Court Opinion

ID: 9449793
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:22:53.737982+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:59.126437
License: Public Domain

*130DUNIWAY, Circuit Judge
(concurring) .
I concur in the result, but for different reasons from those adopted by my brethren. I do not think that my brother Barnes’ opinion satisfactorily distinguishes our holding in Costello v. United States, 9 Cir., 1962, 298 F.2d 99. First, the opinion states that reliability is in the mind of the police officer, so that cross-examination of the informer as to his own reliability would not be legally fruitful. This may or may not be so. The informer’s story as to prior dealings by him with the officer might contradict the officer’s story, thus destroying the officer’s credibility in the eyes of the trier of fact. Moreover, knowledge of the informer’s identity could make possible an effective cross-examination of the officer, which might well not be possible otherwise. Second, the opinion states that the informer’s reliability can be confirmed by the subsequent occurrence of events predicted by him, as in Draper v. United States, 1958, 358 U.S. 307, 79 S.Ct. 329, 3 L.Ed.2d 327. There were such events in Costello, but, like the events occurring in the present case, they could have been observed by anyone, and give no reason to believe that the additional information, relating to the possession of marijuana, was reliable. In Costello, the record shows, although the opinion does not, that the informer told the officers that Costello would be at his place of business at a certain hour. He was there. Nevertheless, the reliability of the informer being in question, we required disclosure. Here, the informer said that a certain described car would cross the border. It did. I see no substantial difference between such circumstances and that involved in Costello.
I think, however, that there is a separate ground upon which the judgment should be affirmed—a ground that makes it unnecessary to decide whether Costello and the other cases cited in the opinion can be distinguished. Those cases did not involve a border search. This case does.
The majority opinion sets out the court’s findings. I rest my concurrence on the trial court’s conclusion “that the testimony of Mr. Parkerson disclosed * * * pursuit of the car * *
It has long been the law that special rules are applicable to a border search. As we said in Witt v. United States, 9 Cir., 1961, 287 F.2d 389 at 391:
“No question of whether there is probable cause for a search exists when the search is incidental to the crossing of an international border, for there is reason and probable cause to search every person entering the United States from a foreign country, by reason of such entry alone. That the customs authorities do not search every person crossing the border does not mean they have waived their right to do so, when they see fit. Here a precise description of the automobile in which appellant rode across the border (though not of its passengers) had been passed to the border guards as one being a possible bearer of heroin. This it was ultimately found to be. Mere suspicion has been held enough cause for a search at the border. Cervantes v. United States, 9 Cir., 1959, 263 F.2d 800, 803, note 5.”
To the same effect, see Murgia v. United States, 9 Cir., 1960, 285 F.2d 14, 16-18.
The statutes, some of which are cited in the foregoing cases, support this view. 19 U.S.C. § 482 provides: “Any of the officers * * * authorized to board or search vessels may stop, search, and examine, as well without as within their respective districts, any vehicle * * * on which * * * he or they shall suspect there is merchandise which * * * shall have been introduced into the United States in any manner contrary to law, whether by the person in possession or charge, or by, in or upon such vehicle * * * or otherwise, * * * and if any such officer * * * so authorized shall find any merchandise on or about any such vehicle * * * which he shall have reasonable cause to believe * * * *131to have been unlawfully introduced into the United States, * * * he shall seize and secure the same for trial.” Section 1581 of Title 19 provides: “(a) [a]ny officer of the customs may at any time go on board of any * * * vehicle at any place in the Uni led States * * * without as well as within his district * * and examine, inspect, and search the * * * vehicle and every part thereof * * * and to this end may hail and stop such * * * vehicle, and use all necessary force to compel compliance.” Subdivision (d) requires the driver of such a vehicle, upon direction of such an officer, to come to a stop, and authorizes pursuit if he does not do so. Subdivision (e) directs seizure of the vehicle if it shall appear that a breach of the laws of the United States is being or has been committed so as to render the vehicle or the merchandise on board of, or brought into the United States by, such vehicle, liable to forfeiture. Subdivision (f) makes it the duty of the officer to effect the seizure.1
■ Under the foregoing authorities there can be no doubt that the right of the officers to stop and search the car at the border does not depend on whether the tip received by officer Parkerson was reliable. Indeed, he could have searched the car although he had no information whatever indicating that it might contain narcotics. We know, however, that the volume of traffic at the checkpoint at Tijuana is such that it is not physically possible for the officers to search every vehicle that there passes over the border of Mexico into this country. No doubt many searches result from tips similar to that here involved, and it is probable that -by no means all of these tips come from informants theretofore found to be reliable. Does it make any difference here that the search occurred at the Oceanside checkpoint? I think that it does not.
It is not necessary to consider what the situation would be if there had been no desire or attempt on the part of the agents at the Tijuana border to stop and search the vehicle. See Cervantes v. United States, supra; Plazola v. United States, 9 Cir., 1961, 291 F.2d 56, 61 and Contreras v. United States, 9 Cir., 1961, 291 F.2d 63, 65. In Cervantes, supra, 263 F.2d 800 at p. 803 we pointed out that the defendant there was not stopped at the checkpoint in connection with a pursuit. In Plazola, supra, we simply cited Cervantes. In Contreras, supra, we again stated that there was no history of suspicious behavior at the border followed by surveillance or pursuit.
This case, I think, is different, and more closely resembles Murgia, supra. In Murgia, the defendant crossed the border on foot and was not there searched. Plowever, he was followed, was seen to get into a car with a convicted narcotics violator, and was stopped about a mile and a half outside of Calexico. As we there said, “[n]o customs search can be made precisely at the border. All must be made somewhere north of the border between Mexico and the United States.” We held that the search was a border search relying on the statutes cited above. I think that Murgia is controlling here. Appellant’s car would have been searched at the border if it had not been for the fact that, by the time the tip was received and relayed to the officers on duty, appellant had already gone through the border checkpoint. An attempt at pursuit by car was made, unsuccessfully. Thereupon the pursuit was translated into pursuit by radio, with the request that the car be stopped at one of the two checkpoints, Oceanside or Temecula, and the actual stopping of the car was at the Oceanside checkpoint. It would be unduly restrictive of the idea of pursuit to require that the officers pursue the car in person. The use of the radio to alert the checkpoints amounts, in substance and I think in law, to the same thing.
*132It follows from the foregoing that when the officers stopped the ear and searched it, they did not need to have probable cause; the search was legal without it. Hence, there is no need to require disclosure of the informant. One therefore need not decide whether, when the trunk of the car was opened and the officers saw a parcel of marijuana in the trunk, they then had probable cause to require that the parcel be opened. They would have had the right, without probable cause, to require that it be opened if they had discovered it at the border. They had the same right, under the peculiar circumstances of this case, when they discovered it at the checkpoint.

. Section 1357 of Title 8 U.S.Code authorizes the establishment of the Oceanside checkpoint, and we have upheld the validity of this statute and the regulation thereunder. (Fernandez v. United States, 9 Cir., 1963, 321 F.2d 283.) This statute and regulation, however, relate to aliens, not to imported goods or contraband.