Court Opinion

ID: 9744026
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:52:19.758727+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:46.263689
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
dissenting.
In this case, three plainclothes officers working together at the airport saw a Hispanic passenger carrying a handbag deplane a flight from Miami and walk rapidly to a restroom. He came out in a few minutes and walked rapidly to an exit and to a taxi stand. He did not claim any baggage. As he was about to enter a taxi, the three officers approached him, the lead officer identifying himself as a police officer.
At the time of this initial contact, the officer stated that he was conducting a drug investigation and asked appellant if he had been on the Florida flight. Receiving an affirmative answer, the officer then asked for some identification. Appellant handed him his Florida driver’s license and a ticket for a return flight to Miami leaving the next day. The license had appellant’s photograph on it. There was nothing suspicious about either item. The officer then asked appellant if he had business in Indianapolis, and appellant said that he was a clothing buyer. There was nothing remarkable about this response.
In the next immediately following series of events, the officer asked appellant for permission to look in the handbag he was carrying. Appellant shook his head, said yes, and handed the bag to one of the other officers who was standing a few feet away. As this officer was going through the bag, appellant became visibly nervous and stood in such a manner as to show them only one of his sides. The search of the bag revealed only some papers. The officer searching the bag found appellant’s Colombian passport; however, the officer in charge who conducted all of the questioning was not made aware of the presence in the bag of the Colombian passport until after appellant was inside the airport and in custody.
In the next immediately following series of events, the officer asked appellant for permission to make a search of his person. Appellant then looked at the officer and said, “I have drugs.” The officer in charge then asked appellant to accompany them to an office in the airport, and responding in the affirmative, appellant walked along with the three officers to the office.
In the next immediately following series of events, the officer provided appellant with a copy of the Miranda rights in Spanish, and appellant refused to sign a waiver of those rights. He then stood up and took the contraband cocaine from his clothing *1220and handed it to the officers without being touched or searched.
In this situation, appellant’s statement “I have drugs” and the drugs themselves are the inadmissible product of an unlawful intrusion when that intrusion is measured by the Fourth Amendment. The best judgment of airport search cases is that, at points other than border crossings, stopping a person in an airport and requesting permission to search that person’s luggage or to make a personal search constitutes a “seizure” of the person for the purposes of the Fourth Amendment and must be justified by a reasonable and artic-ulable suspicion of criminal activity. United States v. Sokolow, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989); Florida v. Rodriguez, 469 U.S. 1, 105 S.Ct. 308, 83 L.Ed.2d 165 (1984). Here, appellant walked rapidly from a plane from Miami, admittedly a location from which one might suspect drugs to arrive. Many busy people walk rapidly through airports. He did not, however, look around nervously as though to detect surveillance. He did not pick up baggage which had been checked. Many innocent people do not do so. When stopped, he, unlike those in some of the important airport cases, see, e.g., United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980), produced his own Florida driver’s license and consistent flight ticket. His explanation of his travel provided no basis for suspicion. At this point, the commands of the Fourth Amendment required that the questioning and pressing of appellant be stopped. Appellant’s admission of having drugs and his production of those drugs are the tainted product of the unlawful continuance of that questioning and should have been suppressed.