Court Opinion

ID: 9480048
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:36:20.601473+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:27.051475
License: Public Domain

PIERCE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part:
I agree with the majority that the conviction of appellant Moreno should be affirmed. However, as far as the affirmance of appellant Libreros’s conviction is concerned, “I dissent from the conclusion that the confluence of earlier events and the substantial experience of the federal agent warranted [the agent’s] ‘plain view’ seizure of the [brick-shaped] package in appellant’s open ... bag.” United States v. Barrios-Moriera, 872 F.2d 12, 18 (1989) (Pierce, J., dissenting).
Initially, I note that in both Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. 730, 103 S.Ct. 1535, 75 L.Ed.2d 502 (1983) (plurality opinion), and Barrios-Moriera, upon which today’s majority relies, there existed a particularized basis for suspecting that the defendant was involved with drugs and that his possession of a particular item was not innocent. In Brown, “the police officer ... saw [, in addition to the uninflated, tied-off balloon eventually seized by him,] ‘several small plastic vials [and] quantities of loose white powder.’ ” Barrios-Moriera, 872 F.2d at 18 (Pierce, J., dissenting) (quoting Brown, 460 U.S. at 734, 103 S.Ct. at 1539) (emphasis added in Barrios-Moriera). Similarly, in Barrios-Moriera, the majority emphasized that the defendant had evinced a prior “interest in [an] Audi automobile [law enforcement officers] were surveilling in connection with a drug -related homicide.” Id. (emphasis in original). Here, however, there is an absence of any circumstance — other than the viewing of the package itself — that specifically links the defendant with drugs.
I do not suggest a particularized basis should always be required. In my view, however, the absence of such a basis requires a greater confluence of general factors than are present here. In this regard, I note that although the majority asserts that Libreros’s statement that the bag contained food was “evidently false,” I am unaware of any finding made by the district court concerning this point. The finding of probable cause is further undercut by the fact that Libreros stopped when he was asked, and voluntarily opened his bag. If we are to view, as we have, a failure to stop when requested by a law enforcement official as supporting “a rising tide of suspicion” of drug involvement, id., we might view Libreros’s cooperation as supporting the contrary inference.
In sum, this case brings us uncomfortably close to holding that the mere viewing of a package of the type present here, by itself, constitutes probable cause. See id. at 17 (rejecting suggestion that “the mere viewing and evaluation of the package alone constituted probable cause.”). I feel constrained to reverse as to Libreros.