Opinion ID: 403838
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: pretext argument

Text: 26 Defendants argue that even if Piner is not controlling, we still do not have to decide whether routine document and safety inspections are permissible, because in any event this stop was illegal because it was motivated by criminal enforcement interests of the Coast Guard. Defendants base this argument on the parties' stipulation that if called and sworn as a witness Commander Chapman would testify that, 27 My written orders, instructed me to proceed south to an area approximately 100 miles west of the mouth of the Gulf of California via specified way points and return. During the patrol, as part of a general administrative plan, I was to board and inspect all United States vessels less than 200 feet in length by patrolling specific windows or corridors located at established points in the Pacific. I was thereby to attempt to interdict vessels of American registry which were involved in drug trafficking which vessels carried controlled substances destined for the United States. 28 The government concedes in its brief that one of the purposes of the administrative plan was to attempt to interdict the flow of marijuana into (the United States). The implication is that the corridors and windows of the VENTUROUS' patrol were chosen because they were areas of suspected drug trafficking. 29 We rejected a similar argument made in a different context in United States v. Goldfine, 538 F.2d 815 (9th Cir. 1976). There federal investigators used an administrative warrant to search a pharmacy under investigation for suspected violations of the Controlled Substance Act, 21 U.S.C. §§ 801 et seq. The affidavit used to obtain the administrative search warrant satisfied the statutory definition of probable cause found in 21 U.S.C. § 880(d)(1), but fell short of the traditional standard of probable cause. Defendants argued unsuccessfully that the higher standard of probable cause should have been applied because the audit in reality was a search for evidence of crime rather than an administrative search. 30 We reject the proposition that pharmacies as to which there is probable cause to suppose a violation are by that fact rendered exempt from administrative inspection and subject only to search for evidence of crime. The administrative need for and the public interest in inspection continue to provide justification apart from the obtaining of evidence of crime. 31 ... (I)f the extent of the intrusion is to be limited to an inspection under § 880(b)(1) an administrative inspection warrant upon probable cause as defined in § 880(d)(1) is all that is required. 32 Id. at 819. Goldfine was followed in United States v. Prendergast, 585 F.2d 69 (3d Cir. 1978). 33 The First Circuit has squarely rejected defendants' argument. See United States v. Arra, 630 F.2d 836 (1st Cir. 1980). There the First Circuit declined to invalidate a document and safety inspection motivated by suspicion of drug smuggling. 34 Appellants point out that the Point Warde would never have intercepted the Great Mystery had the latter not first been detected by a helicopter and identified as a suspect marijuana smuggler on the basis of a list maintained by the government. We may agree that the order to stop and board the Great Mystery was not stimulated by any primary concern over the condition of its safety gear and bilges, but we do not think the motivation for a particular boarding is relevant where, as here, an objective basis for conducting the document and safety check existed.... 35 ... We would see little logic in sanctioning such examinations of ordinary, unsuspect vessels but forbidding them in the case of suspected smugglers. Moreover, the difficulty of applying a subjective standard would be monumental.... While the instant case may be somewhat unusual in that a cutter was specially dispatched, document and safety inspections are routinely conducted by cutters on patrol, and, as is becoming apparent from the growing case law, contraband may be discovered in the course of these routine inspections. Ascertaining the real motivation or suspicions of the officer who orders any one of these numerous inspections would prove intractable. Thus, rather than looking into the minds of the officers, we will concentrate on their actions. If the search is limited in scope to checking documentation and inspecting safety equipment and conditions, it is valid. 36 Id. at 845-46. See United States v. Hayes, 653 F.2d 8, 12 (1st Cir. 1981) (quoting from Arra). 37 The Third Circuit also has declined to invalidate an otherwise properly conducted document inspection stop merely because partly motivated by suspicion of criminal behavior. See United States v. Demanett, 629 F.2d 862 (3d Cir. 1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 910, 101 S.Ct. 1347, 67 L.Ed.2d 333 (1981): 38 The defendants urge that ... the plain view fruits of the documentation verification should nevertheless be suppressed because documentation verification was a mere pretext for a criminal investigative search. Given the evidence about the EPIC check and the wireless conversations between the POINT FRANKLIN and the Cape May Coast Guard Station it is clear that Lt. Olthuis' interest in the KRISTEN JANE went beyond an inquiry as to its documentation. We assume, therefore, that the interception of that vessel had at least a dual purpose. The trial court held that if the documentation verification purpose sufficed to justify the interception the criminal investigative purpose was irrelevant. We agree, at least in cases such as this one, in which the discovery of contraband is made in the course of an inspection no more intrusive of the normally concealed parts of the vessel than was necessary for such verification. The Coast Guard has responsibility for enforcement of the penal provisions of the customs law, but it also has responsibility for enforcement of the laws requiring vessel documentation. The existence of the first responsibility in no way diminishes the second, and a documentation verification inspection was made. 39 Id. at 868-69. The Third Circuit reached this result even though defendants had produced evidence of specific instructions to Coast Guard personnel regarding how to conduct safety inspections in such a manner as to intrude into likely hiding places for contraband. 40 Support for an objective rather than a subjective test of police conduct is found in Scott v. United States, 436 U.S. 128, 98 S.Ct. 1717, 56 L.Ed.2d 168 (1978). There the Court stated that almost without exception in evaluating alleged violations of the Fourth Amendment the Court has just undertaken an objective assessment of an officer's actions in light of the facts and circumstances then known to him. Id. at 137, 98 S.Ct. at 1718 (emphasis added). A similar conclusion was reached in A. Amsterdam, Perspectives on the Fourth Amendment, 58 Minn.L.Rev. 349 (1974). Discussing the problem of potential police abuse of their power to stop and frisk, Professor Amsterdam wrote: 41 The second possible curb against abuse is to inquire into the officer's motive or purpose for conducting the stop and frisk. But surely the catch is not worth the trouble of the hunt when courts set out to bag the secret motivations of policemen in this context. A subjective purpose to do something that the applicable legal rules say there is sufficient objective cause to do can be fabricated all too easily and undetectably. Motivation is, in any event, a self-generating phenomenon: if a purpose to search for heroin can legally be accomplished only when accompanied by a purpose to search for a weapon, knowledgeable officers will seldom experience the first desire without a simultaneous onrush of the second. 42 Id. at 436-37. 43 We find the reasoning of the quoted authorities to be persuasive at least in this special context. We assume that the administrative plan which led to the stop of the GLOBE TROTTER was motivated partly by suspicion of drug smuggling. However, the stop and search had an independent administrative justification, and did not exceed in scope what was permissible under that administrative justification. Therefore, we need not consider any criminal enforcement interest the Coast Guard may have had. 44