Court Opinion

ID: 9479601
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:23:00.99034+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:08.843771
License: Public Domain

WIGGINS, Circuit Judge,
joined by BREWSTER, District Judge, concurring:
I concur in the affirmance of Low’s judgment and conviction. I write separately to state my disagreement with the developing law in our circuit and elsewhere, regarding the legal significance of “retaining” an airline ticket.
We are told that the retention of an airline ticket “beyond the interval required for the appropriate brief scrutiny, may constitute a ‘watershed point’ in the seizure question.” United States v. Black, 675 F.2d 129, 136 (7th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1068, 103 S.Ct. 1520, 75 L.Ed.2d 945 (1983) (citations omitted). The timing of the retention of the ticket is critical. For example, our memorandum states that if the agent questioned Low after retaining the ticket, a seizure occurred. United States v. Woods, 720 F.2d 1022, 1025-26 (9th Cir.1983). If, however, the agent’s questions occurred during a brief detention of the ticket, no seizure results. Id.
Law enforcement officers stationed at airports to monitor passengers and, in appropriate cases, seize items of baggage suspected of containing narcotics have an enormously difficult job. They must identify “suspicious persons”; monitor their passage; and if their suspicions are not allayed, may confront the passenger with a request for his tickets so that the tickets may be briefly inspected. The disposition today does nothing to make that job easier. We tell the officer that he may accept the tickets that he requests; may inspect them briefly; but may not ask questions logically raised by the inspection, without having the possession of the tickets become a sei*237zure. There may be a certain logical appeal to this procedure, but it does not appeal to my common sense.
I would prefer a rule that permitted the officers to request the inspection of airline tickets in the possession of passengers. If a passenger consents, no seizure occurs when the tickets are delivered to the officer. The officer may thereupon retain the tickets for inspection and for questions based upon that inspection, until the passenger clearly withdraws his consent. I would hold that a passenger who asks for the return of his tickets has clearly withdrawn his consent. Such a rule would avoid much of the uncertainty that the present law encourages.