision are reversed only if they are clearly erroneous. The court's final determination as to the reasonableness of the search is a question of law reviewed de novo. United States v. Harris, 255 F.3d 288, 291 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 966, 122 S.Ct. 378, 151 L.Ed.2d 288 (2001); Knox County Educ. Ass'n v. Knox County Bd. of Educ., 158 F.3d 361, 371 (6th Cir.1998). When the district court has denied the motion to suppress, we review all evidence in a light most favorable to the Government. United States v. Garza, 10 F.3d 1241, 1245 (6th Cir.1993). 13 Galloway claims that any statements made by him to Vaughn should be suppressed because they were obtained in violation of Miranda. Miranda warnings are necessary only if the defendant is subjected to a custodial interrogation. Miranda, 384 U.S. at 477, 86 S.Ct. 1602. Accordingly, Galloway argues that he was in custody when Vaughn was performing the secondary inspection. 14 Whether a person is in custody for Miranda purposes is determined by neither the perception of the defendant nor of the police. It is determined by the objective perception of a reasonable man in the defendant's shoes. Stansbury v. California, 511 U.S. 318, 323, 114 S.Ct. 1526, 128 L.Ed.2d 293 (1994). The standard is perhaps best stated another way: The test must be not what the defendant himself, as a possessor of drugs at the time of his detention, thought, but what a reasonable man, innocent of any crime, would have thought had he been in the defendant's shoes. United States v. McKethan, 247 F.Supp. 324, 328 (1965) (emphasis added); see also Coates v. United States, 413 F.2d 371, 373 (D.C.Cir.1969); United States v. Coleman, 450 F.Supp. 433, 439 (E.D.Mich.1978). We believe the standard is more accurately stated this way because a reasonable guilty person will always perceive his situation as coercive. 15 First, it is necessary to explain the customs procedures to which Galloway was subject. According to the U.S. Customs Service, every passenger who arrives in the United States on an international flight, whether he is a United States citizen, alien, or foreign national, is subject to cursory screening (primary inspection). The passenger is usually asked questions regarding his trip, including the countries he has visited, any merchandise he has brought back, and the value of such merchandise. His answers are checked against his customs declaration form, and usually he is sent on his way. However, a portion of travelers are held over for secondary inspection. An inspector will recommend a traveler for secondary inspection for several reasons — for instance, if the traveler is suspected of carrying narcotics. Moreover, a secondary inspection may be ordered if the inspector suspects a traveler owes customs duties, or has undeclared, commercial, or prohibited merchandise. Furthermore, the U.S. Customs Service has developed a program called Compliance Examination (COMPEX), in which it randomly selects additional travelers for secondary inspection based on no suspicion whatsoever. During secondary inspection, the passenger is asked more detailed questions about his trip and may have his bag and body searched. The procedure lasts a few minutes and if nothing is found, the traveler is free to go. See U.S. CUSTOMS SERVICE, WHY U.S. CUSTOMS CONDUCTS EXAMINATIONS, at http://www. customs.ustreas.gov/travel/examinations.htm [hereinafter Customs Website ]. 16 Under 19 U.S.C. § 1582, the U.S. Customs Service has the authority to subject every international traveler to a secondary inspection, but it does not do so because resources are limited. See Customs Website. As opposed to jailhouse interrogations and other situations we have held custodial, there is no probable cause required for the Customs Service to detain a traveler for a secondary inspection. See 19 U.S.C. § 1582; cf. Miranda, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (involving defendants already placed under arrest). Its power to search is vested in the voluntariness of the traveler's attempt to re-enter the country. United States v. Ramsey, 431 U.S. 606, 619, 97 S.Ct. 1972, 52 L.Ed.2d 617 (1977); see also United States v. Scheer, 600 F.2d 5, 6 (1979). [E]vents which might be enough to signal `custody' away from the border will not be enough to establish `custody' in the context of entry into the country. United States v. Moya, 74 F.3d 1117, 1120 (11th Cir.1996). 17 We have held that routine customs inspections are non-custodial and do not require the reading of Miranda rights. In United States v. Ozuna, 170 F.3d 654 (6th Cir.1999), at a routine Canadian border stop, inspectors asked the defendant questions in an attempt to determine his identity. Ozuna lied and presented a false identity. A search of the defendant ultimately produced some drugs, and the statements Ozuna had made were introduced against him. We held the statements admissible because a primary customs inspection is not custodial since all travelers are subject to the same treatment and the reasonable man views it as a cursory requirement of re-entering the country. Id. at 659. 18 The district court found that Ozuna controls here. However, Galloway argues that Ozuna applies only to primary customs inspections, and does not speak to more particularized secondary inspections like the one to which Galloway was subjected. Galloway argues that the accusatorial and focused nature of a secondary inspection goes well beyond what the reasonable traveler would consider routine or non-custodial. However, the fact that an interrogation is not random, but focused on a particular defendant, does not automatically render it custodial. See Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492, 494, 97 S.Ct. 711, 50 L.Ed.2d 714 (1977) (per curiam) (stating [n]or is the requirement of warnings to be imposed simply because ... the questioned person is one whom the police suspect); Beckwith v. United States, 425 U.S. 341, 346-47, 96 S.Ct. 1612, 48 L.Ed.2d 1 (1976) (stating it was the compulsive aspect of custodial interrogation, and not the strength or content of the government's suspicions at the time the questioning was conducted, which led the Court to impose the Miranda requirements with regard to custodial questioning). The totality of the circumstances must be examined to determine whether there was a formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement of the degree associated with a formal arrest. Thompson v. Keohane, 516 U.S. 99, 112, 116 S.Ct. 457, 133 L.Ed.2d 383 (1995). 19 We find no distinction between primary and secondary inspections anywhere in the customs statutes or their regulations. This distinction is merely a functional aspect of the particular nomenclature used by the U.S. Customs Service. As evidenced by the Customs Service's own business practices, the secondary inspection is no less a matter of course and no less routine than the primary inspection. Accordingly, we see no reason not to extend the rule in Ozuna to apply to all customary border stops, primary or secondary. 20 Regardless, Galloway argues that secondary inspection, as it is applied, is coercive because the traveler is not free to leave. However, although we had once stated the Miranda standard as being whether a defendant feels he is free to go, see United States v. Salvo, 133 F.3d 943, 948 (6th Cir.1998), Ozuna demonstrates that this standard is not correct. There, we held that primary inspections are not custodial, although the traveler is not free to go. Ozuna, 170 F.3d at 659. 21 Even if a secondary inspection in general is not custodial, Galloway claims that his particular detention was, because the circumstances surrounding his inspection made it akin to an arrest. However, the questions Vaughn asked Galloway were indicative of a routine customs inquiry, no different than those that would have been asked at primary inspection. Vaughn asked, in order: 22 (1) To which countries did you travel? 23 (2) Did you go to Germany, Amsterdam, or Holland? (3) If you haven't been to Holland, why do you have guilders? 6 24 (4) What did you purchase on your trip? 25 (5) Is this sweatshirt with Amsterdam written across the front the one you purchased? 26 (6) If you were not in Holland, then why are there train tickets from Brussels to Amsterdam in your bag? 27 We find nothing coercive about this line of questioning. Moreover, Galloway was standing the entire time and in plain view of other travelers, and not taken to a room or another part of the airport. 28 We further find no problem with the length of Galloway's detention. First, the detention was only seven to ten minutes in duration. This seven to ten minutes included not only Vaughn's questioning of Galloway, but of Kirsch as well. Regardless, even if the detention had been longer, we held in Ozuna that a defendant loses his expectation of brevity when he prolongs his non-custodial detention by lying. Ozuna, 170 F.3d at 659. Ozuna lied to customs inspectors about his identity, thereby extending the duration of his detention, while they ascertained his identity. Likewise, Galloway lied to Vaughn about the countries he had visited, thereby exposing himself to the possibility of a longer detention while inspectors searched for the truth. 29 Galloway lastly argues that his particular inspection was custodial because it was initiated by a canine alert. The Ninth Circuit has addressed this issue and found that the existence of probable cause is the determining factor as to when Miranda rights are needed at a secondary customs inspection: 30 We hold that the warning required in Miranda need not be given to one who is entering the United States unless and until the questioning agents have probable cause to believe that the person questioned has committed an offense, or the person questioned has been arrested, whether with or without probable cause. It is at that point, in border cases, that the investigation has focused in the Miranda sense. 31 Chavez-Martinez v. United States, 407 F.2d 535, 539 (9th Cir.1969). We also believe this to be the proper standard. A canine alert, however, does not constitute probable cause in a completely random setting, such as an airport, because of its questionable accuracy. United States v. Cook, 904 F.2d 37, 1990 WL 70703, at  (6th Cir.1990) (per curiam) (citing United States v. Fernandez, 772 F.2d 495, 498 n. 2 (9th Cir.1985)) (stating that the mere fact that a dog has `hit' on a piece of baggage or cargo does not, in the absence of any factors supporting its reliability, establish probable cause). Customs officials could not have arrested Galloway solely on the basis of the canine alert, absent a finding of drugs. Vaughn discontinued the questioning when he found ecstacy in Kirsch's coat. We believe that this is when probable cause existed for an arrest. The Defendants were then arrested and properly read their Miranda rights. 32 Accordingly, even though Galloway may have personally been anxious about his secondary inspection in light of the fact that he was smuggling some 10,000 pills of ecstacy, we find that a reasonable man would have considered it rather routine airport security procedures, not at all akin to an arrest. If we were to require Miranda warnings before the existence of probable cause, we would be requiring every customs inspector to read Miranda rights to each of the thousands of travelers subjected to primary or secondary inspection, even though the detention is often initiated by nothing more than the origin of the traveler's flight, if not totally at random. 33 In sum, we find that the nature of the secondary customs inspection is uncoercive and non-custodial, and remains such unless and until probable cause exists. The vast majority of inspections lead to nothing, even when initiated by a canine alert. The inspector asks routine questions, performs a routine bag and body search and usually sends the traveler on his way. Accordingly, we affirm the decision of the district court and find there was no Miranda violation.