Court Opinion

ID: 9483039
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:08:31.657739+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:22.385214
License: Public Domain

ARNOLD, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
Because this case seems to me indistinguishable in any significant way from United States v. White, 890 F.2d 1413 (8th Cir.1989), cert. denied, - U.S.-, 111 S.Ct. 77, 112 L.Ed.2d 50 (1990), I respectfully dissent.
The White opinion is less than three years old, and none of our cases decided since that time has questioned it or thrown doubt upon it in any way. There are differences between the present facts and those in White, to be sure, as there always are, but the differences, on balance, do not place this search and seizure appreciably closer to the line of legality than what happened in White. Like Weaver, White was “very, nervous,” ante at 395, he arrived from a source city, the flight was early in the morning, and White had no checked luggage. Some of the facts in White, indeed, appear stronger than the present case: for example, White had purchased his ticket with cash, and it was a one-way ticket. The agents did not know whether Weaver had bought his ticket for cash or not, or whether it was one way. Weaver did not have a copy of his ticket, but sometimes innocent people lose their tickets, to say nothing of ticket coupons which may be of no further use to them. I have lost tickets myself. Weaver had no identification, or at least declined to produce any, but this was his undoubted right: we have not yet come to the point in this country (except maybe in airports) when *397citizens must identify themselves to public employees.
One of the most disturbing aspects of this case is the agents’ reference to Weaver as “a roughly dressed young black male,” ante at 394. Most young people on airplanes are roughly dressed, or at least they look that way to one of my age and stage. (This could be said of older people, too, I suspect.) And large numbers of travelers carry two or even three bags on planes with them, apparently mistrusting the airlines’ baggage service.
About the only thing left is the officers’ testimony that Weaver appeared to be more nervous than innocent passengers. I do not question the officers’ sincerity, but it seems unwise to place much weight on such a subjective factor, one that can be wheeled out for use in almost every airport-stop case. The predicate of this assertion must be that Agent Hicks and his colleagues have questioned many passengers, some of whom are innocent, enough passengers, in fact, to be able to vouchsafe an expert opinion on the relative nervousness of drug-carrying passengers as opposed to law-abiding ones. It would be interesting to know how many innocent people have been stopped, either for questioning alone, or for search of their luggage. This information, which we never seem to get in these cases, would go far towards enabling us to say whether the kind of police tactic we have before us is reasonable, which is, after all, the controlling criterion in applying the Fourth Amendment.
Finally, a word about the reliance placed on Weaver’s race. This factor is repeated several times in the Court’s opinion. I am not prepared to say that it could never be relevant. If, for example, we had evidence that young blacks in Los Angeles were more prone to drug offenses than young whites, the fact that a young person is black might be of some significance, though even then it would be dangerous to give it much weight. I do not know of any such evidence. Use of race as a factor simply reinforces the kind of stereotyping that lies behind drug-courier profiles. When public officials begin to regard large groups of citizens as presumptively criminal, this country is in a perilous situation indeed.
Airports are on the verge of becoming war zones, where anyone is liable to be stopped, questioned, and even searched merely on the basis of the on-the-spot exercise of discretion by police officers. The liberty of the citizen, in my view, is seriously threatened by this practice. The sanctity of private property, a precious human right, is endangered. It’s hard to work up much sympathy for Weaver. He’s getting what he deserves, in a sense. What is missing here, though, is an awareness that law enforcement is a broad concept. It includes enforcement of the Bill of Rights, as well as enforcement of criminal statutes. Cases in which innocent travelers are stopped and impeded in their lawful activities don’t come to court. They go on their way, too busy to bring a lawsuit against the officious agents who have detained them. If the Fourth Amendment is to be enforced, therefore, it must be by way of motions to suppress in cases like this. What we get, instead, as the Court acknowledges, ante at 396, is case after case upholding searches and seizures on “facts [that] ... can be made to appear wildly inconsistent and contradictory.” Of course we must review each case one at a time and on its particular facts, but we do so against a pattern of precedent. Here, White seems to me controlling.
I respectfully dissent.