Court Opinion

ID: 9488251
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:40:12.939476+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:46.894974
License: Public Domain

HENRY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I agree fully with the majority’s thoughtful and scholarly analysis of the history and significance of 18 U.S.C. § 3731. However, for several reasons, I do not agree that the government’s appeal should be dismissed.
First, I do not think that the government’s conduct regarding' the Section 3731 certificate can be equated with the government’s conduct in United States v. Hanks, 24 F.3d 1235 (10th Cir.1994). In contrast to Hanks, the record here does not indicate that the government “thought so little of the statutory obligation that it did not even bother to respond to the appellee’s argument or to advise us of its late filing of the certificate until we explicitly confronted the issue during oral argument.” Id. at 1239. Instead, when notified of the failure to file the certificate, the government acted promptly to supplement the record on appeal. In addition, the government’s briefs and its presentation at oral argument1 have convinced me that the cavalier approach to the Section 3731 requirements that we identified in Hanks is not present here.
Moreover, I believe this case involves “important legal issues needing appellate clarification,” id., such that dismissal is not warranted. The district court held that an agent’s question regarding the contents of the trunk of a vehicle stopped at a permanent border checkpoint “exceeded the scope of limited inquiry permissible at permanent checkpoints as delineated in Martinez-Fuerte and subsequent Tenth Circuit decisions.” District Court Memorandum Opinion and Order, Rec. doc. 24, at 13 (citing United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 96 S.Ct. 3074, 49 L.Ed.2d 1116 (1976)). However, several of our decisions seem to me to have taken a more expansive view of the scope of questioning allowed at a border checkpoint without reasonable suspicion or *1498suspicious circumstances. See United States v. Rascon-Ortiz, 994 F.2d 749, 752 (10th Cir.1994) (“[A] few brief questions concerning such things as vehicle ownership, cargo, destination, and travel plans may be appropriate if reasonably related to the agent’s duty to prevent the unauthorized entry of individuals into this country and to prevent the smuggling of contraband.”); United States v. Ludlow, 992 F.2d 260, 265 n. 4 (10th Cir.1993) (“Questions regarding ... citizenship and the contents of the vehicle were of course directly related to the Border Patrol agent’s duties.”). In my view, whether, in the absence of reasonable suspicion or suspicious circumstances, the agent could ask Ms. Carillo-Bernal what was in the trunk of the car she was driving through a border checkpoint is an important legal question that warrants our consideration.
I do not condone the government’s failure to timely file the Section 3731 certificate. However, given our broad discretion in this matter, I would proceed to the merits of this ease.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

. The United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico personally argued this case, though it arose before his term commenced.