Court Opinion

ID: 9459085
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:10:00.750162+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:00.782503
License: Public Domain

CHAMBERS, Circuit Judge
(concurring) :
I concur. I believe the customs agents could take notice of the frequency of direct passenger service every day from Tucson to Chicago by American Airlines and Trans World Airlines. The incidence of a man and woman chartering a plane to go to Phoenix to catch an unneeded commercial flight to Chicago when there are frequent flights on Air *302West, Frontier, American, Trans World and Cochise airlines to Phoenix, would be about one in a thousand if some smuggling were not involved. The chartered plane could be obtained in Tucson from a remote hangar, unlike the main air terminal, not under the full time surveillance of customs officers. Then there was the highly suspicious method of transfer from the chartered plane to the commercial plane at Phoenix. All this would lead to an articulable belief that customs “monkeybusiness” was afoot. I think there was immediate probable cause to search before any questioning. Certainly after a little questioning, the basis for a search got better.
I fully concur in Judge Byrne’s opinion, but I set forth the foregoing as an alternate ground to uphold the sequence of the search and the ultimate arrest.