Opinion ID: 400932
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Proof of a Border Crossing

Text: 8 Appellants argue that the search of their aircraft was not a valid border search because the government did not demonstrate with the requisite degree of certainty that the aircraft crossed the United States border. As the Fifth Circuit noted recently in United States v. Stone, 659 F.2d 569 (5th Cir. 1981), our prior border search cases have not articulated a consistent standard governing the degree of proof required to establish a border crossing. 9 Some cases have required evidence demonstrating a high degree of probability that the border has been crossed. United States v. Ivey, 546 F.2d 139, 142 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 431 U.S. 943, 97 S.Ct. 2662, 53 L.Ed.2d 263 (1977); United States v. Brennan, 538 F.2d 711, 715 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1092, 97 S.Ct. 1104, 51 L.Ed.2d 538 (1977); United States v. Adams, 569 F.2d 924, 925 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 967, 99 S.Ct. 457, 58 L.Ed.2d 426 (5th Cir. 1978). Others have held that a border crossing must be proved by a preponderance of evidence. United States v. Johnson, 588 F.2d (147) at 154; United States v. Walters, 591 F.2d 1195, 1198, n.1 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 442 U.S. 945, 99 S.Ct. 2892, 61 L.Ed.2d 317 (1979). Still others have ruled that a reasonable suspicion that the border has been crossed suffices. United States v. Fogelman, 586 F.2d 337, 343 (5th Cir. 1978). 10 United States v. Stone, supra, 659 F.2d at 573. Comparing the facts in this case to those of the above-cited cases expressing the most stringent standard of proof, we conclude that the evidence here showed with sufficient certainty that the border was crossed. 11 Appellants rely heavily on United States v. Brennan, supra, in which the Fifth Circuit held that Customs agents' search of an aircraft after its landing at the Melbourne Regional Airport in Florida was not a valid border search. The facts of Brennan have been summarized as follows: 12 In United States v. Brennan, supra, the airplane which was the subject of the search had never been seen, or known to be, outside the United States. Though it had last been seen flying in a direction that could have led it out of the country, it was not tracked past the Miami, Florida, airport area. It is true that the aircraft was not seen again until sufficient time had elapsed to permit an international flight, and that the Customs Service had a tip indicating this aircraft would be involved in smuggling drugs, but these factors were held to be insufficient to establish that the plane had been to a foreign country. Before the border search rationale is applicable, a nexus must be established between a border and the object searched. This essential ingredient was missing in Brennan. 13 United States v. Ivey, supra, 546 F.2d at 142 (citations omitted). 14 In United States v. Ivey, supra, the court distinguished Brennan and upheld the search of an airplane as a valid border search. In Ivey appellants' aircraft, prior to landing in the United States, had last been seen in South Caicos, a small island in the British West Indies. It departed that island at 3:00 p.m. one afternoon with a stated destination of Martinique (another West Indies island) but without filing a flight plan. Customs officials, who apparently had been on the lookout for the plane, were informed of its arrival at a small airport in Florida at 3:00 a.m. the following morning. After the agents checked their computer information system and discovered no record of the plane having cleared Customs anywhere else in the United States during the interim, they proceeded to search the plane. The court held these facts established with reasonable certainty that a border crossing had occurred. United States v. Ivey, supra, 546 F.2d at 142. 15 In United States v. Potter, 552 F.2d 901 (9th Cir. 1977), also cited by appellants, the Ninth Circuit addressed the degree of proof necessary to establish a border crossing in border-search cases. Although the standard adopted by that court is very stringent 6 , it upheld the search at issue as a valid border search. In Potter, Customs agents followed a plane from the El Paso International Airport to a point about 150 miles into Mexican air space. They calculated how long it would take the plane to reach its projected destination in Mexico and return to the United States, and instructed a ground radar unit to be on alert for entering aircraft for a two-hour period during which they expected the aircraft to return. Within the estimated arrival period, the radar unit detected an airplane about fifty miles south of the U. S. border travelling northward within Mexico. No flight plan for the plane had been filed. A Customs plane, guided by the radar unit, followed the aircraft from a point shortly after it crossed the border until it disappeared from the radar screen about one and a half hours later. Within half an hour, an aircraft appeared on radar and identified itself for approach to an airport in Las Vegas. When it landed Customs officers searched it. The Ninth Circuit upheld the search, reasoning that 16 (h)ere, although the agents could not have been absolutely certain, we conclude that the totality of the facts and circumstances were sufficient to warrant a firm belief in the minds of the customs agents that the aircraft which entered the United States at 3:35 A.M. on October 24 was N224G; that its first stop inside this country was McCarran Airport; and that the marijuana and aircharts discovered must have been aboard when the aircraft crossed the border. 17 United States v. Potter, supra, 552 F.2d at 907. 18 The evidence of a border crossing in this case is somewhat different in nature than that presented in previous airplane border-search cases. In the above cases, the evidentiary question centered on whether, in the absence of surveillance of a border crossing, such crossing could be inferred from the sighting of the plane at its point of departure within a limited period of time before its arrival in the United States. 7 In this case, no evidence of appellants' point of departure was introduced. Rather, the evidence of the border crossing was direct. Major Hoge testified that the alert communicated to him by the Air Force radar personnel signified that the airplane to which he was directed, namely appellants' plane, had crossed the air defense identification zone (ADIZ) without having either identified itself or filed a flight plan. 8 More importantly, he testified that he intercepted appellants' plane at a location thirty-six miles southeast of Homestead, which point he designated on a map for the court. Appellants argue that the government did not present evidence that this point was outside the U. S. border and hence did not sustain its burden of proof on the border-crossing issue. The trial judge was free to take judicial notice of the fact 9 that the point described by Major Hoge was well beyond the three-mile territorial limit that has been recognized as the border of the United States for purposes of ocean border-crossing cases. 10 Hence, we hold that the government established with reasonable certainty that appellants' plane crossed the U. S. border. 19 Appellants contend that even if a border crossing was established the government must prove that the flight originated in a foreign country. We find this argument to be without merit. In United States v. Stone, supra, 659 F.2d 569, a Fifth Circuit panel declined to require proof by the government that an entering craft has left foreign land in order to justify a search under the border-search rationale once a border crossing had been established. Id. at 573. In Stone, the defendant's plane had been monitored from a point over foreign airspace until its entry into the United States and landing at the Orlando International Airport. The plane had first been sighted in the vicinity of a reported near mid-air collision over the Andros Islands, and its identity as the plane involved in that incident was corroborated by its damaged condition as observed by government officials after its arrival. Thus, although the panel required no further proof that the plane's point of origin was foreign, the government's evidence in Stone reasonably supported an inference that the aircraft's origin was other than in the United States. 20 The broad language of Stone suggests that the question of point of origin has no bearing on the reasonableness of a search so long as a border crossing has been established. 11 We would not be prepared to uphold as a border search, however, a search of an aircraft whose known points of origin and landing were within the United States simply by virtue of the fact that the plane had passed over international waters en route. Many domestic flights necessarily transgress the boundaries between national and international airspace in travelling the most direct route between point of origin and destination. A flight from New Orleans to Miami is an obvious example, as is one from San Francisco to Honolulu. Yet there is no more justification for searching the aircraft or passengers who make such flights than there would be for searching those whose domestic flights do not happen to take them over the ocean on the way. Unlike boats, which may rendevous with foreign vessels and take on illegal passengers or cargo while in international waters, planes that pass through international airspace do not present any possibility of foreign contacts other than that presented by their actual stopping in a foreign country. 12 Hence the question of proof of a border crossing in the context of an airplane search, contrary to the dicta in Stone, cannot be wholly divorced from the issue of the plane's point of origin. Rather, the proof of the crossing must be viewed together with the other evidence to determine whether there was a substantial likelihood that the plane has come from a foreign location. 21 If the plane were a domestic commercial carrier whose point of origin could readily be ascertained by law enforcement officials through airline and air traffic control records, clearly the sole fact of a crossing through international airspace would not provide an inference that the plane had a foreign point of origin. Similarly, a private aircraft whose flight plan, having been filed in accordance with federal regulations, indicated a domestic point of origin would not be subject to a border search absent some showing that the plane had deviated from its stated course. Where, as here, however, the plane in question is shown to have pierced the air defense identification zone travelling from the southeast toward this country without having filed a flight plan or notifying U. S. government officials of its pending arrival as required by federal law, the government is entitled to draw the inference that its point of origin was foreign and accordingly to conduct a search of the plane without a warrant or any suspicion of criminal activity. The border search cases clearly establish that the government's interest in controlling who and what may enter the country outweighs the privacy interests of those who choose to travel to the United States. United States v. Ramsey, supra, 431 U.S. at 610, 97 S.Ct. at 1975. Moreover, federal regulations impose on entering aircraft a duty to identify themselves and to inform the government of their origin and intended destination. 13 A plane that crosses the border without complying with these requirements may not create a fourth amendment privacy interest by refusing to show the government that its point of origin was not foreign. If it came from outside the United States it has no fourth amendment immunity from a warrantless search; if its origin was domestic the government has provided a method by which that fact may be established, and one who fails to comply with that procedure is estopped from asserting a domestic point of origin after landing in this country.