Court Opinion

ID: 9486521
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:51:08.104592+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:46.357499
License: Public Domain

PAUL KELLY, Jr., Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the court’s opinion, with the exception of overruling the statement in United States v. Dimick, 990 F.2d 1164, 1166 (10th Cir.1993), that private sleeper cars on passenger trains can be comparable to hotel rooms where an occupant enjoys a heightened expectation of privacy. Ct.Op. at 1504. Dimick is correct and faithful to circuit precedent when taken in context. Dimick involved a search of a private sleeper car without consent or probable cause and followed United States v. Bloom, 975 F.2d 1447, 1453 n. 6 (10th Cir.1992), which expressly indicated that a higher expectation of privacy in a train compartment would have relevance in *1507the search context. This case involves a seizure, with a different analytical framework. See Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, -, 111 S.Ct. 2382, 2389, 115 L.Ed.2d 389 (1991). While I agree with the court that location is not determinative of whether an encounter is consensual or a seizure, Ct.Op. at 1503-04, I respectfully dissent from going further and using the statement in Dimick, which pertains to searches, as an opportunity to say, be it search or seizure, that an occupant cannot have a comparable level of privacy in a compartment that one would have in a hotel or motel room. To do so is inappropriate, I believe, because the expectation of privacy issue, as it pertains to searches, simply is not before us in this seizure case.