Opinion ID: 392708
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: appellants' contention

Text: 11 Appellants argue that their twenty-minute detention by the DEA agents constituted an illegal arrest unsupported by probable cause, citing the Supreme Court's recent decision in Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979), and that the seizure of the narcotics being the poisonous fruit of an illegal arrest cannot withstand a fourth amendment challenge. Believing, as we do, that a conceptual difference exists between the detention of the appellants on the one hand, and the detention of their suitcases on the other, we focus on what we believe to be the real issue whether the government agents can detain the appellants' suitcases without probable cause, but upon a well founded suspicion, for twenty minutes without running afoul of the fourth amendment. We conclude that they can and that the trial court did not err in refusing to suppress such evidence.