Court Opinion

ID: 9498392
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:16:32.019307+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:48.527315
License: Public Domain

COLLOTON, Circuit Judge,
with whom McMILLIAN, MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, BYE and SMITH, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting.
I believe the court’s holding conflicts with the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 104 S.Ct. 1652, 80 L.Ed.2d 85 (1984). I therefore respectfully dissent.
The question presented in this appeal is whether Nebraska State Police investigators effected a “seizure” of Keith Va Ler-ie’s luggage, within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, when they took physical possession of his garment bag and carried it from the Greyhound bus on which Va Lerie was traveling to a room in the bus terminal, for the purpose of summoning Va Lerie and seeking his consent to search the bag as part of their investigation of suspected drug trafficking. Although the magistrate judge recommended denying Va Lerie’s motion to suppress on the ground that investigators had “reasonable suspicion” to seize the bag, the government has abandoned that argument on appeal, and does not otherwise argue that a seizure of the luggage was “reasonable.” See Brief of Appellant at 5 (“[T]he United States does not advance the proposition that there was reasonable suspicion to remove the garment bag from the area where the bus was being refueled to the office in the bus terminal itself. Rather, the United States argues that that activity does not constitute a seizure for constitutional purposes.”) (emphasis in original); cf. United States v. Van Leeuwen, 397 U.S. 249, 252-53, 90 S.Ct. 1029, 25 L.Ed.2d 282 (1970). Nor does the government contend that Va Lerie’s alleged consent to search the luggage was an independent act of free will that purged the taint of any unconstitutional seizure. See United States v. Va Lerie, 385 F.3d 1141, 1149-50 (8th Cir.2004); id. at 1150 (Melloy, J., concurring) (“The government made the tactical decision to challenge the district court decision solely on the grounds that the district court was wrong in its ruling that a seizure occurred.”). The critical question before us, therefore, is whether the luggage was “seized,” and Jacobsen dictates that the answer is yes.
Jacobsen involved a Federal Express package en route to the residence of Bradley and Donna Jacobsen in Apple Valley, Minnesota. See United States v. Jacobsen, 683 F.2d 296, 297-98 (8th Cir.1982). The package was damaged by a forklift at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport Federal Express office, prompting Federal Express employees to examine the contents. When they discovered a white powder inside the package, Federal Express personnel notified the Drug Enforcement Administra*712tion, and agents traveled to the airport to investigate. Federal Express employees invited an agent to examine the contents of the package, 466 U.S. at 119, 121, 104 S.Ct. 1652, and after the box was placed on a desk in the Federal Express office, the agent proceeded to reopen the package and conduct a “field test” on the white powder. Id. at 111-12, 104 S.Ct. 1652.
In discussing whether the DEA agents made an initial “seizure” of the package before conducting the field test, the Court first made the general statement that “[a] ‘seizure’ of property occurs when there is some meaningful interference with an individual’s possessory interests in that property.” Id. at 113, 104 S.Ct. 1652. In applying that standard to the facts of Ja-cobsen, the Court concluded that “the agents’ assertion of dominion and control over the package and its contents did constitute a ‘seizure.’ ” Id. at 120, 104 S.Ct. 1652. The Court explained that although the Jacobsens “entrusted possession of the items to Federal Express, the decision by governmental authorities to exert dominion and control over the package for their own purposes clearly constituted a ‘seizure,’ though not necessarily an unreasonable one.” Id. at 120 n. 18, 104 S.Ct. 1652. This holding is consistent with the Court’s later observation that “[f|rom the time of the founding to the present, the word ‘seizure’ has meant a ‘taking possession,’ ” and that “[f]or most purposes at common law, the word connoted ... bringing [an object] within physical control.” California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 621, 624, 111 S.Ct. 1547, 113 L.Ed.2d 690 (1991) (internal citations omitted).
There is no viable distinction between this case and Jacobsen on the question whether governmental authorities effected a seizure. Although Va Lerie entrusted possession of his luggage to Greyhound, NSP investigators exerted dominion and control over the luggage for their own purposes. That is, they identified the luggage for investigation, took physical possession and control of the garment bag at the bus, and moved it to a non-public room in the bus station, where three or four investigators were present. United States v. Va Lerie, No. 8:03CR23, 2003 WL 21956437, at *1, 4 (D.Neb. Aug.14, 2003); United States v. Valerie, 2003 WL 21953948, at *1 (D.Neb. June 10, 2003)(re-port and recommendation). They did so for the purpose of furthering their law enforcement investigation of potential drug trafficking by summoning Va Lerie and seeking his consent to search the luggage. Valerie, 2003 WL 21956437, at *1. According to Jacobsen, therefore, this action by the NSP investigators constituted a seizure. 466 U.S. at 120 n. 18, 104 S.Ct. 1652.
Jacobsen cannot be distinguished on the ground that the DEA agents destroyed a quantity of the white powder in the Federal Express package by conducting a field test. Cf. ante, at 13 (citing Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 124-25, 104 S.Ct. 1652, for the proposition that “the field test did affect respondents’ possessory interests”). The Court was clear that an “initial ‘seizure’ ” involving a “temporary deprivation of pos-sessory interests,” 466 U.S. at 124-25, 104 S.Ct. 1652, took place when agents made “the decision ... to exert dominion and control over the package for their own purposes,” id. at 120 n. 18, 104 S.Ct. 1652, not when an agent destroyed some of the powder. The Court separately analyzed the significance of the field test, concluding that it reasonably “converted what had been only a temporary deprivation of pos-sessory interests into a permanent one.” Id. at 124-25, 104 S.Ct. 1652. Nor did the occurrence of the initial seizure in Jacob-sen depend on the fact that agents intended “to search the package.” Cf. ante, at 22 n. 9. Jacobsen did not involve a Fourth Amendment “search” at all, 466 U.S. at *713120, 124, 104 S.Ct. 1652, and the Court subsequently relied on Jacobsen when it held unanimously that “seizures of property are subject to Fourth Amendment scrutiny even though no search within the meaning of the Amendment has taken place.” Soldal v. Cook County, 506 U.S. 56, 68, 113 S.Ct. 538, 121 L.Ed.2d 450 (1992).
Under the test applied by the court today, the initial seizure in Jacobsen would not be a seizure. First, the initial seizure of the Federal Express package of course did not delay any travel by the Jacobsens or impact their freedom of movement. Second, there is no reason to believe the “temporary deprivation” occasioned by the “decision ... to exert dominion and control over the package” delayed the delivery of the Jacobsens’ package, and the Court in no way relied on potential delay in announcing its conclusion. In fact, after only a “short time” at the Federal Express office (including further investigation beyond the initial seizure), the package was “rewrapped and Federal Express was directed to deliver the package to the addressee shown on the label.” 683 F.2d at 297; see also 466 U.S. at 111-12, 104 S.Ct. 1652.
And third, if law enforcement’s physical possession and control of Va Lerie’s luggage — in a room inside the bus terminal without Greyhound personnel present — did not temporarily deprive Greyhound of its custody of the luggage, then neither did the DEA’s possession of the Federal Express package in Jacobsen deprive the courier of its custody of the package. The majority says the NSP “never deprived Greyhound of its custody” of the garment bag, because “NSP removed Va Lerie’s checked luggage from the lower luggage compartment to a room inside the terminal at Greyhound’s request.” Ante, at 22. By that reasoning, Federal Express surely was not “deprived of custody” when the Jacobsens’ package was “placed on a desk” in the Federal Express office, 466 U.S. at 111, 104 S.Ct. 1652, and examined by a DEA agent, after Federal Express employees “invited the federal agent to their offices for the express purpose of viewing” the contents of the package. Id. at 119, 104 S.Ct. 1652.12 And if the NSP did not exceed Va Lerie’s “reasonable expectations for how the passenger’s luggage might be handled,” ante, at 20 n. 7, (despite no apparent evidence that Greyhound itself typically moved checked luggage from the bus to rooms inside the terminal during intermediate stops), then the DEA agents who effected the “initial seizure” of the Jacobsens’ package (prior to the field test) certainly did not exceed reasonable expec*714tations about handling of the package by the private carrier when they merely replicated what Federal Express itself already had done. 466 U.S. at 119-20, 104 S.Ct. 1652. Thus, the court’s three-factor test, as applied, conflicts with Jacobsen.
Although the court asserts that its new test comports with the views of many judges in this circuit, ante, at 21-22, none of our prior holdings dictates the conclusion reached today.13 To be sure, our court has recognized that not every interference with a person’s property constitutes a “seizure” under the Fourth Amendment, because some interferences are not “meaningful.” E.g., United States v. Gomez, 312 F.3d at 923. But in arriving at its holding, the court is forced to overrule or distinguish without explanation several decisions — rendered by some of the same judges cited by the majority' — recognizing that law enforcement’s exercise of dominion and control over an object entrusted to a bailee, for the purpose of conducting investigation beyond an observation of the object’s exterior, does constitute a “seizure” under Jacobsen. See ante, at 9 n. 3.
Most recently, in United States v. Morones, 355 F.3d 1108 (8th Cir.2004), we held that a deputy’s removal of a FedEx package from an outbound conveyor belt for the purpose of subjecting the package to a canine sniff was a “meaningful interference” with “possessory interests” under Jacobsen, despite the government’s assertion that no evidence showed that the brief detention of the package would have delayed its delivery. Id. at 1111. This holding followed ineluctably from Jacobsen, which even analogized the field test for which the package was detained to a “sniff test” by a trained narcotics dog. 466 U.S. at 123-24, 104 S.Ct. 1652. We previously reached the same conclusion in at least two other cases. United States v. Walker, 324 F.3d 1032, 1036 (8th Cir.2003) (“It is clear under our precedent that when [the agent] moved the package to a separate room for a canine sniff, the package was seized for Fourth Amendment purposes.”); United States v. Demoss, 279 F.3d 632, 636 (8th Cir.2002) (“As Meyer moved the package away from the conveyor belt and detained the package for a canine sniff, he ‘exert[ed] dominion and control over the package,’ that is, the package was seized for Fourth Amendment purposes.”) (citing Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 121 n. 18, 104 S.Ct. 1652); see also Gomez, 312 F.3d at 923 n. 2; United States v. Fuller, 374 F.3d 617, 621 (8th Cir.2004).
The three-judge panel that first heard this case acknowledged that Va Lerie’s case is indistinguishable from Morones, Walker, and Demoss. Va Lerie, 385 F.3d at 1147-48; id. at 1150 (Melloy, J., concurring); see also id. at 1151-52 (Riley, J., dissenting) (declining to follow Morones, Walker, and Demoss). The court today suggests no distinction. These precedents represent a faithful application of Jacob-sen, and we should follow them here.14
*715The Supreme Court did not regard the initial seizure in Jacobsen as a close question: The DEA’s possession and control of the package “clearly constituted a ‘seizure.’ ” 466 U.S. at 120 n. 18, 104 S.Ct. 1652 (emphasis added). This although the Jacobsens were merely intended recipients who had never actually possessed the package, the initial seizure would have occasioned no delay in delivery, and the package was examined by a government agent at the invitation of Federal Express, in the office of the private carrier, in the same manner that Federal Express previously had examined it. Jacobsen must be our guiding light. Absent a revision of doctrine by the Supreme Court, the NSP investigators effected a “seizure” of Va Lerie’s bag, and the order of the district court should be affirmed.

. The better view, in nay judgment, is that the DEA agents in Jacobsen and the NSP investigators in this case took 'custody” of the package and luggage, respectively, when they took physical possession and control of the containers for the purpose of investigating their contents. See Black’s Law Dictionary 390 (7th ed.1999) (defining "custody” as "the care and control of a thing ... for inspection, preservation, or security”); ante, at 19 (equating "custody” with "immediate possession”). The subjective belief or assertion of an NSP investigator that Va Lerie's bag "was not in our custody,” ante, at 3, certainly is not dis-positive, and the district court made no finding that the investigators’ physical possession and control of the luggage for investigative purposes did not amount to "custody” of the luggage. Rather, the district court found that the NSP investigators “removed,” "detained,” "seized,” "sequestered,” and exerted "thorough 'dominion and control' ” over the garment bag. Va Lerie, 2003 WL 21956437, at * 2, 4, 8. Cf. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 120 n. 18, 104 S.Ct. 1652 (noting district court found that agents "took custody” of package, and holding that exertion of "dominion and control” over package constituted a seizure). In any event, under either approach to the issue of "custody,” there is no perceptible distinction between this case and Jacobsen.

. The only holdings said to be on point are United States v. Gomez, 312 F.3d 920, 923-24 (8th Cir.2002), and United States v. Vasquez, 213 F.3d 425, 426 (8th Cir.2000). Gomez itself, however, stated that a seizure does occur when, as here, an officer exerts dominion and control over an object “by deciding to go beyond a superficial inspection of the exterior of the packages and to detain the packages for further inquiry into characteristics that could not be observed by merely holding the package." 312 F.3d at 923 n. 2 (citing Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 121 n. 18, 104 S.Ct. 1652). Vasquez is distinguishable, because it held that there was no seizure where officers did not take possession of packages at a sorting station, but merely brought a narcotics dog to sniff the packages as a Federal Express driver "continued to load the accumulated parcels unimpeded.” 213 F.3d at 426.

. The four decisions from other circuits cited by the court do not provide persuasive sup*715port for the conclusion that there was no seizure of Va Lerie’s luggage under the rule of Jacobsen. None of the cited opinions even discussed the Supreme Court's analysis of the initial seizure in Jacobsen. In the Ninth Circuit decisions, moreover, the private airlines — unlike Greyhound here — did not give up possession and control of the passenger’s property until after a dog had indicated the presence of narcotics or the passenger had consented to a search. United States v. Johnson, 990 F.2d 1129, 1130-31 (9th Cir.1993) (explaining that an airline representative was present with officers at all times, and that the airline refused to relinquish custody of luggage to DEA); United States v. Brown, 884 F.2d 1309, 1310 (9th Cir.1989) (explaining that agents "arranged to have Brown’s [checked] luggage held” until he granted consent). And the Seventh Circuit in United States v. Ward, 144 F.3d 1024 (7th Cir.1998), held only that an agent did not "seize” a bag “merely by touching it and then removing it from the luggage compartment” of a bus, and that á seizure did occur when the agent’s decision to hold the bag for canine inspection interrupted the bag’s transport. Id. at 1033. The court rendered no decision on a situation like Va Lerie's, where agents took possession and control of luggage for the purpose of seeking consent to search, or a case like Mo-rones, where agents exerted dominion and control over a package in order to conduct a canine sniff, without delaying the transport of the package.