Court Opinion

ID: 9479659
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:24:54.692116+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:11.370214
License: Public Domain

SHOOB, District Judge,
concurring:
I concur with the majority opinion but wish to express my opinion concerning the outrageousness of the conduct of the law enforcement officers in this case. While I agree that the district court’s decision was not clearly erroneous, I would go further and hold that intimate searches may not occur as part of random airport stops absent explicit and voluntary consent.
A layperson approached in an airport concourse by law enforcement officers making random stops ordinarily would consent to a search of his or her luggage and even a search of his or her person. I do not believe, however, that a layperson who consents to such a search would anticipate the kind of intrusive and intimate contact that occurred in this case. I share the district court’s “amazement that there have apparently been no complaints lodged or fists thrown by indignant travelers” subjected to these searches. United States v. Blake and Eason, 718 F.Supp. 925, 927 (S.D.Fla.1988).1 As the majority indicates, a layperson consenting to a search in the public area of an airport might expect a search of his or her pockets, sides and shoulders or use of a hand-held magnome-ter. It is a different matter entirely when the search begins with the law enforcement officer’s reaching for and touching the individual’s genital area.
I also have doubts about the majority’s conclusion that the subject of a random airport stop might “reasonably expect the traditional frisk search, described in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 17 n.18, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1877 n. 13, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968).” Terry permits a frisk search where a law enforcement officer reasonably believes that his safety or that of others is in danger. Id. at 27, 88 S.Ct. at 1883 (citations omitted). A random airport stop without any articula-ble suspicion or fear would not support the more personal search authorized by Terry. Even if Terry were applicable, I do not agree that such a thorough search would be anticipated by an individual’s consent to a personal search in a busy airport concourse.2
The majority recognizes that airport terminals are settings where particular care must be exercised to protect the privacy rights of individuals. See United States v. Berry, 670 F.2d 583, 596-98 (5th Cir. Unit B 1982) (en banc). Nevertheless, the majority limits its holding to the conclusion that the district court was not clearly erroneous based upon the facts of this case. I *802would prefer a holding establishing that crotch searches during random airport stops must be preceded by a specific request and voluntary consent. In all other respects, I concur in the majority opinion.

. This writer would react in that fashion — especially if the officer was smaller than he.

. The majority quotes a footnote that describes a Terry search but does not cite language immediately following in the text of the decision where the Supreme Court characterizes such a search as “a serious intrusion upon the sanctity of the person, which may inflict great indignity and arouse strong resentment...." Id. at 17, 88 S.Ct. at 1877.