Court Opinion

ID: 9445805
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:38:26.828149+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:24.739790
License: Public Domain

STEPHENS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I am unable to go along with my associates. I agree that the narcotic problem is very serious and, of course, no sympathy can rightly be extended to the peddler or to the low creature who sneaks a narcotic across our borders.
But to authorize the ex parte star chamber invasion of body privacy by in*755spectors at our ports is shocking and abhorrent and is fraught with almost certain abuse. I fully appreciate the high character of most of the inspectors and the very difficult duty which is theirs, but the power to subject one entering this country through its ports to the possibility of such an inquisition and manhandling seems on its face to come within the interdiction of the Fourth Amendment. I think the illustration set out in the opinion of the enforced opening of a closed hand, whatever may be right or wrong about it, is unfortunate and not apposite. And I do not see the Federal Courts dismissing an accused from custody by habeas corpus where the circumstances would reasonably point to the belief that the accused is concealing narcotics within his body and that nature would answer the question one way or another in a short period of time.