Court Opinion

ID: 9463399
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:05:07.367526+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:04.331471
License: Public Domain

ELY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent. The majority’s understandable concern over recent airport bombings cannot justify an abridgement of the Fourth Amendment, because “[i]f the provisions of the Constitution be not upheld when they pinch as well as when they comfort, they may as well be abandoned.” Home Building & Loan Assoc, v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398, 483, 54 S.Ct. 231, 256, 78 L.Ed. 413 (1933) (Sutherland, J., dissenting).
None of the cases relied on by the majority involved a defendant who indicated any desire to leave the boarding area of an airport.1 The only authority that appears to be squarely in point is United States v. Moore, 483 F.2d 1361 (9th Cir. 1973), and the holding in that case is directly contrary to the holding here made by the majority. In Moore, the defendant was discovered attempting to use obviously false identification and told he would not be allowed to *1355board the plane. While waiting for the return of his luggage, defendant became extremely agitated, and appeared to be under the influence of drugs. Airport agents noticed that masking tape had been applied around one of his bags and over the keyholes of another. After receiving his bags the defendant left hurriedly, dropping his still refundable ticket, even though the agents followed, calling out that they had it. Eventually, the defendant in Moore was stopped, searched, and arrested for possession of marijuana found in his suitcase.
Our court reversed, stating:
“But even if a Terry ‘frisk’ were warranted, it could extend no further than ‘a carefully limited search of the outer clothing of . [appellant] in an attempt to discover weapons which might be used to assault [the agents],’ Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. at 30, 88 S.Ct. at 1885, and thus could hardly include an investigation of the contents of appellant’s locked suitcase.” Id. at 1363. (Emphasis supplied.)
The majority’s attempt to distinguish Moore rests on three grounds: (1) That in Moore there was no indication that the suspect was either dangerous or engaged in some type of criminal activity, (2) that the Moore search, at its inception, was aimed toward discovery of contraband and not dangerous weapons, and (3) that there was no bomb threat in Moore justifying a need for rapid police action. I respectfully submit that none of these alleged distinctions has any validity whatsoever.
A comparison of the facts in Moore with those in the present case demonstrate that Moore acted far more erratically than did the appellant here, yet the court characterized Moore’s conduct as “no more than suspicious.” Id. at 1363. My Brothers here describe the search in Moore as “aimed toward the discovery of contraband.” It seems to me, however, that such a description can only be characterized as conclusionary and will not prove to be a workable test for resolving these kinds of problems in the future. Finally, the majority’s emphasis on the anonymous bomb threat raises a troublesome issue not fully addressed in the majority’s opinion: To what extent may a search based on Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), be justified on the basis of potentially exotic dangers?2 We have obviously come a long way from the simple pat-down search contemplated by Terry to such an intrusive invasion of a locked piece of private luggage as is now upheld by the majority. This extension of the Supreme Court’s carefully restricted Terry holding is justified not on any special status of airport hijack control but would apply as logically whenever an anonymous bomb threat has been received in any busy public building. The majority’s disclaimer of any attempt to set a general rule does not soften its dramatic abridgement of Homburg’s Fourth Amendment rights. I would reverse.

. See United States v. Fern, 484 F.2d 666 (7th Cir. 1973); United States v. Bell, 464 F.2d 667 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 991, 93 S.Ct. 335, 34 L.Ed.2d 258 (1972); United States v. Epperson, 454 F.2d 769 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 406 U.S. 947, 92 S.Ct. 2050, 32 L.Ed.2d 334 (1972); United States v. Lindsey, 451 F.2d 701 (3d Cir. 1971). All of these cases relied heavily on the strong governmental interest in the prevention of skyjacking. Concededly, that interest is not applicable here.

. As the Supreme Court emphasized, “[t]he sole justification of the search in the present situation is the protection of the police officer and others nearby, and it must therefore be confined in scope to an intrusion reasonably designed to discover guns, knives, clubs, or other hidden instruments for the assault of the police officer.” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 29, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1884, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1967).