Court Opinion

ID: 9468889
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:26:04.902138+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:06.013230
License: Public Domain

R. LANIER ANDERSON, III, Circuit Judge,
joined by FAY, Circuit Judge, specially concurring:
I concur in the judgment affirming the convictions of appellants Berry and Zabish, and I concur in most of the comprehensive and scholarly majority opinion. However, I respectfully disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the appellants did not voluntarily consent to accompany the agents to the DEA office. Because I conclude that appellants did voluntarily consent to go to the DEA office, I would not reach the issue addressed in part II.D. of the majority opinion, i.e., whether individuals who accompany agents to an airport office, without their consent, are subject to a detention that is tantamount to an arrest requiring probable cause.
In my opinion, United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980), requires the conclusion in this case that Berry and Zabish voluntarily consented to accompany Agent Markonni to the DEA office.1 The relevant Mendenhall facts include: (1) the agent knew and Mendenhall knew that the agent knew that Mendenhall was traveling under an alias; (2) the agent then specifically identified himself as a narcotics agent, and Mendenhall became quite shaken and extremely nervous; (3) the agent asked Mendenhall if she would accompany him to the DEA office for further questions; (4) she did follow the agent to the office, although the record does not indicate that she ever verbally agreed to do so; and (5) Mendenhall was not “advised” that she was free to decline to accompany the agent to the DEA office.
The relevant facts in the instant case include: (1) The agent knew that Berry and Zabish were traveling under an alias, and they knew the agent knew. In the instant case there is the additional fact that Berry and Zabish lied to the agent when they initially misidentified themselves. (2) In addition to identifying himself as a narcotics agent, Markonni in this case asked appellants if they were carrying drugs, to which Berry responded in the negative. (3) Agent Markonni asked these appellants to accompany him to the DEA office, apparently in much the same manner as occurred *607in Mendenhall. (4) Appellants not only followed the agent to the office, but in addition, Berry affirmatively agreed to go to the DEA office, which is more favorable to the government than Mendenhall’s acquiescence by simply following the agent to the office. (5) Apparently neither Berry nor Zabish were advised that they had a right to decline to go to the DEA office.
In my opinion, the facts of Mendenhall’s consent to go to the DEA office cannot be distinguished satisfactorily from the instant facts. It is true that Markonni specifically asked whether these appellants were carrying drugs. Although this specific question was not asked in Mendenhall, the agent did specifically identify himself to Mendenhall as a federal narcotics agent, in response to which Mendenhall “became quite shaken, extremely nervous.” 446 U.S. at 548, 100 S.Ct. at 1874. When a known narcotics agent asks a shaken and nervous Menden-hall to accompany him to the DEA office “for further questions,” 446 U.S. at 548, 100 S.Ct. at 1874, the effect on Mendenhall seems to me insignificantly different from the effect on Berry and Zabish of the specific question about carrying drugs.
It is also true that the majority in the instant ease conclude that at least Zabish was seized prior to being asked to go to the DEA office, whereas in Mendenhall there was no finding by the majority that there had been a seizure. However, Justice Powell, with whom the Chief Justice and Justice Blackmun concurred, assumed there had been a seizure in Mendenhall, without affecting their concurrence in the majority’s finding that Mendenhall voluntarily consented to go to the DEA office. The facts of the instant case which the majority emphasize in finding that Zabish was seized— that Officer Denton came over to Zabish, perhaps touched her elbow, pointed toward Markonni and Berry, and asked her to join them, while at the same time Markonni was motioning her to join them — do not, in my judgment, add significantly to a coercive atmosphere that would negate consent. More importantly, the totality of the circumstances here seem to be at least as lacking in coercion, and at least as indicative of voluntary consent, as in Mendenhall. A crucial fact here which is more favorable to a finding of voluntary consent is that Berry did in fact agree, in the presence of Zabish, to accompany the officers to the DEA office. That affirmative agreement was absent in Mendenhall, and had to be inferred from the totality of the circumstances, including the fact that she did acquiesce.
Mendenhall might also be distinguished because the Supreme Court merely sustained a district court finding of fact in this regard. However, if that is the only distinction, it seems to me that we could only remand for findings by the district court in light of the Mendenhall standard. I respectfully suggest that we should not, at the appellate level, make a finding of fact that the consent of these appellants was involuntary, when the Supreme Court has sustained a finding of voluntary consent on indistinguishable facts.

. Five justices concurred in the Mendenhall holding of voluntary consent to accompany the narcotics agent to the DEA office.