Court Opinion

ID: 9498408
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:16:43.973318+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:49.037351
License: Public Domain

BETTY B. FLETCHER, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
I write separately to express my distaste for the government’s game-playing in this case and in two others we heard on the same calendar: United States v. Flores-Montano, 2004 WL 3203273; United States v. Hernandez, 2004 WL 3140549. In each case there was reasonable and articulable suspicion of drug smuggling. But the government wanted confirmation that no suspicion is required for extensive, intrusive searches at the border. This would have an ancillary benefit for the government — it would not have to prove the reliability of its drug sniffing dogs.
As a practical matter, border agents are too busy to do extensive searches (removing gas tanks and door panels, boring holes in truck beds) unless they have suspicion. Apparently no suspicionless search case has come along to allow the issue-— how destructive and extensive a suspicion-less search may be — to be presented in its pure form. So the government seized upon cases where there have been extensive searches based on clearly reasonable, articulable suspicion. In these cases, the government refuses to present evidence to support the suspicion. It prefers to test the limits of its right to search beyond what it can see (by drilling holes, removing gas tanks, etc.) without any suspicion whatsoever.
In each of the cases before us, border inspection agents made individualized observations regarding the persons and vehicles seeking entry, and in each case, those observations were sufficient to support a finding of reasonable suspicion of criminal or unlawful activity.1
*1055• A narcotics detection dog alerted on the undercarriage of Ms. Chaudhry’s pickup truck.
• A border agent observed that Mr. Flores-Montano avoided eye contact during questioning, and that his hands were shaking when he produced identification. The agent then tapped on the gas tank and noticed that it sounded solid. Finally, a narcotics detection dog alerted on the vehicle.
• A narcotics detection dog alerted on the driver’s side door of Mr. Hernandez’s vehicle.
In each case, the government chose to create a dispute where none existed, rather than to prove up its officers’ valid suspicions. The only issue on appeal in each case was the propriety of a fictional “suspi-cionless” search. These cases likely would not have been appealed had the government taken the trouble to present a modicum of evidence showing why the agent referred the vehicle to secondary for a search.
I see two problems with such an approach to litigation.2 First, such appeals are essentially a request for an advisory opinion, as the dispute over whether or not a particular search may be conducted in the absence of any suspicion is an entirely fictional construct. Suspicion existed in each case, and in my view, review of cases at the appellate level is a waste of judicial resources. The only possible purposes are the government’s desire to push the envelope to its limits: to find out just how much destruction it can do without any suspicion, and to avoid proving it uses reliable dogs. Second, because there is ample suspicion in each case, it is difficult for judges to consider the issue cleanly on an uneneum-bered record. Evidence of probable criminal activity, especially evidence of narcotics detector dog alerts, cannot help but color judges’ views of the facts. We inevitably think “harmless error.” I must admit that I take comfort in knowing that the border agents in these cases did not rip apart the defendants’ cars on a whim. However, were I to decide a case where there is truly no suspicion, and where five or ten exploratory holes are drilled in the exterior walls of a vehicle, I might reach a different result.

. Likewise, United States v. Cortez-Rocha, 394 F.3d 1115 (9th Cir.2005), involved a search conducted after a dog alert and a density meter reading indicating that the spare tire in *1055question was not empty. Yet the government refused to rely on such evidence of suspicion to support its slashing of the tire.

. I emphasize that the issues in these cases are fabricated by the government’s stance in litigation, not the actual facts of each search.