Court Opinion

ID: 9476547
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:58:33.483984+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:22.619662
License: Public Domain

EDITH H. JONES, Circuit Judge,
concurring specially:
I concur in Chief Judge Clark’s reading of the applicable Supreme Court precedents and am thus persuaded that the Sierra Blanca checkpoint represents a novel location for analysis of the government’s right to search vehicles for the purpose of enforcing our immigration laws. Unlike Judge Clark, however, I would urge the Court to authorize searches whose initial scope is confined to the problem tellingly documented by the government: illegal entry of aliens. See also 8 U.S.C. § 1357(a); 8 C.F.R. § 287.1(a)(2). It is unnecessary, ergo unreasonable, to address this problem by permitting at Sierra Blanca plenary searches of vehicles and private property contained therein. The proper constitutional balance, in my view, calls for an initial search of no more than major cavities of a *879vehicle and its contents that might contain aliens. Should the officers, in the course of interrogating those who pass through the checkpoint or conducting this limited inspection, observe grounds that justify broader examination, we may deal with such cases as they arise. The behavior of the defendants and/or the condition of their vehicles in these cases, for instance, warranted such broader examination under accepted standards of fourth amendment reasonableness. See, e.g., California v. Carney, 471 U.S. 386, 105 S.Ct. 2066, 85 L.Ed.2d 406 (1985); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968); Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925).