Opinion ID: 326898
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Operation of the Checkpoint.

Text: 16 We have in the record before us only summary accounts of the three stops involved in the instant appeals. But to decide the validity of the inspection warrant and the checkpoint operations it authorizes, we must also consider the routine procedures to which innocent ordinary travelers are subjected. To that end, counsel have supplemented the record in these cases with the official reporter's transcript of hearings held in the Southern District of California to assess the impact of Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 1973, 413 U.S. 266, 93 S.Ct. 2535, 37 L.Ed.2d 596, on the checkpoint operations. United States v. Baca, S.D.Cal., 1973, 368 F.Supp. 398, summarizes the findings made after those hearings. In issuing the inspection warrant which is now before us, the magistrate expressly relied on the Baca court's findings and on the reporter's transcript in that case. We have reviewed that transcript 4 as well as the records in the instant appeals to help us understand what goes on at the San Clemente checkpoint. 17 Although the San Clemente checkpoint has been the subject of previous cases before this court, 5 we think it important to summarize here just how the checkpoint works. As the enforcement arm of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the border patrol operates what it calls a permanent fixed immigration checkpoint on Interstate 5 near San Clemente. Actually the checkpoint is five miles south of San Clemente at San Onofre, between San Onofre State Beach on the west and Camp Pendleton Marine Base on the east. The checkpoint is 62 miles by air and 66 miles by road from the international border with Mexico. Baca, supra, 368 F.Supp. at 410. Interstate 5 is an eight lane freeway, the principal highway connecting California's two largest cities, Los Angeles and San Diego. The route is heavily traveled. According to the affidavit of Robert D. McCord submitted in support of the application for the inspection warrant, on the average 1200, and at peak times over 2500, cars pass through the checkpoint per hour. Clerk's Record in No. 74-2462 at 91, 93. Simple multiplication of the hourly average reveals that over ten and one-half million cars pass the checkpoint in a year. The overwhelming majority of persons traveling north through the checkpoint are lawfully within the country; indeed, most of them are not aliens and have not crossed the border at all. 18 When in operation, the checkpoint operates as a roadblock causing all northbound vehicles, which are generally traveling at freeway speeds, to slow or come to at least a fleeting stop for an immigration check. Baca, supra, 368 F.Supp. at 411, 415. The Baca court described the physical layout of the checkpoint as follows: 19 Approximately one mile south of the checkpoint is a large black on yellow sign with flashing yellow lights over the highway stating ALL VEHICLES, STOP AHEAD, 1 MILE. Three-quarters of a mile further north are two black on yellow signs suspended over the highway with flashing lights stating WATCH FOR BRAKE LIGHTS. At the checkpoint, which is also the location of a State of California weighing station, are two large signs with flashing red lights suspended over the highway. These signs each state STOP HERE U.S. OFFICERS. Placed on the highway are a number of orange traffic cones funneling traffic into two lanes where a Border Patrol agent in full dress uniform, standing behind a white on red STOP sign checks traffic. Blocking traffic in the unused lanes are official U.S. Border Patrol vehicles with flashing red lights. In addition, there is a permanent building which houses the Border Patrol office and temporary detention facilities. There are also floodlights for nighttime operation. 368 F.Supp. at 410-11. 20 The officer at the point (between lanes of traffic) surveys the oncoming cars, looking for those which in border patrol parlance break the pattern of the traffic. Baca, supra, 368 F.Supp. at 406. Sometimes border patrol agents stationed further south along the highway have by radio alerted the agent at the point to give special scrutiny to a particular approaching vehicle. Baca R.T. 202. In any event, the agent at the point makes a purely discretionary decision whether to wave each auto through the checkpoint after it has slowed or come to a fleeting stop. Id. If for some reason a vehicle arouses the officer's suspicion, he will divert it to a secondary inspection area where the travelers will be detained for inquiry by other agents into their citizenship and immigration status. Id.; Baca, supra, 368 F.Supp. at 406-07. 21 Ideally the border patrol would like to operate the checkpoint every day around the clock. Baca R.T. 177, 293. Historically, however, the border patrol has operated the San Clemente checkpoint for only 65 to 70 percent of the time. Baca, supra, 368 F.Supp. at 410. Inclement weather and peak traffic make the checking operations hazardous, and the border patrol often voluntarily closes the checkpoint. 6 At other times manpower shortages may force the border patrol to suspend checking. The checkpoint requires at least five officers when traffic is light and seven to eight when traffic is heavier. Baca R.T. 431. During the roughly eight-day period of checkpoint operations summarized by the return on the instant warrant of inspection, the border patrol operated the San Clemente checkpoint for only about 124 hours out of 199 total hours, or slightly under two-thirds of the time. (Clerk's Record in No. 74-2462 at 75.) 22 As required by the magistrate's order, the return on the warrant of inspection provides a statistical summary of checkpoint activity. From 4:00 p. m. on June 22, 1974, through approximately 11:00 p. m. on June 30, an estimated 145,960 vehicles passed through the San Clemente traffic checkpoint during the 124 hours and ten minutes of checking operations. We may assume that all of these cars were forced to interrupt their normal progress and slow to or nearly to at least a momentary halt for scanning by the officer at the point. Of these, 820 vehicles were referred to secondary for questioning regarding nationality and citizenship. Of those diverted to secondary, 202 vehicles were inspected, whatever that means. Border patrol agents found deportable aliens in plain view in 169 of the 202 vehicles. In 33 cases, all allegedly with the consent of the drivers, agents searched portions of the vehicles in which illegal aliens could be secreted. In only two of these 33 searches, agents found deportable aliens. In all, 725 deportable aliens were found in 171 vehicles as a result of checkpoint operations during the eight-day period. Affidavit of Gene E. Harris, the border patrol agent in charge of the San Clemente checkpoint, Clerk's Record in No. 74-2462 at 75-76, 79. 23 These border patrol statistics reveal that of the 145,960 vehicles passing through the checkpoint, only 171, or 0.12 percent, were found to contain deportable aliens. To be sure, it is possible that other illegal aliens, well camouflaged to avoid breaking the pattern of traffic, seeped through the checkpoint strainer, but there is no record of this. We doubt that there were many because the border patrol was overzealous by a factor of nearly five in diverting cars for secondary inspection. Of 820 cars diverted, 649 had no illegal aliens in them. 24 II. The traffic immigration checkpoint operated under the inspection warrant is unreasonable under established constitutional standards. 25 A. Almeida-Sanchez and the cases that follow it forbid warrantless checkpoint operations. 26 The cases now before us bring us to the logical, and predictable, next step in the development of search and seizure doctrine under Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 1973, 413 U.S. 266, 93 S.Ct. 2535, 37 L.Ed.2d 596, and its progeny in this circuit. In Almeida the Supreme Court held unreasonable a roving patrol immigration stop and search of an automobile where border patrol agents had neither probable cause nor a warrant. The Court did not decide the validity of temporary or permanent fixed checkpoint immigration searches. That question came before us in United States v. Bowen, 9 Cir., in banc, 1974, 500 F.2d 960, cert. granted, 1974, 419 U.S. 824, 95 S.Ct. 40, 42 L.Ed.2d 47, where we held that, in light of the principles enunciated in Almeida, fixed checkpoint searches conducted without probable cause also violate the Fourth Amendment. 27 Both Almeida and Bowen dealt with full searches, while the cases now before us involve a somewhat less intrusive stop and inquiry procedure. However, a stop of an automobile invokes Fourth Amendment protection. United States v. Larios-Montes, 9 Cir., 1974, 500 F.2d 941, 943. See Terry v. Ohio, 1968, 392 U.S. 1, 16, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889. Although we have frequently upheld automobile stops made on less than probable cause, we have also held that the Fourth Amendment requires that such stops be justified by articulable facts and circumstances which support the conclusion that the intrusion was not unreasonable. United States v. Mallides, 9 Cir., 1973,473 F.2d 859, 861. The minimal requirement to authorize a stop of a car is a founded suspicion. United States v. Larios-Montes, supra; United States v. Jaime-Barrios, 9 Cir., 1974, 494 F.2d 455, cert. denied, 417 U.S. 972, 94 S.Ct. 3178, 41 L.Ed.2d 1143; United States v. Ward, 9 Cir., in banc, 1973,488 F.2d 162; United States v. Bugarin-Casas, 9 Cir., 1973, 484 F.2d 853, cert. denied, 1974, 414 U.S. 1136, 94 S.Ct. 881, 38 L.Ed.2d 762; Wilson v. Porter, 9 Cir., 1966, 361 F.2d 412. 28 In United States v. Juarez-Rodriguez, 9 Cir., 1974, 498 F.2d 7, we held that even routine stops at the San Clemente checkpoint require a founded suspicion. 7 In United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 9 Cir., in banc, 1974, 499 F.2d 1109, cert. granted, 1974, 419 U.S. 824, 95 S.Ct. 40, 42 L.Ed.2d 48, we held that a roving patrol-type stop conducted by border patrol agents at the San Clemente checkpoint, while the checkpoint itself was not in operation, violated Fourth Amendment standards because it was not based on a founded suspicion. 29 Of course, neither Almeida nor our decisions interdict warrantless and causeless searches and seizures at the border or its functional equivalent. Although the district court in Baca, supra, concluded that the San Clemente and all other fixed checkpoints in California were functional equivalents of the border, we have since overruled that conclusion. United States v. Esquer-Rivera, 9 Cir., 1974, 500 F.2d 313 (Ocotillo checkpoint); United States v. Morgan, 9 Cir., in banc, 1974, 501 F.2d 1351 (San Clemente checkpoint); United States v. Bowen, supra (State Highway 86 checkpoint). 30 Almeida and the cases it has sired in this circuit thus establish a clear doctrinal background for the three cases now before us. The requirements of the Fourth Amendment apply with full vigor at immigration checkpoints. A stop, even a fleeting stop, is subject to Fourth Amendment protections. At least absent a warrant, the border patrol must have a founded suspicion to stop a vehicle at a checkpoint and probable cause to search it. As the government concedes, under our decisions and absent a valid warrant the border patrol cannot continue its checkpoint operations. 31 B. The inspection warrant does not legitimize the checkpoint operations. 32 The issue here is whether the warrant of inspection somehow transforms otherwise unreasonable seizures into constitutional ones. 8 We now hold that it does not. We adhere to the principles announced by the Supreme Court in Carroll v. United States, 1925, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543, which involved the search for and seizure of contraband liquor by prohibition agents and which we paraphrase as follows: 33 It would be intolerable and unreasonable if a (border patrol) agent were authorized to stop every automobile on the chance of finding (illegal aliens) and thus subject all persons lawfully using the highways to the inconvenience and indignity of such a search. Travellers may be so stopped in crossing an international boundary because of national self-protection reasonably requiring one entering the country to identify himself as entitled to come in, and his belongings as effects which may be lawfully brought in. But those lawfully within the country, entitled to use the public highways, have a right to free passage without interruption or search unless there is known to a competent official, authorized to search, probable cause for believing that their vehicles are carrying contraband (,) illegal merchandise (, or illegal aliens). 34 Id. at 153-54, 45 S.Ct. at 285. Accord, Almeida, supra, 413 U.S. at 274-75, 93 S.Ct. 2535; Bowen, supra, 500 F.2d at 963; Brignoni, supra, 499 F.2d at 1111. 35 Federal agents cannot constitutionally stop automobiles systematically or randomly on the chance of discovering something illegal. United States v. Mallides, 9 Cir., 1973, 473 F.2d 859, 860. Although the inspection warrant and its supporting affidavits contain conclusory allegations of probable cause to believe that the immigration laws are being violated at the San Clemente checkpoint, that is not sufficient. These are not specific and articulable facts which would justify the stopping of the defendants' cars in these cases. In practical effect the warrant purports to authorize precisely the unconstitutional conduct we condemned in Bowen, Juarez-Rodriguez, and Brignoni-Ponce. 36 Search warrants provide no substitute for probable cause. The Fourth Amendment states that no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Thus, although the standard of probable cause may in some cases be a flexible one as discussed below in connection with administrative inspections, the root concept of a search warrant is that it will provide a second level of protection, the interposition of the mediating judgment of a neutral and detached magistrate, to bolster the basic protection of requiring probable cause to justify an intrusion on Fourth Amendment interests. 9 See United States v. United States District Court, 1972, 407 U.S. 297, 316, 92 S.Ct. 2125, 32 L.Ed.2d 752. 37 The warrant before us fails to provide either level of protection. As already noted, the warrant is not based on any probable cause or even founded suspicion focussed on any particular individual or vehicle. Nor does the warrant interpose the mediating judgment of a magistrate because the warrant is a blanket authorization for border patrol agents to stop all cars and to detain for interrogation certain cars at their discretion. They, not the magistrate, make the decision. As the Supreme Court noted in Aguilar v. Texas, 1964, 378 U.S. 108, 111, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 1512, 12 L.Ed.2d 723: 38 Although the reviewing court will pay substantial deference to judicial determinations of probable cause, the court must still insist that the magistrate perform his neutral and detached function and not serve merely as a rubber stamp for the police. 39 Here the magistrate has not performed his neutral and detached function. He could not possibly be more than a rubber stamp. Because the warrant delegates too much discretion to border patrol agents who may, under the warrant, detain anyone driving north on the highway, the intrusion is not buffered by the specific mediating judgment of a magistrate. Nor is the warrant saved by its authorization to stop all traffic. Absent founded suspicion, that too is unreasonable. In short, we can find no justification in established Fourth Amendment principles for the area warrant checkpoint system. 40