Court Opinion

ID: 9482598
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:55:22.66304+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:05.824407
License: Public Domain

RALPH B. GUY, Jr., Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Although I agree that the district court should be affirmed, I have a slightly different view of what we are doing and not doing in our en banc consideration of this case. When this case was in the district court, the contours of what Judge Krupan-sky refers to as the “consensual interview” doctrine were not as clearly outlined as they are today. For example, we had not decided United States v. Flowers, 909 F.2d 145 (6th Cir.1990), which discusses the three different categories of police-citizen encounters.
The significance of this is the consensual interview theory had not permeated down to and been absorbed by the investigative agencies, and most airport search cases were being presented as “profile” cases. I believe that was the case here; however, the district judge correctly chose to classify the initial encounter as a consensual interview and then went on to hold there was no seizure. At this point in the analysis, the issue of race was not involved, since race was only implicated as a “profile” issue in the district court.
On appeal, the panel concluded, contrary to the district judge, that there was a seizure and then proceeded to work backwards and conclude there was no justifiable basis for the seizure. In the course of making the “justifiable basis” analysis, the issue of race entered the picture.
On en banc review, we now essentially conclude that the panel erred in substituting its judgment for that of the trial court on the factual issue of consent as well as substituting its credibility determinations for those of the district judge. This, to me at least, is the significant aspect of our en banc holding. This is not a case reviewed en banc for the purpose of clarifying airport search law, but it is one designed to reaffirm the principle that, although an appellate court may not like the result reached in the district court, it does not have carte blanche to change those results when “clearly erroneous” is the standard of review.
Although our decision to en banc a case has the effect of vacating the earlier panel decision and placing the district court decision directly before us for review, that is somewhat unrealistic in this case because what is really being considered are the appropriate perimeters of appellate review. By substituting its judgment for that of the district court on the factual seizure and consent issues, the panel bootstrapped its way into the reasonableness discussion, which then arguably made legitimate the discussion of the race issue.1 In short, I believe this case was set for en banc consideration not to quarrel with the panel’s treatment of the race issue, but to review the appropriateness of reaching the race issue.
Having said all of that, however, I now get to the real point of writing a concurrence when I agree with the decision to affirm. The majority opinion could be read as concluding that, where first encounters are consensual, racial considerations are irrelevant. I would disagree. If it were to be shown, for example, that the persons selected for consensual interviews are blacks, who are stopped only because they are black, then I would find the procedure raises serious constitutional concerns.2 *580Thus, I share our original panel’s concerns about a procedure that would target primarily minorities for consensual interviews, but I believe its good faith concern over this issue led to reaching and deciding an issue in a manner inconsistent with the normal scope of appellate review and on the basis of a record never properly developed in the district court.3

. In the district court, the defendant filed two memoranda in support of his motion to suppress, and neither document mentioned race. Similarly, in defendant's initial brief to the panel that first heard this case, there was no mention of race.

. There are drug task forces in operation in this circuit which have for their primary purpose *580the interdiction of drugs from the Caribbean area. If their experience is that persons of color are usually used as couriers, such a task force might well select such persons as "targets" of consensual interviews without offending the Constitution. This example illustrates the importance of a proper record being made in the district court.

. There was some effort made after the case was scheduled for an en banc hearing to expand the record and provide a basis for reaching beyond what was before the district court. Although we can expand the scope of legal issues before us, I believe it is improper to attempt to build a record different from that before the district court.