Opinion ID: 777310
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Airport Search(es) and Seizure(s)

Text: 32 We begin with some preliminary remarks delineating the scope of our inquiry. First, claimant does not contest the propriety of the initial opening of his briefcase by airport security personnel after they were unable to view the contents as it passed through the scanner. Nor does the claimant contend that, if the seizure of the briefcase of money orders at LaGuardia was proper, either the subsequent canine sniff by Brent or the examination by Inspector Callery constituted separate searches that required either additional probable cause or a warrant. Nor does claimant contend that, if none of the evidence admitted below is suppressed, the government did not have sufficient probable cause for forfeiture. Claimant's arguments, therefore, rise or fall on the constitutionality under the Fourth Amendment of (1) the detention of the briefcase by airport security pending the arrival of Detective Martin; (2) the look-through of the briefcase's contents by Detective Martin; and (3) the seizure of the money orders by Martin. We address each of these in turn. 33 Before undertaking that analysis, however, we note that the government seeks to avoid the entire inquiry by arguing that Mercado had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his briefcase, because as an airline passenger he knew that he would have to expose the briefcase to scrutiny by security personnel. We have explicitly rejected this notion, see United States v. Albarado, 495 F.2d 799, 802-03 (2d Cir.1974) (search of carry-on luggage is a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment), and do so again today. The government's position would remove searches of briefcases carried by airline passengers from the ambit of the Fourth Amendment, and its protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, altogether. This position cannot be squared with the many cases examining the propriety of airport searches under the Fourth Amendment. See, e.g., United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 707, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983) (We have affirmed that a person possesses a privacy interest in the contents of personal luggage that is protected by the Fourth Amendment.). Moreover, the mere fact that airline passengers know that they must subject their personal effects to reasonable security searches does not mean that they are automatically consenting to un reasonable ones. Otherwise, the government could eliminate Fourth Amendment protections altogether merely by announcing its intentions beforehand. See Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 740 n. 5, 99 S.Ct. 2577, 61 L.Ed.2d 220 (1979) (noting that the subjective expectation inquiry would provide an inadequate index of Fourth Amendment protection where the government simply announces its intention to conduct unreasonable searches); United States v. Taborda, 635 F.2d 131, 137 (2d Cir.1980) (noting that a purely subjective test would permit the government by edict or by known systematic practice to condition the expectations of the populace in such a way that no one would have any real hope of privacy). 34
35 As noted earlier, the claimant does not contend that the airport security personnel were not permitted to search his briefcase for weapons. What he does contend, however, is that once they found none, they were required to close up the briefcase and send Mercado on his way. In other words, because only a limited search for weapons or explosives was allowed, the security personnel were required to ignore anything else that they might have found. Otherwise, claimant contends, the airport administrative search will degenerate from its limited justifications into a general exploration for evidence of criminal activity. We disagree. 36 It is well-settled that, under the plain view doctrine, law enforcement personnel may seize an item without a warrant provided that it is immediately apparent that the object is connected with criminal activity, and further provided that the officers viewed the object from a lawful vantage point — i.e., that the officers have not violated the Fourth Amendment in arriving at the place from where they can see the object. United States v. George, 975 F.2d 72, 78 (2d Cir.1992); see also Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128, 136-37, 110 S.Ct. 2301, 110 L.Ed.2d 112 (1990). 11 The determination of lawful vantage point must focus on the activity which brought the object into plain view — here, the search of the briefcase by airport security personnel. As long as the scope of that initial search comported with the Fourth Amendment — i.e., was no more intrusive than necessary to accomplish its purpose of detecting weapons or explosives —then it is of no constitutional moment that the object found was not what was sought. As the district court correctly noted, [t]hat lack of relationship always exists with regard to action validated under the `plain view' doctrine. Mercado I, 1997 WL 1068678, at  (quoting Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 325, 107 S.Ct. 1149, 94 L.Ed.2d 347 (1987)). 37 Claimant has made no plausible argument that the scope of the initial search of his bag for weapons, viewed ex ante, was impermissibly broad. He has offered no argument or evidence, for example, that the security personnel looked into areas or opened packages which could not possibly contain weapons or explosives. His argument, distilled to its essence, seems to be that the discovery of items other than weapons or explosives itself retroactively invalidates the initial search, because it indicates that the search exceeded its permissible scope. Such logic would eviscerate the plain view doctrine altogether. Moreover, in the case claimant cites in support of this contention, United States v. $124,570 U.S. Currency, 873 F.2d 1240 (9th Cir.1989), the court invalidated a seizure following an airport security search not because the search revealed evidence unrelated to the purpose of the search, but because evidence indicated that the security personnel had been given financial incentives to search more intensely than necessary for security reasons in the hope that they would find evidence of criminal wrongdoing (although there was no evidence that the security personnel had in fact so increased search intensity). See id. at 1245-47. 12 38 The remaining question with respect to the detention of the briefcase by security personnel pending Martin's arrival is whether the incriminating character of the money orders was immediately apparent. Horton, 496 U.S. at 136, 110 S.Ct. 2301. Two inquiries are subsumed by this test: First, what information about the money orders was readily apparent to the security personnel during their search for weapons — that is, without subjecting the money orders to any more searching scrutiny than necessary for the weapons search? Second, did that information give rise to a sufficient probability that the money orders represented evidence of criminal activity to justify their detention? 39 On the first question, the district court initially found, in deciding the suppression motion, that the following characteristics of the money orders were plain on [their] face to the airport security personnel conducting the initial search: their vast quantity, the fact that they were undesignated, the fact that they were unsigned, and the fact that they were issued in relatively small denominations. The district court did not, in its initial suppression ruling, adopt the finding of Magistrate Judge Gold that the three-day time span within which the money orders were issued... could readily be discerned on the face of the money orders in plain view of the investigating officers. Report and Recommendation, slip op. at 5. However, following testimony by Detective Martin at the probable cause hearing that he knew at the time that the money orders were bought on maybe two days, 90 percent of them, three days total, Prob. Cause Tr. 19, the district court made the further finding, in readdressing the Fourth Amendment issue, that Martin knew at the time, as we know now, that [the money orders] were purchased over a period of only three days. Tr. 12. 40 It is true that the validity of an arrest or search can be supported by evidence which was adduced at trial even though this was not presented at the pretrial suppression hearing, United States v. Canieso, 470 F.2d 1224, 1226 (2d Cir. 1972). We do not, however, rely on the district court's later finding regarding the dates of the money orders in our assessment of the propriety of the airport security personnel's detention under the plain view doctrine, primarily because the district court did not specifically find that the dates of the money orders were immediately apparent. Indeed, the district court noted that Martin determined the dates only after he examined the money orders on the spot with sufficient care. 13 Tr. 8. Further, according to Inspector Callery, at least as to the postal money orders the date of purchase was indicated by one block of digits (in YYMMDD format) among several running along the top of the money order. Prob. Cause Tr. 52. This would make it rather doubtful that either the airport security personnel or Detective Martin could have discerned the three-day purchase period of the money orders without such careful examination — an examination that almost certainly would have exceeded the permissible scope of a weapons/explosives check. We therefore do not consider the purchase dates of the money orders to have been a fact immediately apparent to the airport security personnel. 41 The aforementioned findings of the district court as to what characteristics of the money orders were immediately apparent were, at least at the time of the initial suppression motion, based largely on a declaration submitted by Agent Garifo, stating that it was readily apparent to airport security personnel that the bag was filled with stacks of unsigned, undesignated money orders which ranged in denominations from $100 to $1,000. Garifo Decl. ¶ 6. Claimant asserts that it was error for the district court to refuse to hold an evidentiary hearing on this point, because his motion to suppress and supporting affidavit were `sufficiently definite, specific, detailed, and nonconjectural to enable the court to conclude that contested issues of fact going to the validity of the search [were] in question.' United States v. Pena, 961 F.2d 333, 339 (2d Cir. 1992) (quoting United States v. Licavoli, 604 F.2d 613, 621 (9th Cir.1979)). 14 42 Before the district court, claimant argued that an evidentiary hearing was necessary because there was a disputed issue as to whether it was readily apparent that the money orders were unsigned, undesignated, and in small denominations. Specifically, claimant relied on (1) the assertion that Agent Garifo's declaration was hearsay and (2) the assertion that the characteristics in question could have been determined only by closely inspecting each of the 981 money orders, thereby exceeding the permissible scope of the initial search. As to the first issue, it is well-settled that hearsay may properly be considered by a court in determining a suppression motion. 15 See United States v. Matlock, 415 U.S. 164, 172-73, 94 S.Ct. 988, 39 L.Ed.2d 242 (1974); United States v. Marchand, 564 F.2d 983, 992 n. 18 (2d Cir.1977); Fed.R.Evid. 104(a), 1101(d)(1). The second argument was patently without merit, as the district court never purported to find it immediately apparent that each of the 981 money orders had the aforementioned characteristics, nor quite obviously would such a showing have been necessary. Moreover, the second argument highlights quite nicely the failure of claimant to meet his burden of production under Pena : he submitted no evidence (nor even argued) either that the airport security personnel had actually inspected each of the 981 money orders (thus invalidating the initial search) or, alternatively, that under the scope of the search actually undertaken, the money orders' key characteristics did not come into plain view. Claimant failed to produce any such evidence despite the fact that he was a witness to the search and could have competently testified to either fact. 43 On appeal, claimant's argument is slightly different. Rather than assert a dispute as to the immediately apparent nature of the incriminating characteristics of the money orders, claimant now asserts that there was a dispute as to whether the airport security personnel actually noticed these characteristics. Having failed clearly to present this argument to the district court, the claimant may not now be heard to complain about the court's failure to hold an evidentiary hearing on the point. See Pena, 961 F.2d at 339 (evidentiary hearing required if  the moving papers ... enable the court to conclude that contested issues of fact going to the validity of the search are in question) (emphasis added); cf. DiRussa v. Dean Witter Reynolds Inc., 121 F.3d 818, 822 (2d Cir. 1997) (expressing the general principle that we will confin[e] our review on appeal to the issue as framed by [the parties] in the district court). 44 In any event, we find claimant's new contention to be without merit. If by noticed the claimant means to draw a distinction between the incriminating characteristics having been immediately apparent to the airport security personnel during their search and these characteristics having been actually perceived by those conducting the search, we decline to make such a distinction. At least in the absence of evidence that the officer conducting the search was under some disability or that his normal powers of perception were blocked by some obstruction or hindrance, it seems fairly clear that if a characteristic is immediately apparent to those conducting a search, then it necessarily follows that they noticed that characteristic. If, instead, by noticed the claimant means whether the airport security personnel considered the relevant characteristics of the money orders to be incriminating — i.e., whether they subjectively considered those characteristics to be legally relevant — we reject the argument. Determination of probable cause (or reasonable suspicion) is an objective assessment — namely, would the facts available to the officer at the moment of the seizure or the search `warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief' that the action taken was appropriate, Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21-22, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) (quoting Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 162, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925)) — so that a search or seizure may be upheld if the facts known to the officer support the requisite level of suspicion even if the officer does not subjectively believe them so to do. See Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 507, 1103 S.Ct. 1319, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983) (plurality opinion) (fact that officers proceeded on the belief that they had only reasonable suspicion did not preclude a later finding that they had probable cause); cf. United States v. Jackson, 652 F.2d 244, 250 (2d Cir.1981) (officer's subjective belief that a stop had become an arrest, thus requiring probable cause, was irrelevant; objective facts indicated that no arrest had yet occurred). Thus, the fact that there was no evidence as to the subjective understanding, on the part of the airport security personnel, of the legal significance of the money orders does not affect this court's ability to determine the propriety of the money orders' detention by those personnel pending the arrival of Detective Martin. 45 We now turn to whether the immediately apparent characteristics of the money orders — their volume, along with the fact that they were unsigned, undesignated, and in relatively small denominations — were of a sufficiently incriminating nature to validate their detention pending Detective Martin's arrival. The district court held that these facts gave the police probable cause to believe the money orders were evidence of a structuring violation, a conclusion which we address (and in which we ultimately concur) below, but did not discuss whether the airport security personnel likewise had probable cause. No doubt this was due to the fact, mentioned earlier, that the district court did not treat the detention pending Detective Martin's arrival as a separate detention requiring justification. 46 As pointed out above, the determination of probable cause is an objective one, to be made without regard to the individual officer's subjective motives or belief as to the existence of probable cause. An officer's experience and training, however, are to be taken into account such that, as the leading treatise on search and seizure law puts it, a trained and experienced officer will have probable cause in circumstances when the layman would not. 2 LaFave, Search and Seizure § 3.2(c); see United States v. Price, 599 F.2d 494, 501 (2d Cir.1979) (circumstances surrounding a stop `are to be viewed through the eyes of a reasonable and cautious police officer on the scene, guided by his experience and training') (quoting United States v. Oates, 560 F.2d 45, 61 (2d Cir.1977)). We recently demonstrated the effect of this principle in United States v. Colon, 250 F.3d 130 (2d Cir. 2001), in which we held that facts which would have undisputedly given rise to reasonable suspicion sufficient to support a stop-and-frisk had they been known by an officer, see id. at 134, nevertheless failed to rise to that level when known only to a civilian 911 operator with no demonstrated training in criminal law or procedure, see id. at 137. There was no evidence below of any particular training on the part of airport security personnel, nor are we inclined to presume that they had any specialized training or knowledge — at least not with respect to anything beyond the weapons screen they were hired to perform and certainly not with respect to the intricacies of structuring or narcotics violations. We are skeptical, therefore, of any claim that the airport security personnel had probable cause to detain claimant's briefcase. 47 We need not decide this question, however, because we hold that probable cause was not required. It is true that in Hicks, the Supreme Court held that probable cause was generally required to validate a seizure under the plain view doctrine. 480 U.S. at 326-27, 107 S.Ct. 1149. That opinion also cautioned, however, that the Court was not saying that a seizure can never be justified on less than probable cause, id. at 327, 107 S.Ct. 1149, and specifically referred to the Court's earlier decision in United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983), as describing one situation in which probable cause was not required. Place provides the appropriate guidance here. 48 In Place, the Supreme Court took the principle underlying Terry v. Ohio — that a brief, investigatory detention of a person could be justified without probable cause — and applied that principle to detentions of personal effects. See Place, 462 U.S. at 702, 103 S.Ct. 2637. Specifically, the Court held that 49 when an officer's observations lead him reasonably to believe that a traveler is carrying luggage that contains narcotics, the principles of Terry and its progeny would permit the officer to detain the luggage briefly to investigate the circumstances that aroused his suspicion, provided that the investigative detention is properly limited in scope. 50 Id. at 706, 103 S.Ct. 2637; see also United States v. Hooper, 935 F.2d 484, 492-98 (2d Cir.1991) (upholding a brief detention of an airport traveler's luggage on reasonable suspicion that the luggage contained narcotics pending an investigation to establish probable cause). The Court also noted that if this investigative procedure is itself a search requiring probable cause, the initial seizure of [the] luggage for the purpose of subjecting it to [that investigative procedure] — no matter how brief — could not be justified on less than probable cause. Place, 462 U.S. at 706, 103 S.Ct. 2637. (We address this point below in discussing Martin's look-through of the briefcase.) 51 In Place the defendant's luggage had been taken to an undisclosed location and subjected to a dog sniff some ninety minutes later. The Court found it clear that the police conduct here exceeded the permissible limits of a Terry -type investigative stop. Id. at 709, 103 S.Ct. 2637. The Court relied on (1) the length of the detention, (2) the lack of diligence of the police in pursuing their investigation, and (3) the failure accurately to inform the defendant of where they were taking his luggage, how long it might be, and what arrangements would be made for returning the luggage should the officers' suspicion fail to hold up. See id. at 709-10, 103 S.Ct. 2637. 52 These factors make it similarly clear that the detention of claimant's briefcase in this case could be justified by reasonable suspicion alone. The district court found, based on Detective Martin's testimony, that it took the detective only two minutes to respond to investigate the briefcase, demonstrating both diligence and the minimal nature of the detention. Tr. 7. 16 The briefcase remained, along with the claimant, at the baggage screening point the entire time. In short, so long as the airport security personnel had reasonable suspicion arising from the facts known to them, the brief detention of claimant's luggage was proper in order to allow trained police officers to quickly confirm or dispel [that] suspicion. Place, 462 U.S. at 702, 103 S.Ct. 2637. 53 Finally, we have no difficulty finding that, even treating the airport security personnel as laymen, they had such reasonable suspicion. Even to the layman, untrained in the ways of narcotics traffickers and the details of currency transaction reporting requirements, the presence at the airport of a person carrying a briefcase full of blank money orders of small (at least relative to the total value of the money orders) denominations would give rise to a well-founded suspicion that some kind of criminal activity [was] afoot. Terry, 392 U.S. at 30, 88 S.Ct. 1868. Detaining the briefcase briefly so that trained law enforcement personnel could investigate further was completely proper, especially when one considers that failing to have done so would likely have resulted in claimant and his money orders disappearing altogether. Under the circumstances, we find the detention of the briefcase by airport security to be well within the bounds of reasonableness as commanded by the Fourth Amendment.
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.
56 Finally, we turn to the seizure by Detective Martin at the airport. We first note that, unlike the seizure by the airport security personnel, the seizure by Detective Martin cannot be justified as a brief investigatory detention supportable by less than probable cause. This is because, if probable cause did not exist at the time Martin seized the briefcase at LaGuardia, no new information supporting probable cause became available until the positive alert by Brent the next day, and the detention in the interim could not possibly be justified on a Terry -type rationale. See Place, 462 U.S. at 709, 103 S.Ct. 2637 (ninety-minute length of detention alone precludes finding of reasonableness). Thus, we must examine whether the facts as known to Detective Martin at the airport constitute probable cause. We hold that they do. 57 Claimant asserts that probable cause did not exist until the canine alert, relying on the proposition that a large sum of money is not by itself sufficient to establish probable cause. Were the funds here currency and the only possible violation one of narcotics or narcotics-related money laundering, we might very well agree. See United States v. $121,100.00 in United States Currency, 999 F.2d 1503, 1506 (11th Cir.1993) (Absent some evidence connecting specifically to illegal drugs even a large sum of money, there is no reasonable basis for believing that the money is substantially linked to an illegal exchange of a controlled substance. As such, currency by itself is insufficient to establish probable cause.) (citation omitted). Like the district court, we find that at the time of the seizure there was probable cause with regard to a structuring violation. Relative to that violation, the fact that these were money orders, not currency, distinguishes this case from the ones cited by claimant. 58 Currency — that is to say, cash — is of course accrued by all types of legitimate businesses, often in small denominations, and though for a business to choose to keep (and transport) over half a million dollars of its proceeds in cash form would be, to say the least, foolhardy, it would not necessarily be indicative of criminality — foolishness not yet being a crime. The reason that transporting so much money as cash might be deemed folly, of course, is lack of security — cash being fully utilizable by anyone into whose possession it comes. That lack of security is why wiser persons might choose to convert their cash into more secure instruments which cannot be utilized by others if they become lost or stolen. 59 Money orders can be one of these more secure instruments, but as the district court correctly concluded, if one has half a million dollars worth of cash to convert into more secure monetary instruments, one could much more easily have obtained, say, a cashier's check for the entire amount — if the one who obtains them is not concerned about these reporting requirements or recordkeeping requirements. Tr. 13. Preferring to use money orders of such small denomination is not only more time-consuming but more expensive, in that there is some charge for each money order. For these reasons, therefore, money orders are quite different from cash, and we agree with the district court that the facts legitimately available to Detective Martin — a large sum of money orders, undesignated, unsigned, and in small denominations—gave rise to probable cause that the money orders were obtained for the purpose of evading currency transaction reporting requirements and were thus evidence of a structuring violation. This probable cause, in turn, gave Detective Martin the authority to seize the money orders pursuant to the plain view doctrine. There being no Fourth Amendment violation, the district court properly denied claimant's motion to suppress.
60 As indicated initially, claimant makes no serious challenge to the presence of probable cause for forfeiture if we reject, as we have, his Fourth Amendment claims. For the sake of completeness, however, we affirm the district court's findings that the government met its burden to establish probable cause for forfeiture on all three of its theories — structuring, narcotics proceeds, and money laundering. For purposes of establishing probable cause for forfeiture, the government may rely upon any evidence it has lawfully obtained up to the time of the forfeiture trial. See 4492 S. Livonia Rd., 889 F.2d at 1268. Thus, in addition to the facts discussed in the Fourth Amendment probable cause determination, the government was entitled to rely upon (1) the fact that the money orders were purchased over an approximately three-day period; (2) the fact that they were purchased from some forty-nine locations; (3) the positive narcotics alert by Brent; (4) the affidavit by Agent Mazza regarding his undercover conversations in 1993 with claimant in which claimant asserted his control of large amounts of narcotics; and (5) claimant's 1999 narcotics conviction. 61 As to the structuring violation, the probable cause we have already held existed based on the facts known at the time of seizure is of course only enhanced by the additional facts of the dates and locations of purchase, which not only indicated the extraordinary effort which went into purchasing the money orders in such small denominations but also eliminated any possibility that the money orders had been received in those denominations in the ordinary course of business. As for the narcotics trafficking and money-laundering allegations, the required nexus between the seized property and illegal drug activity, Daccarett, 6 F.3d at 56, was sufficiently established by, inter alia, the fact that Brent alerted positively to the money orders for narcotics residue even though they had been issued at most three to four days prior (and, unlike currency, could not have picked up that residue from general circulation). In sum, the government met its burden of establishing probable cause for forfeiture. 62