Opinion ID: 599636
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Airport Stop and Questioning

Text: 14 Jennings claims that the evidence seized by the officers should be excluded because the seizure is tainted by the officers' violation of his Constitutional rights. Specifically, he argues that officers Bunning and Swauger are predisposed to stopping persons of color, do in fact stop persons on the basis of their race, and stopped him because he is African-American. In short, Jennings argues that the officers violated the rights guaranteed him under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 15 It is one thing to sanction suspicionless police sweeps where, in dragnet fashion, officers descend on randomly gathered groups of individuals to question them and even request permission to search their belongings. See Florida v. Bostick, 111 S.Ct. 2382, 2386 (1991); INS v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210 (1984). It is quite another matter, however, to uphold police action that targets individuals for stopping and questioning on the basis of their race or ethnicity. Such police behavior is neither random nor indiscriminate. It is particularized and discriminatory. 16 To assess the legality of airport stops and searches consented to by defendants, we undertake a three-part analysis. United States v. Garcia, 866 F.2d 147, 150 (6th Cir.1989). First, we determine whether the initial contact between the suspect and the law enforcement officer was permissible. Second, we decide whether the subsequent detention was supported by a reasonable, articulable suspicion. United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 549 (1980). Finally, we determine whether the resulting search was consented to. Garcia, 866 F.2d at 150. We begin with the initial encounter between Officers Bunning and Swauger and John Jennings. 17 When a consensual interview takes place, a seizure has yet to occur, and so the Fourth Amendment is not called into play. See Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 497 (1983); United States v. Flowers, 909 F.2d 145, 147 (6th Cir.1990); United States v. Collis, 766 F.2d 219, 221 (6th Cir.1985) (a law enforcement officer's quest for voluntarily given information does not constitute a seizure under the fourth amendment). That does not mean, however, that a consensual interview does not implicate the Fourteenth Amendment. To our knowledge no court has held that where first encounters are consensual, racial considerations are irrelevant. United States v. Taylor, 956 F.2d 572, 579 (6th Cir.1992) (en banc) (Guy, J., concurring). 18 Central to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is the prevention of official conduct discriminating on the basis of race. Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 239 (1975). Law enforcement is quintessential official conduct--the police function being one of the basic functions of government. Foley v. Connelie, 435 U.S. 291, 297 (1978). A law enforcement officer would be acting unconstitutionally were he to approach and consensually interview a person of color solely because of that person's color, absent a compelling justification. Further, evidence seized in violation of the Equal Protection Clause should be suppressed. [N]o distinction can logically be drawn between evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment and that obtained in violation of the Fourteenth. The Constitution is flouted in either case. Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 215 (1960). 2 19 Racial classifications are subject to the most exacting scrutiny; to pass constitutional muster, they must be justified by a compelling governmental interest and must be 'necessary.... to the accomplishment' of their legitimate purpose. Palmore v. Sidoti, 466 U.S. 429, 432 (1984) (citations omitted). Determining whether invidious discriminatory purpose was a motivating factor behind the officers' actions demands a sensitive inquiry into such circumstantial and direct evidence of intent as may be available. Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 266 (1977). In order to show that an equal protection violation has occurred, the defendant must show, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the officers who stopped him single out racial minorities for treatment different from the treatment given to non-minorities. The defendant could try to do this through evidence that these officers stop individuals on account of their race, or by offering statistical proof of some sort, for example about a larger population of airport narcotics officers, from which a strong inference could be made that the officers here engaged in intentional discrimination. Assuming the defendant makes such a showing, the burden then would shift to the government to rebut the presumption of unconstitutional action or to identify a compelling governmental interest for the race-based airport stops. See Arlington Heights, 429 U.S. at 270-71 n. 20. If the government did not meet this burden, then the court would be in a position to find that the defendant's equal protection rights had been violated. 20 Viewed with regard for principles of equal protection, the facts of this case are disturbing. The record reflects that Swauger, a veteran officer versed in the use of drug courier profiles, admits that half the people he stops at the Cincinnati airport are either Hispanic or Black. Joint Appendix at 140 (Officer Swauger testifying). 3 Clearly, the defendant argues, the Hispanic and Black percentages are disproportionate and suspect in light of the assumption that Blacks and Hispanics comprise far less than fifty percent of the airline passengers using the Cincinnati airport. Officer Swauger's admission casts considerable doubt on the race-neutral motivations behind the officers' stopping and questioning of defendant. Indeed, the average air traveler's experience instructs that Blacks and Hispanics comprise far less than fifty percent of all airline passengers. One therefore suspects that Officer Swauger's reasons for stopping these individuals is less likely to be inarticulable than unspeakable. Bostick, supra, at 2390 n. 1 (Marshall, J., dissenting). The particular facts relied upon by the officers for stopping Jennings do little to alleviate doubt as to the race-neutral character of the officers' actions. 21 Almost all of the reasons cited by officers Swauger and Bunning to justify their stop and questioning of the defendant relate to conduct or characteristics shared by large numbers of innocent travellers. See Reid v. Georgia, 448 U.S. 438, 441 (1980) (conduct or circumstances that describe a very large category of presumably innocent [persons] is not sufficient to constitute a reasonable suspicion). We think it not uncommon to make a wrong turn in an airport terminal after deplaning, only to catch oneself and reverse direction. Neither is it uncustomary for passengers to walk hurriedly towards the baggage claim area. Nor do we think it noteworthy for a passenger to carry a garment bag displaying an old airport luggage tag. Items such as garment bags are often checked through one trip, only to be carried on board a subsequent flight. That the bag's owner neglected to remove the airport tags from an earlier trip is inconsequential. What is more, we previously have viewed with skepticism the DEA's designation of certain cities as source cities--a classification used by DEA agents to single out particular passengers for stopping, questioning, and searching. See United States v. Andrews, 600 F.2d 563, 566-67 (6th Cir.), cert. denied sub nom. Brooks v. United States, 444 U.S. 878 (1979) ([O]ur experience with DEA agent testimony ... makes us wonder whether there exists any city in the country which a DEA agent will not characterize as either a major narcotics distribution center or a city through which drug couriers pass on their way to a major narcotics distribution center.). We cannot allow law enforcement officers to cloak what may fairly be characterized as a racist practice in a generic drug courier profile that openly targets African-Americans. Taylor, 956 F.2d at 582 (Keith, J. dissenting). 22 One's intuition in this case based upon the facts in the record is that the officers stopped and questioned John Jennings because he is African-American. Nevertheless, it is important to distinguish between intuition and proof that meets the preponderance of evidence standard. The defendant fails to show by a preponderance of the evidence that race constituted a motivating factor in the stop and questioning. The defendant was unable to show, for example, that statistically African-Americans represent a small minority of passengers deplaning in Cincinnati. Neither does he provide statistics as to the racial make-up of domestic airline passengers for the year in question, 1990. 4 In the absence of judicially noticeable facts which would lend support to the defendant's assumption that Officer Swauger's stop-and-questioning practices impose unequal burdens on African-Americans and Hispanics, the defendant's equal protection claim cannot succeed.