Opinion ID: 506080
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: propriety of galberth's detention and seizure.

Text: 29 Even before reaching the issue of whether Galberth voluntarily consented to the search, we must determine whether such consent was tainted by an illegal seizure. We recognize, in other words, that the taint of an unconstitutional seizure cannot be removed by the defendant's subsequent consent except where there are substantial intervening factors. see Berry, 670 F.2d at 605. So we must identify the point at which the stop of Galberth became a seizure. 30 First, not all police-citizen contact invokes the fourth amendment, Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 19 n. 16, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1879 n. 16, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), though the courts should closely scrutinize whether [the totality of] those circumstances reveal[s] the presence of coercion. Berry, 670 F.2d at 596-97. Instead, there are three levels of police-citizen encounters: 31 [ (1) ] communication between police and citizens involving no coercion or detention and therefore without the compass of the Fourth Amendment, [ (2) so-called Terry stops or] brief 'seizures' that must be supported by reasonable suspicion, and [ (3) ] full-scale arrests that must be supported by probable cause. 32 Id. at 591. See Hanson, 801 F.2d at 761. 33 At the first level, there is no element of detention or coercion, and the fourth amendment is not implicated. 7 The second level involves brief detentions or investigatory stops and requires reasonable suspicion on the part of the detaining officer, based upon specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from these facts, reasonably warrant an intrusion. 8 The third level, arrest, obviously requires the existence of probable cause. 9 34 The facts establish that Officer Griffith initially approached Galberth and made inquiries that constituted the mere communication level of contact. Hanson, 801 F.2d at 761. No coercion was shown by the officer's words or conduct, nor did he intimate that an innocent individual would certainly cooperate with police. In addition, prior to the search request, the officer's inquiries established that Galberth was attempting to hide her true identity by lying to the officers about her name. This action, coupled with her obvious anxiousness and the additional facts observed by the officers up to that point, constituted articulable facts that would reasonably warrant further inquiry by the officers. United States v. Ehlebracht, 693 F.2d 333, 336-38 (5th Cir.1982). Furthermore, she was returning from a known source city for illegal narcotics, her airline ticket was a cash one-way ticket from Florida to Oklahoma, and she admitted to having been in Miami for only twenty-four hours. Gonzales, 842 F.2d at 752-53; United States v. Elmore, 595 F.2d 1036, 1039 (5th Cir.1979), cert. denied, 447 U.S. 910, 100 S.Ct. 2998, 64 L.Ed.2d 861 (1980). 35 Officer Griffith's asking Galberth whether he could speak with her, and her subsequent consent, fall within the first level of police-citizen contact. The stop was extremely restricted in scope and was conducted in a completely non-coercive manner. After requesting to see Galberth's ticket and identification, Officer Griffith immediately returned them to her. Galberth was free to leave at any time, and in view of all the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed that she was free to leave at any time. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. at 554, 100 S.Ct. at 1877; Bengivenga, 845 F.2d at 596; Chenault, 844 F.2d at 1128-29; Zukas, 843 F.2d at 183; Gonzales, 842 F.2d at 751-52; Berry, 670 F.2d at 594-95; Elmore, 595 F.2d at 1042. 36 In Elmore, this court held that a simple stop had occurred when a DEA agent approached Elmore, identified himself, and asked to see Elmore's ticket. The court further found that the stop became a seizure when the agent removed Elmore's ticket from the immediate vicinity, but that such seizure was lawful because the inconsistencies between Elmore's identification and story and the name on the ticket provided the reasonable suspicion necessary for seizure. Id. at 1039-40. 10 37 Although the officer's request for Galberth to allow him to examine her purse and bag for narcotics may be argued to have elevated the discussion to a Terry-type detention, Gonzales, 842 F.2d at 752-53, 11 she voluntarily consented to the examination. The interview was conducted in a public area of the airport terminal, not (as in Bengivenga and Chenault ) in one of the private offices. There was no coercion or trickery on the part of the officer, and the interview was not prolonged or repetitious. The officer did nothing to lead her to believe that she had to consent to the search or that she was not free to leave. However, by the time of the search of her person, the officer had developed ample probable cause for further inquiry and a body search, even if Galberth had refused consent. Zukas, 843 F.2d at 182-83; Ehlebracht, 693 F.2d at 338; Elmore, 595 F.2d at 1040. 38 Galberth testified at trial that from the moment Griffith confronted her with the fact that he was a narcotics officer, she felt that she had to do everything he requested or that she would go to jail. However Michigan v. Chesternut, --- U.S. ----, ----, 108 S.Ct. 1975, 1980, 100 L.Ed.2d 565, acknowledges a reasonable person standard Fourth Amendment protection does not vary with the state of mind of the particular individual being approached.; Accord Bengivenga, 845 F.2d at 597 ([T]he subjective belief of the subject [is] irrelevant to the custody determination.). Her knowledge (or her ignorance) that the other two men with Griffith were also law enforcement officers is similarly irrelevant beyond her presently-argued subjective apprehension that they were not going to let her go. During the pat-down in the women's restroom, the female customs inspector stood between Galberth and the single exit, but did not physically prevent her leaving. Galberth now says she told Inspector Lovell that she did not want to be searched under her dress; nonetheless, there is no evidence of compulsion except current complaints that the female officer told her that she [the officer] had to search her dress and stockings and that in order to do that she had to pull the dress up. Galberth testified that Lovell never ordered her to do anything nor threatened her with arrest if she did not continue to cooperate. 12 39 Whether a suspect has actually been seized for purposes of the fourth amendment is determined by viewing all circumstances surrounding the incident, and determining whether a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave. United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. at 554, 100 S.Ct. at 1877. See Michigan v. Chesternut,--- U.S. at ----, 108 S.Ct. at 1979, 1980, 100 L.Ed.2d 565, ([W]e adhere to our traditional contextual approach ..., [an] objective standard looking to the reasonable man's interpretation of the conduct in question.); Immigration & Naturalization Serv. v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, 215, 104 S.Ct. 1758, 1762, 80 L.Ed.2d 247 (1948) ([Viewing] all the circumstances surrounding the incident.). In the footnote following that comment, however, the MendenhallCourt stated that in determining whether an individual has actually been seized within the meaning of the fourth amendment, the subjective intent of the DEA agent to detain or, assumedly, not to detain, is irrelevant except insofar as that [intention] may have been conveyed to the respondent. 13 Id. at 554 n. 6, 100 S.Ct. at 1877 n. 6. 40 Subjective intention to hold, with or without a belief that proper probable cause exists, was one of the four factors applied by this court before Bengivenga to determine whether an interrogation occurred in a custodial context. 14 Since Bengivenga 's abolition of the four-factor test for custody, we must place more emphasis on footnote 6 of Mendenhall. See Chesternut, --- U.S. at ---- n. 7, 108 S.Ct. at 1980 n. 7, 100 L.Ed.2d 565. For example, recognizing that the officer's car was parked immediately in front of the suspect's plane and that the officer had not returned the pilot's documents, the panel in Zukas readily conceded that 41 [I]t is clear from the facts ... [that the DEA agent] would have been most reluctant to let the plane fly away; however, his subjective intent is not important in determining whether an arrest was made and he made no statements during the investigation to indicate to Zukas that he would impede or prevent Zukas and his passenger from departing the area if they had been prepared to do so. 42 843 F.2d at 183. See Immigration & Naturalization Serv. v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, 216, 104 S.Ct. 1758, 1762-63, 80 L.Ed.2d 247 (1984) (a reasonable person would not expect detention, if he declined to answer questions or otherwise cooperate, just because immigration officials positioned agents by the door of a building, while other agents circulated through the plant asking employees about their citizenship). 43 The initial circumstances here are somewhat similar to those found in Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983). 15 There, the Court found that what had begun as a consensual inquiry in a public place had escalated into a full-scale arrest when the subject was asked to accompany law enforcement officers to a room approximately 40 feet away, adjacent to the concourse. Id. at 494, 103 S.Ct. at 1322. The subject was seen to have affirmatively consented to the warrantless search of his luggage that revealed contraband, 16 but the Court held that since the subject was, in effect, under arrest on less than probable cause at the time he consented to the search in the small enclosed area being confronted by two police officers, the consent was tainted and incapable of validating an otherwise illegal search. Id. at 501, 103 S.Ct. at 1326. Thus, Royer differs from the instant case in that the consent was given in a secluded room, and Royer's luggage and ticket had been confiscated without probable cause. 44 It is true that Officer Griffith candidly admitted that, at the time Galberth was taken into the bathroom and searched, even if they could properly detain her, he and the other agents did not have a legally sufficient probable cause to arrest her. 17 However, the existence of probable cause to arrest is largely immaterial to the question of custody. 18 If a custodial investigation had been taking place, Galberth's Miranda rights would have been implicated, but even Royer indicates Galberth suffered no constitutional assault; the Court in Royer stated that had the suspect consented to a search on the spot (in the public area of the terminal rather than in the segregated, enclosed office), the search could have been conducted with him present (in the baggage claim area where the luggage was retrieved by the officer), and any evidence recovered would have been admissible against him--despite the Miranda violation. 460 U.S. at 505, 103 S.Ct. at 1328. 45 Bengivenga does not cite Royer, but parallels its reference to consensuality and segregation throughout the majority opinion. When a suspect validly consents to interrogation or physical investigation, there may in some cases be a seizure for fourth amendment purposes, requiring probable cause, but there is not necessarily the custodial relationship that implicates Miranda rights. Gonzales, 842 F.2d at 752. 19 46 Consequently, even if the stop of Galberth transformed itself into a seizure for fourth amendment purposes, the seizure was supported by the requisite reasonable suspicion. Id. As in Elmore and Gonzales, there were inconsistencies between Galberth's identification on her ticket and her hospital card. Galberth's story that attempted to explain these inconsistencies was less than believable. Accordingly, Officer Griffith had the reasonable suspicion necessary to justify Galberth's seizure. 47 Such Terry-stops do not render a person in custody for purposes of Miranda. Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 439-40, 104 S.Ct. at 3150; Royer, 460 U.S. at 499, 103 S.Ct. at 1325; Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. at 653, 99 S.Ct. at 1396; Zukas, 843 F.2d at 182; Gonzales, 842 F.2d at 755; Elmore, 595 F.2d at 1039. See alsoMichigan v. Chesternut, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 1975, 100 L.Ed.2d 565. 48 As in Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 441-42, 104 S.Ct. at 3151, where an officer asked a motorist to step out of his car and to perform a sobriety test, simply asking passengers to step off a bus and inquiring about ownership of luggage does not render a suspect in custody. 49 Bengivenga, 845 F.2d at 599. 50