Court Opinion

ID: 9472554
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:03:52.382648+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:59.838318
License: Public Domain

WALLACE, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur, but for reasons somewhat different than the majority’s. Clearly the initial questioning of Moreno satisfied the fourth amendment. As the Supreme Court stated in Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1324, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983) (Royer):
law enforcement officers do not violate the Fourth Amendment by merely approaching an individual ... in [a] public place, by asking him if he is willing to answer some questions, by putting questions to him if the person is willing to listen, or by offering in evidence in a criminal prosecution his voluntary answers to such questions.
The district court found that, although Moreno did not understand English well, he did voluntarily give his name and identification to a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent when first approached.
The key to this ease is whether Moreno voluntarily accompanied the officers. The district court found, in accord with Moreno’s testimony, that he did not “free[ly] and voluntarily]” consent to accompany the DEA agent to an airport office. In support of this finding, the district court observed that the DEA agent did not tell Moreno he did not have to go to the office, that Moreno did not understand English well, and that the DEA agent knew this because he had another agent ask in Spanish for Moreno’s consent to open the suitcase “to make sure that the defendant understood ____” Under these circumstances, the court found that Moreno did not know “that he was free to leave or free to not [accompany the officers]” when the DEA agent asked him to go to the nearby office and another agent picked up his bag and carried it with them.
Were I reviewing de novo this issue of voluntary consent versus whether “a rea*537sonable person would have believed he was not free to leave,” United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 554, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 1877, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980) (opinion of Stewart, J.), I might reach a different conclusion than the district court. I believe, however, that the fact-bound nature of the issue requires review under the “clearly erroneous” standard of Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a) as applied to criminal proceedings, e.g., United States v. Page, 802 F.2d 81, 85 (9th Cir.1962) (en banc) (reviewing an issue of consent in a criminal case using the “clearly erroneous” standard). Considering the issue a mixed question of law and fact under United States v. McConney, 728 F.2d 1195, 1202-04 (9th Cir.1984) (en bane), it remains “essentially factual,” id. at 1202, quoting Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U.S. 273, 288, 102 S.Ct. 1781, 1789, 72 L.Ed.2d 66 (1982), founded largely “on the application of the fact-finding tribunal’s experience with the mainsprings of human conduct,” 728 F.2d at 1202, quoting Commissioner v. Duberstein, 363 U.S. 278, 289, 80 S.Ct. 1190, 1198, 4 L.Ed.2d 1218 (1960), and similar to the question whether an individual acted “reasonably” in a negligence case, see 728 F.2d at 1204; cf. United States v. Booth, 669 F.2d 1231, 1236 (9th Cir.1981) (Booth) (“testing the reaction of a reasonable person is nearly identical to the standard applied to the issue of negligence”). The “clearly erroneous” standard of review should apply. See generally, e.g., United States v. Allen, 699 F.2d 453, 459 (9th Cir.1982) (“clearly erroneous” standard applies to the issue of voluntary consent versus a reasonable person’s belief he would not be free to leave in the context of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966) (Miranda)); Booth, 669 F.2d at 1235 (same); id. at 1235-36 (citing numerous relevant analogies).
I agree with the majority that Royer seems persuasive because it involved similar facts. In our case, however, there are also significant differences. The DEA agent did not keep Moreno's ticket nor take his driver’s license. The DEA agent did not advise Moreno he was a suspected drug trafficker. Furthermore, Moreno had just arrived in the United States, unlike Royer, who was about to depart when encountered by the police, see 103 S.Ct. at 1328. These differences lessen the likelihood of a reasonable person in Moreno’s situation believing he was not free to decline the DEA agent’s request that he go to the DEA’s airport office. Only because I must review the district judge’s finding under the “clearly erroneous” standard do I believe we should affirm. There was a conflict in the evidence. The district court did not clearly err in finding, instead of a voluntary consent, “a mere submission to a claim of lawful authority,” id. at 1324. This finding leads to a conclusion that Moreno’s detention ripened into a violation of the fourth amendment and tainted the discovery of cocaine in his suitcase.
Although I concur in the result, I emphasize that the majority’s excursions into a subjective evaluation of Moreno’s “lack of familiarity with police procedures in this country, his alienage and his limited ability to speak and understand the English language” improperly confuses the objective reasonable man test. As the Supreme Court recently held on the closely analogous issue of custody for purposes of Miranda, “the only relevant inquiry is how a reasonable man in the suspect’s position would have understood his situation.” Berkemer v. McCarty, — U.S. —, —, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 3152, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984), citing, e.g., People v. P., 21 N.Y.2d 1, 9-10, 286 N.Y.S.2d 225, 232, 233 N.E.2d 255, 260 (1967) (objective test does not “place upon the police the burden of anticipating the frailties or idiosyncracies of every person whom they question.”). The subjective matter of familiarity with United States police procedures, presumably a result of alienage in the majority’s eyes, has no place in a reasonable man test. An inability to speak and understand English may. Certainly the DEA agent in this case could quickly tell that Moreno had difficulty with English and understood Spanish as a native tongue. Including obvious language barriers as a quality of a hypothetical reason*538able man would not burden the police or make unnecessarily subjective the application of a reasonable man test. In this case, a reasonable man in Moreno’s situation may therefore mean one who does not have an adequate ability to speak or understand English. I cannot agree, however, with the majority’s dictum on alienage and knowledge of police procedures.