Court Opinion

ID: 9477213
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:17:22.826942+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:45.628118
License: Public Domain

GEORGE CLIFTON EDWARDS, Jr., Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
As I see this case, the significant question is: where three airplane passengers are stopped by federal officers and led into separate airport offices wherein each is questioned about possession of cocaine found in the luggage of one of them and each separately makes statements which are subsequently used to convict him or her of illegal possession of cocaine,1 does Miranda v. Arizona require reversal of said convictions since concededly no Miranda warnings were given until after statements had been secured?
I would answer this question in the affirmative.
This case was tried before the District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. The defendants now appeal their convictions for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. The facts herein clearly allowed the District Court to find that defendants were in possession of cocaine with intent to distribute and were caught in such possession. That, however, does not end this argument.
On June 14, 1985, Memphis Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Agent Richard Holmes received a telephone call from DEA Agent Paul Markonni, who was assigned to the airport detail in Atlanta, Georgia. Agent Markonni advised Agent Holmes that he had observed one male and two females (later identified as the three defendants) at the Atlanta airport when they exited a plane arriving from Miami, Florida. Agent Markonni reported that he noticed one of the females (Ware) holding one of her arms across her abdomen, as if she were holding something, and rush to an airport restroom. When Ware returned from the restroom, she was no longer holding her stomach. Markonni also reported that the defendants had initially acted as though they didn’t know each other, but later had talked with one another. Mar-konni checked with the airline and learned that each reservation had been made at the same time the previous day and that the tickets had been purchased with cash. He also checked a “call-back” telephone number in Miami that had been given to the airline by the person who had made the reservations, and discovered that the person who answered the telephone at that number did not know any of the defendants.
Agent Holmes and officers from Memphis Metro Narcotics met the defendants’ flight at the Memphis Airport. The officers stationed themselves outside the gate area and observed the defendants as they *299left the plane. All the officers were in plain clothes and no guns were drawn; a uniformed airport security guard, however, may have been positioned somewhere near the gate area. Agent Holmes noted that the defendants entered the gate area separately, and “looked around and acted like they didn’t know each other.” Agent Holmes also noticed Ware carrying a blue travel bag which she subsequently handed to Knox just outside the gate area.
Agent Holmes then approached the defendants, identified himself as a Special Agent of the DEA, and told them that he would like to speak with them for a few minutes. Holmes asked the defendants to accompany him and the other officers (four or five in number) to the Airport Security Office. The defendants agreed, but requested that they pick up their luggage first. Agent Holmes and the local officers then assisted the defendants in retrieving their luggage from the baggage claim area. Agent Holmes asked both female defendants, either before or after retrieving the checked luggage, if he could “assist” them in carrying their bags. He was given the blue travel bag, according to the government by Knox, and according to the defendants, by “Knox or someone.”
All of the above facts represent both lawful and effective police work.
After they arrived in the Airport Security Office, the defendants were each placed in separate rooms. Agent Holmes went from room to room, questioning each defendant separately. Agent Holmes did not, during this questioning, give any of the defendants Miranda warnings.
All three defendants initially denied that they knew each other. When Agent Holmes asked to see defendant Champeg-nie’s identification and airline ticket, Cham-pegnie identified himself as Altamont Champegnie, but stated that he had lost his boarding pass and airline ticket. Knox also told Agent Holmes that she did not have her ticket. While questioning Ware, Agent Holmes saw Ware reach into her purse to retrieve her identification, and in doing so, she pulled out a group of airline tickets and boarding passes. Agent Holmes asked Ware if he could see the tickets. The tickets and boarding passes were listed in the names of Kim Ware, Dorothy Knox, and A. Stanford, the latter of which was later discovered to be the name under which Cham-pegnie was traveling. Once Champegnie knew that Agent Holmes had seen the tickets, he acknowledged that he did know Ware and Knox, although he first represented that he had only met them on the plane, and shortly thereafter, he stated that he had known them for a couple of months. While Agent Holmes was questioning the defendants, each defendants’ luggage was located with them in their respective rooms, except for the blue travel bag, which was placed just outside the door of Ware’s room.
Agent Holmes unzipped, but did not search, the blue travel bag prior to obtaining each defendant’s consent to search. Holmes testified that he unzipped the bag out of habit, since it is standard procedure to check for a weapon when interviewing an individual.
In addition, Holmes had a trained police dog go over the defendants’ luggage in their presence. The dog responded positively for cocaine as to both the luggage and the blue travel bag. Subsequently, each defendant consented to a search of his or her individual luggage, but denied ownership or control of the blue travel bag. Ware claimed that the bag belonged to Knox and Knox claimed that the bag belonged to Ware. Approximately one kilogram of cocaine, valued at $35,000 was discovered in the blue travel bag. The blue travel bag also contained female and unisex clothes (clothes which can be worn by either a man or a woman). Neither drugs nor contraband were found in any of the luggage, but a book on cocaine processing titled The Cocaine Handbook was found in Champegnie’s briefcase. The book covered such topics as “Testing for Purity, Health Risk, Safeguards, Improving Quality, Inside the Cocaine Trade, and Cocaine and the Law.”
After the search and discovery of the cocaine, the defendants were given Miranda warning and placed under formal *300arrest. Agent Holmes also testified that he had advised defendants of their rights prior to their signing the consent forms. The defendants had been detained and/or questioned from ten to thirty minutes prior to their arrest (the parties’ estimates vary and the District Court did not attempt to resolve this disputed question of fact). During the detention period the defendants were neither told that they were free to go nor that they were under arrest. The District Court found that “[a] seizure of the person did occur when Agent Holmes stopped the defendants and requested that they come with him for questioning.”
It appears to me that there is no question but that there was evidence of violation of the drug laws by all three of the defendants. What is at issue, however, is whether or not the procedures which were employed in isolating the defendants and questioning them before giving them Miranda warnings so violated their constitutional rights as to require our concluding that the critical evidence seized should have been and must now be suppressed. Four cases are especially cited to us in this regard; United States v. Tolbert, 692 F.2d 1041 (6th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 933, 104 S.Ct. 337, 78 L.Ed.2d 306 (1983); Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 99 S.Ct. 421, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) and Reid v. Georgia, 448 U.S. 438, 440, 100 S.Ct. 2752, 2753, 65 L.Ed.2d 890 (1980).
There is, however, a later opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court which I regard as controlling in our instant case. See Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 434, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 3147, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984). In Berkemer, the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed this Court’s decision in McCarty v. Herdman, 716 F.2d 361 (1983). The single headnote in this Court’s treatment of the McCarty case stated “Miranda warnings must be given to all individuals prior to custodial interrogation, whether the offense investigated be a felony or a misdemeanor traffic offense.”
As I read the record of our instant case it appears clear that each defendant was isolated in a separate room and questioned from between ten to thirty minutes by law enforcement officers before Miranda warnings were given. It appears that evidence derived from this unwarned questioning after seizure and in isolation was admitted at trial against defendants. Under these circumstances, the convictions should have been and must now be vacated.
I am aware, of course, that the Supreme Court in Berkemer also held that Miranda warnings need not be given during an ordinary traffic stop. The Court further noted “the absence of any suggestion in our opinions that Terry stops are subject to the dictates of Miranda.” 468 U.S. at 440,104 S.Ct. at 3150. However, whether the detention in the present case is considered a Terry stop, or a full seizure, it is clearly more akin to the station house interrogation which prompted Miranda than the ordinary traffic stop involved in Berkemer. Indeed, the airport security office functions as a station house at the airport, and should be treated accordingly. See Miranda, 384 U.S. at 445, 86 S.Ct. at 1612 (consolidated Miranda cases all involved questioning in a room in which defendant was cut off from the outside world); Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 437, 104 S.Ct. at 3148 (Miranda must be strictly enforced in situations in which the concerns that produced that decision are implicated).

. Appellant Dorothy Ann Knox submitted a Conditional Plea of Guilty which, however, "specifically reserves ... all appeal rights as to all issues raised in defendant’s Motion to Suppress....” The practical effect of this Plea is to place her before this court in the same position as the other two defendants and I treat all three jointly in this opinion.