Court Opinion

ID: 9488190
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:38:50.524529+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:44.932735
License: Public Domain

PHILLIPS, Senior Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
I concur in the judgment and in Parts I, III, IV, V, and VI of the majority opinion. I write separately because I would affirm the judgment on different grounds than those relied on by the majority in Part II of its opinion. I understand the majority there to hold that the “border search exception” to the Fourth Amendment — which permits government agents to conduct “routine” searches of persons and things entering the country even absent any degree of particularized suspicion1 — applies to searches of persons and things exiting, as well as entering, the country. I believe that that critical constitutional holding is not necessary in order to resolve this case and affirm the judgment. And, with all respect, I believe that whether it conforms to Supreme Court precedent is a far more equivocal issue than the majority acknowledges. For these reasons— non-necessity to decision and closeness of the issue — I would avoid the issue vel non of the border search exception’s applicability to exit searches. I would instead uphold the two border searches here at issue as consistent with ordinary “interior” Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, specifically on the basis that neither was “unreasonable” within the meaning of settled Fourth Amendment doctrine.
I.
A conclusion that the ordinary rules of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, rather than the border search “exception,” govern exit searches need not entail that the searches here at issue were unreasonable just because they were conducted without a warrant issued upon probable cause. Neither probable cause nor a warrant is invariably required whether at the international borders or in the interior. “Although the underlying command of the Fourth Amendment is always that searches and seizures be reasonable, what is reasonable depends on the context within which a search takes place.” New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 337, 105 S.Ct. 733, 740, 83 L.Ed.2d 720 (1985). The Supreme Court repeatedly has emphasized that “the permissibility of a particular practice ‘is judged by balancing its intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests against its promotion of legitimate government interests.’” Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Assn., 489 U.S. 602, 619, 109 S.Ct. 1402, 1414, 103 L.Ed.2d 639 (1989) (quoting Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 654, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 1396, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979)). This does not mean that whether a particular search is reasonable depends in each case upon an ad hoc balancing of factors. The Court’s approach seems rather to be one of categorical balancing. Therefore, even were it not the case that “the border search exception to the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness requirement extends to exit searches,” ante, at 1296, it would nonetheless remain true that the fact that a search was conducted of persons or things exiting the country must be relevant to the balance, for “the Fourth Amendment’s balance of reasonableness is qualitatively different at the international border than in the *1302interior.” United States v. Montoya de Hernandez, 473 U.S. at 538, 105 S.Ct. at 3309. I would hold that, under the highly context-dependent ordinary standards of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, the two searches here at issue were reasonable independently of the question whether the border search exception ought to extend to exit searches.2
The fact that a particular search occurs as a person or her effects are leaving the country bears relevance to Fourth Amendment analysis in at least two ways. First, the government’s need to apprehend the travel-ler before the crime is completed is particularly great when the completion of the crime necessarily will occur beyond the nation’s territorial jurisdiction. Because investigation of the crime and apprehension of the perpetrator are likely to be especially difficult in cases of illegal export, law enforcement efforts must naturally focus more heavily on crime prevention. Second, travel-lers (or exporters) undoubtedly have a lesser expectation of privacy when they (or their goods) leave the country; see, e.g., United States v. Stanley, 545 F.2d 661, 667 (9th Cir.1976), cert. denied, 436 U.S. 917, 98 S.Ct. 2261, 56 L.Ed.2d 757 (1978), if for no other reason than that the departure from the United States is almost invariably followed by an entry into another country which will likely conduct its own border search. For these reasons, I have no doubt that the usually requisite degree of suspicion — probable cause — ought not to govern exit searches. Exit searches ought to be constitutionally “reasonable” so long as the government agent has an objectively reasonable suspicion that a search of the person or property in question would reveal a violation of the law.
A.
Customs agents opened Oriakhi’s shipping container because it was bound for a narcotics source country and was accompanied by vague and incomplete documentation which conspicuously omitted the names of a shipper or a consignee. The agents had the requisite reasonable suspicion. What they did not have was a warrant. But they did not need one. As the majority notes, ante, at 1295 n. 1, the New Jersey container search was conducted pursuant to customs officers’ duty to enforce the criminal laws regulating currency export. Consequently, the search was not a regulatory inspection directed to discovering health or safety violations but, rather, one undertaken for traditional law enforcement purposes. Because the Fourth Amendment itself directs that “no Warrant shall issue, but upon probable cause,” the Supreme Court has held that, at least outside of the administrative search context, the constitution does not require a warrant when the degree of suspicion necessary to make a search is less than probable cause. Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 877-78, 107 S.Ct. 3164, 3170-71, 97 L.Ed.2d 709 (1987). Consequently, as an exit search supported by reasonable suspicion, the New Jersey container search passed Fourth Amendment muster even though conducted without a warrant and without any need to invoke the border search exception.
B.
The search of Oriakhi’s luggage at JFK airport was also constitutionally reasonable, though for somewhat different reasons. The crucial fact here is that customs agents x-rayed Oriakhi’s luggage before they opened *1303it or, for that matter, before they engaged in any other search or seizure. We already have held that the examination of a closed container by means of an x-ray scanner ordinarily constitutes a search, but that x-ray searches of air travellers’ persons and of their carry-on luggage are not “unreasonable” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Haynie, 637 F.2d 227, 230-31 (4th Cir.1980). Similarly, I would hold that, in light of contemporary societal experience with terrorist activity (such as, preeminently, the Lockerbie bombing), society would not recognize as objectively reasonable, see Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 361, 88 S.Ct. 507, 516-17, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (Harlan, J., concurring), a passenger’s expectation that her checked baggage would not be x-rayed before it is loaded onto an airplane, particularly one departing on an international flight. Therefore, the x-raying of Oriakhi’s cheeked luggage did not infringe upon a protected privacy interest and so did not violate the Fourth Amendment.
Of course, once the x-ray revealed firearms and ammunition, customs agents had probable cause to suspect that a crime was being committed. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(e) (making it unlawful to deliver to a common carrier a package containing a firearm or ammunition without providing written notice to the carrier); 14 CFR § 129.27(b) (prohibiting passengers of foreign air carriers from checking luggage containing a dangerous weapon without first informing airline). Because the luggage was about to be loaded onto the plane and because the plane, with Oriakhi aboard, was preparing to depart, the exigency of the circumstances, see, e.g., Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925), permitted airport customs agents to open Oriakhi’s luggage and to search its contents without first securing a warrant (even assuming one would otherwise be required). Therefore, under settled Fourth Amendment principles, the searches at JFK, like the search in New Jersey, did not violate Oriakhi’s rights under the Fourth Amendment without regard to whether the border search exception applies to exit searches.
II.
Because Oriakhi’s challenge to the New Jersey and New York exit searches should be rejected regardless whether the border search exception applies to exit searches, I believe that we need not reach the more profound constitutional question whether government agents may conduct “routine” searches of all persons and effects exiting the country even absent any degree of particularized suspicion. Nonetheless, it might be appropriate to reach that question if it were an open-and-shut one that should be decided now simply to provide circuit precedent on an important question of first impression. For the reasons that briefly follow, I do not think the question is nearly as clear-cut as does the majority and therefore I would reserve it for a case in which its resolution is strictly necessary.
First, I believe the majority understates the case in observing that “the Supreme Court has not yet ruled directly on the question of whether the border search exception to the Fourth Amendment applies to persons leaving the country.” Ante, at 1295-96 n. 4. The Court has simply not ruled on that question directly or otherwise. As a chambers opinion, Julian v. United States, 463 U.S. 1308, 103 S.Ct. 3522, 77 L.Ed.2d 1290 (1983), reflects, of course, the view of only a single Member of the Court. And the dicta in Shultz that supports the majority’s conclusion is counterbalanced by contrasting language from other Supreme Court decisions. See United States v. Ramsey, 431 U.S. at 619, 97 S.Ct. at 1980 (“Border searches, then, from before the adoption of the Fourth Amendment, have been considered to be ‘reasonable’ by the single fact that the person or item in question had entered into our country from outside.”) (emphasis added); Montoya de Hernandez, 473 U.S. at 538, 105 S.Ct. at 3309 (“Routine searches of the persons and effects of entrants are not subject to any requirement of reasonable suspicion, probable cause, or warrant, and first-class mail may be opened without a warrant on less than probable cause, Ramsey, supra.”) (emphasis added).
Second and most important, the Supreme Court decisions that recognized the border search exception do not by their own logic apply to exit searches. In Ramsey, “the *1304principal case articulating the border search exception,” ante, at 1295, the Supreme Court advanced two justifications for the rule that the government may, consistent with the Fourth Amendment, search persons and property entering the country without any degree of heightened suspicion. In addition to citing considerations “ ‘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,’ ” Id. at 618, 97 S.Ct. at 1979 (quoting Carroll v. United States, supra, 267 U.S. at 154, 45 S.Ct. at 285), the Court emphasized that such searches enjoyed a distinguished historical pedigree. In particular, the Court noted that the first customs statute, enacted in July 1789, granted customs officials plenary power to search incoming vessels without a warrant. “ ‘As this act was passed by the same Congress which proposed for adoption the original amendments to the Constitution, it is clear that the members of that body did not regard searches and seizures of this kind as “unreasonable,” and they are not embraced within the prohibition of the amendment.’” 431 U.S. at 617, 97 S.Ct. at 1979 (quoting Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 623, 6 S.Ct. 524, 528, 29 L.Ed. 746 (1886)). Therefore, the majority’s contention that “[t]he rationale for exempting border searches from the Fourth Amendment’s probable cause and warrant requirements rests on fundamental principles of national sovereignty, which apply equally to exit and entry searches,” ante, at 1302, is missing an essential qualification. More accurately, the border search exception rests in part, and only in part, on fundamental principles of national sovereignty. It rests as well on a long-standing history of suspicionless warrantless entry searches. Absent any evidence of 18th century precedent for suspieionless warrantless exit searches, it simply is not true, as the majority asserts, ante at 1297-98 (emphasis added), that the “principles articulated in” Ramsey justify application of the border search exception to exit searches.3
Third, there is reason to doubt that the principle upon which the majority does exclusively rely — the long-standing right of the sovereign to protect itself — can shoulder the analytical burden assigned it. Because that principle is at least potentially implicated every time the government might wish to engage in a search, a more persuasive analysis is required to explain why that principle justifies placing exit searches within an “exception” to the Fourth Amendment. It is by no means self-evident either that the harm caused by illegal currency export is of extraordinary magnitude or that, in order to combat that harm, there is a compelling need for the sovereign to be able to conduct “routine” suspicionless searches of all persons and property leaving the country.4
Because we need not deeide the weighty and difficult constitutional issue whether we and all our personal effects may be subjected to “routine” searches by the Government, without any particularized suspicion, possibly including searches of our effects outside our presence and without any advance notice, whenever we take a trip across our borders, I would not do so. That decision should await a case where it is flatly unavoidable.

. The “border search exception,” even as applied to entry searches, is something of a misnomer insofar as it implies that border searches sit entirely outside the purview of the Fourth Amendment. Despite the "exception,” the Fourth Amendment unquestionably imposes some limitations upon the scope and duration of an entry search, presumably through the qualifier "routine.” See United States v. Montoya de Hernandez, 473 U.S. 531, 540-42, 105 S.Ct. 3304, 3310-11, 87 L.Ed.2d 381 (1985). Because it does, Judge Kozinski has argued that exit searches of checked airline baggage conducted outside the presence of the traveller and without notice to the traveller before and after the search should be deemed unreasonable even if the border search exception does extend to exit searches. See United States v. Nates, 831 F.2d 860, 863-68 (9th Cir.1987) (Kozinski, J., dissenting). I do not understand the majority to resolve the question whether suspicionless searches conducted in such a manner might yet violate the Fourth Amendment. Quite properly, the majority does not purport to elucidate the extent to which the qualifier "routine” would operate as an ultimate limitation on exit searches.

. One of the five circuits that the majority says have extended the border search exception to exit searches is better understood to have engaged in exactly this balancing approach. In United States v. Hernandez-Salazar, the Eleventh Circuit explicitly engaged in a balancing analysis en route to concluding that "Congress may, consistent with the fourth amendment, authorize customs officers to conduct warrantless searches of persons and property departing the United States on the basis of reasonable suspicion that a currency reporting violation is occurring.” 813 F.2d at 1138. The court’s caveat that it "need not decide here whether the ‘border search exception' applies equally in all respects to incoming and outgoing searches at the border,” id., reveals, I believe, that the court did not actually extend the border search exception to exit searches (for, if it had, it could not have avoided deciding the question that it purports not to decide), but rather considered the fact that the search took place at the border as part of a totality of circumstances balancing approach. See id. at 1139 (“Balancing these considerations leads us to conclude that section 5317(b) does not authorize unreasonable searches and seizures.”).

. In other words, there simply is not support for the assertion, ante, at 1297, that all routine border searches — not just entry searches — have "always been excepted from the requirements of the Fourth Amendment.”

. Tellingly, the circuits which have extended the border search exception to exit searches have done so in cases where government agents almost certainly had reasonable suspicion to conduct the subsequently challenged search. See United States v. Ezeiruaku, 936 F.2d 136, 138 (3d Cir.1991); United States v. Udofot, 711 F.2d 831, 833-34 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 896, 104 S.Ct. 245, 78 L.Ed.2d 234 (1983); United States v. Swarovski, 592 F.2d 131 (2d Cir.1979) (regarding constitutionality of search described in United States v. Swarovski, 557 F.2d 40, 41-43 (2d Cir.1977)); United States v. Stanley, supra, 545 F.2d at 663-64 (9th Cir.1976); id. at 667 (Kilken-ny, J., concurring); see also Hernandez-Salazar, 813 F.2d at 1138 (emphasizing that "searches for section 5316 violations on less than reasonable suspicion remain unlawful”); id. at 1139-40 (Hatchett, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (disputing the majority’s conclusion that reasonable suspicion supported the search at issue and therefore concluding that the search was unconstitutional).