Court Opinion

ID: 9475666
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:34:42.726858+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:51.395849
License: Public Domain

REAYLEY, Circuit Judge, specially concurring:
While I agree that this panel is bound by previous Fifth Circuit decisions finding plenary searches conducted at the Sierra Blanca checkpoint constitutional, United States v. Luddington, 589 F.2d 236 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 441 U.S. 936, 99 S.Ct. 2061, 60 L.Ed.2d 666 (1979), United States v. Dreyfus-de Campos, 698 F.2d 227 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 461 U.S. 947, 103 S.Ct. 2128, 77 L.Ed.2d 1306 (1983), I must question that precedent. The constitutionality of the search for contraband approved in this case depends on Sierra Blanca’s designation as a “functional equivalent of a border.” Yet, this label does not accurately describe this checkpoint, since it does not, nor does it purport to, interdict exclusively international traffic crossing into the United States. Designating the Sierra Blanca checkpoint a functional equivalent of a border misconstrues the basis for providing border patrol agents plenary powers to search, and undermines the protections provided by the Fourth Amendment.
In Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U.S. 266, 272-73, 93 S.Ct. 2535, 2539, 37 L.Ed.2d 596 (1973), the Court first coined the phrase functional equivalent of a border, and described two possible examples as follows:
[SJearches at an established station near the border, at a point marking the confluence of two or more roads that extend from the border, might be functional equivalents of border searches. For another example, a search of the passengers and cargo of an airplane arriving at a St. Louis airport after a nonstop flight from Mexico would clearly be the functional equivalent of a border search.
The single thread connecting these two examples is the fact that searches conducted at locations functionally equivalent to a border interdict the same kind of traffic stopped at our nation’s borders: international traffic. In United States v. Alvarez-Gonzalez, 542 F.2d 226, 229 (5th Cir.1976) (Alvarez-Gonzalez I) this court incorporated this factor into our tripartite test for determining functional equivalency when we held that the ratio between international and domestic traffic passing through such checkpoints must not be disproportionately domestic.1 However, this cir*1193cuit’s understanding of “international” is not limited to the ordinary meaning of this word, since it also includes vehicles traveling close to the border but on the American side. In United States v. Alvarez-Gonzalez, 561 F.2d 620, 623-24 (5th Cir.1977) (Alvarez-Gonzalez II) we explained:
It would make little sense indeed to adopt a definition of “international” for this purpose which excluded those very journeys which evidence and practical experience have demonstrated are most likely to commence with an illegal international border crossing. In such situations, although the vehicle has not crossed the border, its cargo has.
See also United States v. Luddington, 589 F.2d 236, 241 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 441 U.S. 936, 99 S.Ct. 2061, 60 L.Ed.2d 666 (1979) (“[IJnternational traffic for checkpoint testing purposes must include traffic originating close to the border but on the American side, since vehicles which remain in this country and await their illegal human cargo are a principal means of alien smuggling.”).
In the present case, a survey was conducted to evaluate the nature, or “point or origin,” of the traffic passing through the Sierra Blanca checkpoint. The data collected indicated that the overwhelming majority of this traffic was domestic in origin. The majority points out, however, that good reasons exist to doubt the reliability and validity of the survey’s findings. Yet, whatever the validity of the survey, neither the government, nor the majority in this case, dispute the fact that a significant proportion of the traffic passing through this checkpoint has not crossed an international boundary. Because of our expansive definition of international traffic, this fact does not disqualify the Sierra Blanca checkpoint from functional equivalency status. Thus, the survey effectively has no meaning; by Fifth Circuit definition all traffic passing through the checkpoint is international, since the checkpoint itself is “near” the border.
The ostensible reason for including certain domestic traffic in the definition of international traffic is the very significant problem of illegal aliens crossing into this country at unmonitored points on foot, and then moving into the nation’s interior by automobile. Alvarez-Gonzalez II, 561 F.2d at 625; Luddington, 589 F.2d at 240; see generally United States v. Oyarzun, 760 F.2d 570 (5th Cir.1985). As we noted in Luddington, “[sjhort of physically patrolling the entire length of the Rio Grande, strategically well-located checkpoints are the most effective means of dealing with this serious problem.” 589 F.2d at 240. While I wholeheartedly agree with this statement, I disagree that it supports the argument that the Sierra Blanca checkpoint is the functional equivalent of a border.
In this case, just as in our prior cases, the majority relies on “the practical need for law enforcement near the border” in coming to its conclusion that “[sjearches at the Sierra Blanca checkpoint are the functional equivalent of border searches.” Ante, at page 1190 (citing United States v. Hart, 506 F.2d 887, 897 (5th Cir.), vacated and remanded, 422 U.S. 1053, 95 S.Ct. 2674, 45 L.Ed.2d 706 (1975), reaff'd, 525 F.2d 1199 (5th Cir.) (on remand), cert. denied, 428 U.S. 923, 96 S.Ct. 3234, 49 L.Ed.2d 1226 (1976)). This “exigent circumstances” analysis, however, cannot support the conclusion that the Sierra Blanca checkpoint is a “functional equivalent of a border”; “the ‘border search’ exception is not based on the doctrine of ‘exigent circumstances’ at all.” United States v. Ramsey, 431 U.S. 606, 621, 97 S.Ct. 1972, 1981, 52 L.Ed.2d 617 (1977). In fact, border searches are not “embraced within the prohibition of the [Fourth] [AJmendment.” Id. (quoting Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 150, 45 S.Ct. 280, 284, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925)). The constitutional basis for searches at border checkpoints is fundamentally different from the basis for “stops” at checkpoints in the interior of the United States. We have erred in confusing the two.
*1194In Ramsey, Justice Rehnquist explained the special analysis for border searches as follows:
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. There has never been any additional requirement that the reasonableness of a border search depended on the existence of probable cause. This longstanding recognition that searches at our borders without probable cause and without a warrant are nonetheless “reasonable” has a history as old as the Fourth Amendment itself.
431 U.S. at 619, 97 S.Ct. at 1980 (emphasis added).
The Supreme Court’s approval of plenary searches at the functional equivalent of a border is based on this same principle, the only difference being that through necessity or convenience border searches are condoned away from the border. It is the single fact that the individual or item has entered this nation from outside that justifies the search. But our cases have discarded this singular justification for allowing searches at a border or its functional equivalent. As the majority opinion demonstrates, we now consider the constitutionality of “functional equivalents” without any regard to the source of the government’s power to search at the border. The appellation, “functional equivalent of a border,” has, itself, become our initial point of inquiry, rather than the historical basis for the power to search at the border.
Judge Goldberg, in an early dissent from this circuit’s functional equivalency cases, refused to join the
apparent belief that functional equivalency is a concept that frees the border search principle from its historical moorings, the “right of the sovereign to protect itself by stopping and examining persons and property crossing into this country.”
Alvarez-Gonzalez II, 561 F.2d at 627 (Goldberg, J., dissenting) (emphasis added) (quoting Ramsey, 431 U.S. at 616, 97 S.Ct. at 1979).2 In Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 154, 45 S.Ct. 280, 285, 69 L.Ed.2d 543 (1925), the historical justification for border searches was explained as follows:
Travelers may be so stopped in crossing an international boundary because 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. But those lawfully within the country, entitled to use the public highways, have a right to free passage without interruption or search unless there is known to a competent official authorized to search, probable cause for believing that their vehicles are carrying contraband or illegal merchandise.
The Fifth Circuit stands alone in its departure from the historical basis for border-type searches as expressed in Carroll. The Ninth and Eleventh Circuits, the two circuits that most closely share the illegal alien problem confronted by this circuit, have both refrained from broadening the “functional equivalent” concept to allow interference with domestic traffic. United States v. Bowen, 500 F.2d 960 (9th Cir. 1974); United States v. Garcia, 672 F.2d 1349 (11th Cir.1982); see also United
*1195States v. Espinosa, 782 F.2d 888 (10th Cir. 1986). In. Bowen, the Ninth Circuit explained its understanding of the “functional equivalent” concept as follows:
[F]ixed-checkpoint searches, ... even though conducted within a “reasonable distance” from the border, are not necessarily exempt from the traditional Fourth Amendment requirement of a warrant or probable cause____
The “function” of a border checkpoint is to regulate border crossings____ [I]f a search takes place at a location where a significant number of those stopped are domestic travelers going from one point to another within the United States, the search is not the functional equivalent of a border search. One need only contemplate the volume of domestic travel between Buffalo and Rochester, New York, to see why a checkpoint between those two cities could not be the functional equivalent of a border checkpoint even though the checkpoint could be less than twenty miles from an international border.
500 F.2d at 965; see also United States v. Whiting, 781 F.2d 692, 695 (9th Cir.1986) (“The ‘functional equivalent’ doctrine permits border searches at places other than the actual border where travelers functionally enter or exit the country.”).
Our conflict with the Eleventh Circuit over the interpretation of “functional equivalents” is perhaps more significant than our differences with the Ninth Circuit over this matter. The Eleventh Circuit, once a part of the former Fifth Circuit, adopted as precedent the decisions of this court, Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206 (11th Cir.1981) (en banc), and thus, to differ with us, had to reject the same authority the present majority relies upon. In Garcia, the Eleventh Circuit declined to follow our “prior decisions in using the ‘functional equivalent’ language to refer to Border Patrol or other checkpoint searches,” because “[tjhese searches do not fit within the traditional definition of a border search, which refers to searches of persons, conveyances, or objects that have come into the United States from outside.” 672 F.2d at 1365 (citing Ramsey, 431 U.S. at 616-19, 97 S.Ct. at 1978-80). Thus, the Eleventh Circuit joined the Ninth Circuit in limiting the “functionally equivalent” border search to checkpoints that indeed are functionally equivalent to a border.
The constitutional basis for searches and seizures within the United States’ borders rests on entirely different principles than searches and seizures conducted at those borders. In particular, the principles and interests underlying the Fourth Amendment constrain the scope of all checkpoint stops and searches that occur away from the border or its functional equivalent. “The Fourth Amendment imposes limits on search-and-seizure powers in order to prevent arbitrary and oppressive interference by enforcement officials with the privacy and personal security of individuals.” United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 554, 96 S.Ct. 3074, 3081, 49 L.Ed.2d 1116 (1976). Therefore, when a checkpoint intercepts traffic, some part of which is of purely domestic origin, the Fourth Amendment is implicated, and requires an independent assessment of the reasonableness of the search. The test in such cases involves a weighing of the public interest against the Fourth Amendment interests of the individual. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20-21, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1879-80, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968).
As our cases have recognized, the public interest here is great:
The magnitude of the problem of aliens entering or remaining in the United States is staggering. The peculiar characteristics of the Texas-Mexican border — a river inappropriately named Rio Grande in that aliens can swim, wade and in some places walk across it easily— present serious problems for those enforcing the immigration laws.
Alvarez-Gonzalez II, 561 F.2d at 625. The need for effective police measures has been amply demonstrated, and, as my colleagues have pointed out, “some method of curtailing illegal entry [must be] established.” Ante at page 1190, quoting, Hart, 506 F.2d *1196at 897. But the viability of the solution cannot be viewed solely by the light of the problem itself; the rights and liberties of millions of people lawfully living and traveling along the United States-Mexican border must be added to the calculus.
Enforcement officials at the Sierra Blanca checkpoint have been granted nearly free license. They assert the power of customs agents, a power, as already noted, not bridled by the Fourth Amendment. But the Fourth Amendment does not lose its vitality as it nears the border; it safeguards all residents of this nation, whether they choose to live in Lincoln, Nebraska or El Paso, Texas.
The Fourth Amendment violation at Sierra Blanca is not the checkpoint stop; it is the unrestricted scope of the search. As the Court explained in Martinez-Fuerte, “[t]he principal protection of Fourth Amendment rights at checkpoints lies in appropriate limitations on the scope of the stop.” 428 U.S. at 568, 96 S.Ct. at 3087. In Martinez-Fuerte, the Court approved of the stopping of vehicles at permanent checkpoints so that occupants could be briefly questioned regarding their right to be in the United States. Id. at 558, 96 S.Ct. at 3083. The Court also found it constitutional for border patrol agents to refer motorists to a secondary inspection area for further questioning. Id. at 563, 96 S.Ct. at 3085. However, the Court strictly limited the scope of these stops, specifically holding that “checkpoint searches are constitutional only if justified by consent or probable cause to search.” Id. at 567, 96 S.Ct. at 3087 (emphasis added); United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 882, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 2580, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975); United States v. Ortiz, 422 U.S. 891, 896, 95 S.Ct. 2585, 2588, 45 L.Ed.2d 623 (1975).
Keeping in mind that the guiding principle of the Court’s Fourth Amendment cases is the reasonableness of the intrusion in light of the public interests involved, we must query how the Sierra Blanca checkpoint differs from permanent checkpoints where searches are prohibited absent probable cause or consent. The primary purpose of permanent checkpoints along the United States-Mexican border is to stem the formidable flow of illegal entrants from Mexico. See Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. at 552, 96 S.Ct. at 3080; Ortiz, 422 U.S. at 891, 95 S.Ct. at 2586. Yet the government invokes the same argument here in urging us to allow substantially greater intrusions than the Supreme Court has so far sanctioned.
The single factor that may distinguish the present checkpoint from checkpoints previously reviewed by the Supreme Court is its distance from the border. Whereas in Martinez-Fuerte and Ortiz the checkpoints ranged from 65 to 90 air-miles from the border, Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. at 545-51, 96 S.Ct. at 3077-79, Ortiz, 422 U.S. at 893, 95 S.Ct. at 2587, the Sierra Blanca checkpoint lies just 14 air-miles from the border. Arguably, therefore, under the reasonableness standard of the Fourth Amendment, some greater intrusion is warranted at the Sierra Blanca checkpoint than was approved in Martinez-Fuerte. Its proximity to the border makes the public interest stronger, and the government’s success rate at apprehending illegal aliens higher. This proximity arguably supports, for example, the minimal intrtfsion occasioned by a brief check of compartments large enough to contain a person. See e.g., Alvarez-Gonzalez II, supra.
While there may be some merit to a “sliding-scale” measure of reasonableness based on a checkpoint’s proximity to the border, the Supreme Court has adopted a more stringent categorical test. Under the Court’s test, searches may occur at the border or its functional equivalent (where they are justified by the single fact that the traffic is international in character), or when they are supported by probable cause or consent. In Ortiz, for example, the Court expressly held “that at traffic checkpoints removed from the border and its functional equivalents, officers may not search private vehicles without consent or probable cause.” 422 U.S. at 897-98, 95 S.Ct. at 2589.
*1197Importantly, however, the Ortiz Court qualified this holding in a footnote, stating that it did not “decide whether a warrant could issue approving checkpoint searches based on information about the area as a whole.” Id. at 898 n. 3, 95 S.Ct. at 2589 n. 3; see also Almeida-Sanchez, 413 U.S. at 283-84, 93 S.Ct. at 2544-45 (Powell, J., concurring) (recommending the use of area warrants in cases involving roving patrols to balance the “legitimate interest of law enforcement with protected Fourth Amendment rights”). Since the Supreme Court did not decide this question, I will not attempt to give an answer. However, such area warrants, if approved, would serve the same function as the “sliding scale” analysis mentioned above. Specifically, a judge or magistrate would measure the reasonableness of the government intrusion by balancing the public interest with the liberty and privacy rights of people residing in or traveling through the area. At areas near the border, but not functionally equivalent to it, government interference with traffic beyond brief questioning may be justified because the public interest in stemming the flow of immigrants increases close to the border. But with a warrant requirement, such determinations would be made before the establishment of a checkpoint, based on the exigencies of the particular area, and with continuing judicial oversight.
I have concurred in this opinion solely because I am bound by our earlier cases finding the Sierra Blanca checkpoint to be a “functional equivalent of a border.” However, I object to this misuse of terms that substitutes for a proper resolution of the issue. If the public interest is sufficiently great, it will justify a reasonable interference with traffic near the border. We should focus on the reasonableness of the intrusion, not sweep the whole matter under an inapt label.

. The two remaining components of our test for determining functional equivalency include, first, that “it functions like a permanent border checkpoint and not ... on a radically shifting basis approximating the peregrinations of [a roving] patrol,” and second, that “as to international traffic, the checkpoint under consideration actually approximates the effect of one *1193physically located at the border." Alvarez-Gonzalez I, 542 F.2d at 229.

. Judge Hill has also written objecting to this circuit's grant of discretion to government agents along the United States-Mexican border. In a special concurrence to an opinion upholding the constitutionality of the same checkpoint involved here, Judge Hill observed:
Given the subtle expansion by this Court of the Supreme Court's original concept of the functional equivalent of a border ... it is highly problematic whether the Supreme Court today would grant officials manning such checkpoints, of which Sierra Blanca is one, “unbridled discretion to search any person and any vehicle for contraband without any of the constraints normally imposed upon federal officers by this Country’s Constitution.”
United States v. Oyarzun, 760 F.2d 570, 579-80 (5th Cir.1985) (Hill, J., specially concurring) (quoting United States v. Oyarzun, 582 F.Supp. 121, 123 (W.D.Tex.1984)).