Court Opinion

ID: 9496845
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:36:54.180457+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:50.464322
License: Public Domain

SMITH, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I concur with the majority’s determination that the package was seized-for Fourth Amendment purposes-when Detective Flynn detained it. However, I must respectfully dissent from the court’s determination that Detective Flynn’s knowledge at the time of the seizure justified a reasonable, articulable suspicion warranting the detention. Based upon the totality of the circumstances, I do not believe the facts satisfy the threshold requirement.
Reasonable suspicion exists when, based on the totality of the circumstances, an officer possesses a “particularized and objective basis” for suspecting that the package contains contraband, that is, more than an “inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or ‘hunch.’ ” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 27, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). The Supreme Court has made it particularly clear that “based on the whole picture, the detaining officers must have a particularized and objective basis for suspecting a particular [detained package] of criminal activity.” United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417-418, 101 S.Ct. 690, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981); accord United States v. Johnson, 171 F.3d 601, 604 (8th Cir.1999). However, “[c]onduct typical of a broad category of innocent people provides a weak basis for suspicion.” United States v. Weaver, 966 F.2d 391, 394 (8th Cir.1992) (citation omitted). While “conduct which would be wholly innocent to the untrained observer ... might acquire significance when viewed by an agent who is familiar with the practices of drug [traffickers] and the methods used to avoid detection ... it is impossible for a combination of wholly innocent factors to combine into a suspicious conglomeration unless there are concrete reasons for such an interpretation.” United States v. Beck, 140 F.3d 1129, 1137 (8th Cir.1998) (internal citations omitted).
Law enforcement officers are permitted to draw “inferences and deductions that might well elude an untrained person.” Cortez, 449 U.S. at 418, 101 S.Ct. 690. However, those inferences and deductions must be explained. Johnson, 171 F.3d at 604. Specifically, the Fourth Amendment requires an officer to explain why the officer’s knowledge of particular criminal practices gives special significance to the apparently innocent facts observed.1 Detective Flynn’s explanation is inadequate.
*535Detective Flynn testified, and the majority notes, that he relied on six factors to detain the package for a search. These included: 1) the package was shipped from Los Angeles, a drug-source city; 2) the package was shipped to St. Louis, a drug-target city; 3) the package was shipped from a CMRA; 4) the package was shipped second-day air delivery; 5) the package was shipped to a CMRA; 6) the name and address of the recipient were handwritten. In this case, the district court discounted each of these factors to find that Detective Flynn did not have a reasonable, articulable suspicion to seize the package. I do not believe the district court clearly erred in its factual conclusions.
Because these cases are intensely fact specific, comparison to other cases is difficult. However, in four recent decisions, we addressed circumstances in which we determined that officers had reasonable, articulable suspicion to seize a package. In these cases, each package possessed additional factors beyond the general characteristics of ordinary packages. See, e.g., United States v. Morones, 355 F.3d 1108, 1110 (8th Cir.2004)2 (package was sent by overnight delivery, shipper paid cash, no phone numbers were included, labels were handwritten, sender and recipient had same last name, package sent from source state); United States v. Walker, 324 F.3d 1032, 1037 (8th Cir.2003) (package was delivered to airport by a person driving a vehicle rented by an individual who lived only sixty miles from airport, payment made in cash, and labels were handwritten); United States v. Terriques, 319 F.3d 1051, 1056 (8th Cir.2003) (package was heavily taped, mailed from a high-crime neighborhood, and mailed from main post office rather than postal station closer to sender’s address); United States v. Gomez, 312 F.3d 920, 923 (8th Cir.2002) (package was heavily taped and marked “FRAGILE,” was of excessive weight for its size, and was mailed for overnight weekend delivery); United States v. Demoss, 279 F.3d 632, 636 (8th Cir.2002) (package was heavily perfumed, heavily taped with all seams sealed, and no phone numbers were listed for sender or recipient).
The instant facts are considerably less persuasive. First, Detective Flynn did not originally identify the package. Rather, an undisclosed mail clerk flagged it, and we have no information, as we did in Ter-riques for example, about this person’s experience or why this person identified this package for inspection. In addition, Detective Flynn possessed limited experience in mail-center drug interdiction-while *536he had worked in narcotics investigation for several years, he had worked in mail-center interdiction for only a few months before this incident. The district court recognized this and determined that Detective Flynn’s experience played a minor role in the identification of the package because the package was identified by an undisclosed mail clerk. The mail clerk merely called the police, and Detective Flynn went to the mail center with the drug dog to conduct a canine sniff of that particular package.
Detective Flynn’s explanation of these six innocuous characteristics did not amount to a reasonable, articulable suspicion. To begin with, Detective Flynn erred in suggesting that second-day air delivery, such as that used in this case, was a preferred method of delivery for drug dealers. The majority acknowledges as much, but disregards the difference that this error makes in this case. We have acknowledged in numerous cases, including those listed above in which reasonable suspicion was found, that “overnight” or “next-day” air delivery was the preferred method of delivery for drug traffickers. In contrast, “second-day” air delivery is typically not the type of delivery used by drug traffickers. This mistake highlights Detective Flynn’s inexperience in package drug interdiction. Without this factor, the remaining factors amount to nothing more than a combination of unsuspicious characteristics.3 We should require more to subject items placed in legitimate commerce to seizure and subsequent search.
I, therefore, respectfully dissent from this portion of the decision.

. See Cortez, 449 U.S. at 418-422, 101 S.Ct. 690 (particular inferences drawn by experienced Border Patrol officers justified the stop at issue); Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. *535690, 700, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996) (officer relied on experience to determine that loose panel below backseat armrest suggested storage of drugs rather than wear and tear); 4 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment § 9.4(a), at 143 (3d ed.1996) (because the officer's inferences and deductions were fully explained at the suppression hearing, Cortez correctly held that "a particularized and objective basis” existed for the stop).

. The defendant in Morones argued that a package must contain additional "red flag” factors in order to raise reasonable, articula-ble suspicion with authorities. Morones, 355 F.3d at 1112. In dicta, we rejected this contention by noting that we examine the totality of the circumstances in light of the investigating officer’s experience. Id. However, we then went on to note that the officer in Mo-rones identified "additional characteristics of the package that generated suspicion,” including that: 1) the package was mailed by "priority overnight,” which he indicated was typically used by businesses that provided the necessary contact information; 2) the sender paid cash; 3) the sender and recipient had the same last name; 4) the package was mailed from California; 5) neither the sender’s nor recipient’s telephone numbers were provided; 6) the label was handwritten. Id.

. See United States v. Vasquez, 213 F.3d 425 (8th Cir.2000) (characteristics were insufficient to raise a reasonable, articulable suspicion where package was incorrectly addressed although sender and recipient had same last name, label was handwritten, package was sent “priority overnight,” it contained no account number, and it was sent from California); Johnson, 171 F.3d 601 (characteristics were insufficient to support seizure where package labels were handwritten, sender's and receiver's addresses were the same, package was mailed from California, and return address ZIP code was different from accepting ZIP code).