Court Opinion

ID: 9476542
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:58:33.471483+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:22.583347
License: Public Domain

CLARK, Chief Judge,
with whom GEE, JERRE S. WILLIAMS, and E. GRADY JOLLY, Circuit Judges, join concurring specially:
The words of the fourth amendment are direct and uncomplicated. “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated — ” The constitutional touchstone — reasonableness—is grounded in fact, not labels. As the majority notes, the Supreme Court has made it clear that constitutional reasonableness is to be judged by balancing the individual’s fourth amendment interests against legitimate governmental interests. That balancing convinces us these searches were constitutional.
I.
At oral argument it was suggested that our prior labeling of Sierra Blanca as the functional equivalent of the border would enable officers to exercise the arbitrary power of strip or body cavity searches that are sometimes used at actual border inspection ports. No such case is presented to us today, nor has any such case ever been presented in the past. We recognize that the “functional equivalent of the border” label might deceive an irresponsible officer into exceeding the limits of reasonableness. This checkpoint is not the border. The balancing analysis required in today’s cases indicates it is not functionally equivalent to the border in the context presented. We agree with the majority that our prior characterization of Sierra Blanca as a functional equivalent of the border is an improper generic label. We concur in overruling pri- or precedents which have applied it to decide the constitutionality of searches at Sierra Blanca.
II.
Since the label “functional equivalent of the border,” is not talismanic, this court must analyze the facts surrounding the particular search or seizure to be tested and make a balancing of public and private interests. The same reasoning, however, forbids a decision based on merely labeling Sierra Blanca as a “permanent checkpoint.” Specifically, we disagree with the majority’s conclusion that Supreme Court decisions regarding the checkpoints maintained at San Clemente, California, and at Sarita, Texas, fix the rights of citizen and government at Sierra Blanca, because we disagree with the factual and legal premises on which the conclusion is based.
III.
The records in this case establish significant factual differences between Sierra *867Blanca and other checkpoints involved in prior decisions. A description of the facts in these three cases best begins with a map of the area of the border in which Sierra Blanca functions:
[[Image here]]
In footnote 1, the majority quotes a general description of the Sierra Blanca checkpoint set out in United States v. Hart. A more complete description, extracted from the records in these cases, would show the following.
The checkpoint is strategically located on Interstate Highway 10 — the only paved road leading from the border in this area— at a pass through the Quitman, Finlay, and Sierra Blanca Mountains which form a natural funnel for traffic into the checkpoint. The checkpoint was placed at this location to prevent pedestrians from walking around it. From El Paso, Interstate Highway 10 parallels the United States-Mexico *868border in a southeasterly direction for approximately 60 miles, running as close as 200 yards to the Mexican border in El Paso and within a mile of the border in many other places. The checkpoint is manned by border patrol officers 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, subject only to manpower and weather condition interruptions. When the checkpoint is in operation, all eastbound traffic on Interstate Highway 10 is directed through it. Many commercial vehicles, known local residents and sufficient traffic to prevent hazardous traffic conditions from building up are waved through the checkpoint. Most of the vehicles that are stopped are detained very briefly for a check on the occupants’ citizenship. Normally, only two Border Patrol officers work each shift at the checkpoint.
El Paso, a city of 500,000 people, faces the fifth largest city in Mexico — Juarez— across the Rio Grande River. Juarez has a population of 1,200,000. Large numbers of aliens enter the United States illegally in this area. A conservative estimate of the number of aliens entering the El Paso area illegally each day is 2,600, and the Border Patrol estimates that they apprehend only one in twelve. Annual figures for aliens who are illegally in the country and apprehended by the El Paso sector of the Border Patrol for 1983 were 205,944; for 1984, 212,654; and for 1985, 240,355. The 1986 figures on illegal and apprehended aliens ran 55% higher in January and February of 1986 than it had for those same months during 1985; 1,000 aliens were being apprehended per day in March 1986, when the hearing in this case occurred.
In addition to those who enter illegally, approximately 100,000 persons a day enter the United States from Mexico through the ports of entry in El Paso. The area between El Paso and the checkpoint and between the River and Interstate Highway 10 is very sparsely populated. Thirty-seven aerial photographs of the most frequently used sites at which aliens and contraband enter the United States in the area located between the western boundary of El Paso and the checkpoint were admitted in evidence. At each of these points, the Rio Grande River can be crossed with ease at all times of the year. All the paths from these sites feed into Interstate Highway 10. Several of these photographic exhibits depict the close proximity between Interstate Highway 10 and the Rio Grande River. In some of the photographs, tracks made by vehicle and pedestrian traffic can be seen leading from the border to the highway; furthermore, several of the photographs depict aliens actually wading across the River.
Within the city of El Paso, the Border Patrol has charted approximately 150 locations which were used between January 1983 and December 1985 as staging areas in the smuggling of loads of illegal aliens and contraband into the interior of the United States. These include private residences, motels, apartment complexes, all types of businesses, including commercial truck stops. Many, if not most, of these locations abut Interstate Highway 10 as it passes near the Rio Grande River in the city of El Paso. As the statistics for the checkpoint indicate, smugglers use virtually every kind of vehicle imaginable to smuggle their loads of aliens and contraband east on Interstate Highway 10 through the Sierra Blanca checkpoint because it is the most viable route east from the border in this area.
The number of criminal violators who are apprehended at the Sierra Blanca checkpoint is summarized in the following exhibit:
Sierra Blanca Checkpoint Statistics
Number of violators apprehended 1,518 1984 4,510 1985 3,767
Number of deportable aliens apprehended 4,083 4,181 3,461
Number of alien-smuggling principals apprehended 275 167 149
Percentage of property seizures for the sector 40% 57% 41%
Value of drug seizures $1,200,000 $2,896,952
Total value of seizures $2,697,563
Percentage of aliens apprehended at the checkpoint who entered illegally between El Paso and the checkpoint 69% or 2,822 78% 3,254 70% 2,425
During the week of a survey made by the Public Defender, 51 illegal aliens, seven aliens smugglers, and 18 aliens who were *869in the process of being smuggled were apprehended at the Sierra Blanca checkpoint. In addition, six seizures of narcotics and weapons were made and one stolen car was located.
Many significant cases have been made by officers at the Sierra Blanca checkpoint; indeed, Operation Chevron, which was the largest investigation into the use of commercial 18-wheeler trucks in the smuggling of aliens, resulted in the apprehension of the human cargoes of 22 tractor-trailer rigs at the Sierra Blanca checkpoint. Using a commercial truck stop located on Interstate Highway 10 within the city limits of El Paso as a staging area, the truckers were transporting illegal aliens, narcotics, and often weapons. This operation alone was smuggling over 300 aliens per month out of El Paso. In addition to the illegal aliens noted above, officers at the checkpoint also apprehended an escaped murderer, seized seven pounds of cocaine with a street value of $627,200, and three and a half pounds of amphetamine with a wholesale value of approximately $15,000 in just the first two months of 1986 when the survey was taken. Other examples of crimes routinely detected by the officers who man this border checkpoint were developed in the record.
IV.
It cannot be doubted that the United States has the right to secure that portion of its border with Mexico lying between El Paso and Sierra Blanca in order to regulate the inflow of aliens and contraband over this stretch of the Rio Grande River. Though it would be a monumental affront to our friendly neighbor Mexico, no one could deny the United States had the legal right to erect an impregnable wall from El Paso to the Quitman Mountains, surmounted with suitable search lights, guard towers, and gun emplacements, and could man that wall with sufficient armed troops to achieve a positive prohibition of the illegal entry of persons or property in accordance with the laws of the United States governing immigration and import.
The adequate enforcement of those laws constitutes the public interest in this case. The question we are set to decide is whether the government can substitute for the elaborate, insulting, expensive effort described above the maintenance of a minimal inspection and search net across the mouth of a natural funnel of geographic and highway features that comprise the Sierra Blanca checkpoint in the manner shown by the facts of these three cases.
As stated, we have no disagreement with the majority’s basic premise. Both of us know that fourth amendment reasonableness is a product of the balancing of this public interest with the intrusion which the inspection and search process in these cases brings to bear on the drivers, passengers, and vehicles that pass through this checkpoint. Our difference arises because we would abjure all labels — “functional equivalence” and “checkpoint” alike — and strike the balance on the record facts.
Because the geography of the United States is not homogenous, the rights of citizens that live in its different parts cannot be viewed as a uniform, seamless web. Fixed checkpoint inspections and roving patrol stops, which have been approved at San Clemente and Sarita, may not be permissible on the highways of Kansas or Iowa. Similarly, what is reasonable halfway between San Diego and Los Angeles or at a point 75 road miles north of Brownsville, Texas, does not fix the weight of the public interests at Sierra Blanca.
When the operator of a motor vehicle chooses to drive his car along an interstate highway which forms the most convenient collector for illegal aliens and cargo in the El Paso/Sierra Blanca area of the border, reasonableness dictates that he and his vehicle are subject to effective inspection and search even though that vehicle has not crossed the border. In the case of Sierra Blanca, he is fully notified that this inspection process will take place. The checkpoint is fully signed and has been regularly maintained for years.
V.
None of the Supreme Court’s “fixed checkpoint” or “roving patrol” cases *870stamps these searches as unreasonable. In the first place, all other cases are distinctly different geographically and functionally. In testing the validity of the “inspections” made at San Clemente, the Court in Ortiz expressly noted that these inspections included portions of the car in which an alien might hide, typically including the trunk, under the hood and beneath the chassis. In cases of trucks, campers and the like, the inspection included enclosed portions as well. 422 U.S. at 894, footnote 1, 95 S.Ct. at 2587, footnote 1. While the Ortiz court forbade “searches” at San Clemente without consent or probable cause, it expressly noted that “not every aspect of a routine automobile ‘inspection’ as described in n. 1, supra, necessarily constitutes a ‘search’ for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. There is no occasion in this case to define the exact limits of an automobile ‘search.’ ” 422 U.S. at 897, footnote 3, 95 S.Ct. at 2589, footnote 3. If all conditions at San Clemente were the same as at Sierra Blanca, which they aren’t, the holding in Ortiz still would not directly control these cases.
Brignoni-Ponce involved a roving patrol stop near San Clemente. It required a balancing of governmental and private interests and detailed these particularized considerations for that balancing: (1) characteristics of the area; (2) proximity to the border; (3) actual patterns of traffic on the particular road; (4) previous experience with alien traffic; (5) information about recent illegal border crossings in the area; (6) drivers’ behavior; (7) aspects of the vehicle, such as its size and apparent load; (8) appearance of occupants. When these eight considerations are applied to the searches in today’s cases, we find that the geographic and highway characteristics of the area made Sierra Blanca the ideal spot to detect violations of the customs and immigrations laws committed in the sparsely populated region of the border between El Paso and Sierra Blanca. The highway operates as a collector of illegal traffic headed east and the mountains form a natural choke-point preventing by-pass. While the checkpoint itself is several miles from the border, its location is well designed to interdict border violations. The patterns of traffic on the road show much legal traffic, both of a local and domestic nature; however, this legal flow is a part of the mask which smugglers and drug runners use to cover their crimes. Previous experience with alien traffic shows the efficacy of the checkpoint's location and operation. Information about recent illegal border crossings in the area is overwhelming. The behavior of both drivers in these cases raised suspicion. The aspects of the vehicle were unremarkable, as were the appearance of the occupants. Rather than being a contrary precedent, Brignoni-Ponce strongly augurs for affirmance here.
Martinez-Fuerte dealt with checkpoint inspections at San Clemente and Sarita. Its balance of public and private interests was developed by considering whether important highways offered aliens a quick and safe route into the interior; whether routine checkpoint inquiries would apprehend many smugglers and illegal aliens; whether generating concern or even fright on the part of the traveling public would be appreciably lessened at a permanent checkpoint which had been selected by supervisory officials to make the most effective use of limited enforcement resources; the degree of interference with the general motoring public by the practices adopted for operation of the checkpoint; and the diminished expectation of privacy in the operation of automobiles as opposed to the expectation of privacy and freedom in one’s own residence.
Sierra Blanca is quintessentially a site where an important highway offers aliens and drug runners a quick and safe route into the interior if effective inspection and search is proscribed. Routine checkpoint inquiries may apprehend some few smugglers and illegal aliens, but trailer-truck and boxcar loads will pass through undetected when the right to search the vehicle is suspended. Turning Sierra Blanca into a roadside conversation spot deprives it of most of its efficacy. Clearly, the notice given by official signs and the permanence of the checkpoint give it a regular and official status that should dispel concern or *871fright on the part of the legal members of the traveling public. Perhaps the greatest weight in the public interest scale is the effective use of limited enforcement resources effected by the placement and operation of this facility. It enables two men to accomplish what would otherwise require thousands of people. The degree of interference with the general motoring public is minimal. Most cars are waived through. Local traffic is always passed and officers are instructed to avoid backlogs. The diminished expectation of privacy by a motorist who chooses to use this route is obvious.
VI.
Individual appraisals of reasonableness are also the basis for the rationale of the most recent opinions of the Supreme Court regarding a warrantless “inspection” of an automobile junkyard and a warrantless search of a probationer’s residence. New York v. Burger, — U.S. -, 107 S.Ct. 2636, 96 L.Ed.2d 601 (1987) and Griffin v. Wisconsin, — U.S. -, 107 S.Ct. 3164, 97 L.Ed.2d 709 (1987). In Burger the Court began its reasoning by recognizing that the fourth amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures applied to the commercial premises there involved and that the operator of the business had an expectation of privacy. However, the Court held that the warrantless inspection of those premises could be reasonable when three criteria were met: first, when there was a substantial government interest that informed the regulatory scheme pursuant to which the inspection was made; second, when the warrantless inspections were necessary to further the regulatory scheme; third, when the certainty and regularity of the application of the inspection program provided a constitutionally adequate substitute for the warrant by advising the owner that the search was being made pursuant to law and that the regulations under which it was made limited the discretion of the inspecting officers as to time, place and scope.
Each of Burger’s criteria is met at Sierra Blanca. The interest of the government in controlling its borders to enforce the laws prohibiting the illegal entry of aliens and contraband is certainly as substantial an interest as the regulation of automobile junkyards. Second, the factors which inform the maintenance of a fixed checkpoint at Sierra Blanca — characteristics of the area, proximity to the border, previous experience with alien traffic, knowledge of recent illegal crossings and importations, and the impracticability of maintaining an alternative defense — demonstrate that the inspections of persons and vehicles at Sierra Blanca is necessary to further the regulatory scheme. Finally, every motorist approaching the checkpoint is clearly advised that if he chooses to proceed through the checkpoint he will be subjected to inspection and search designed to detect illegal aliens and contraband. The fact that this inspection and search will only be made when the motorist drives through, will only be made at the Sierra Blanca permanent checkpoint, and will only be made in accordance with routines fixed by supervising officials, limits the time, place and scope of the action. The specific facts connected with the searches of Jackson, Browning, and Ryan, described in the panel opinions in these cases, demonstrate the complete reasonableness of the officers’ actions.
In Griffin, the Court began its analysis with the concession that a probationer’s home, like anyone else’s, was protected by the fourth amendment requirement that searches be reasonable and be subject to the requirement of a warrant except when special needs made warrants or probable-cause requirements impracticable. The Court noted that exceptions had been permitted for warrantless, work-related searches of employees’ desks and offices by government employers and supervisors; for searches of student property by school officials; and for searches conducted by government inspectors pursuant to regulatory schemes such as was present in Burger and similar cases. The Court held that in determining whether special needs of the probation system justified the search of probationer’s home on an uncorroborated tip, it would look to the practices of the officers involved under the interpretations *872of the governing court. The Griffin Court found that a warrant requirement would interfere with the probation system by letting a magistrate rather than a probation officer be the judge of how close the probationer’s supervision should be. It pointed out that without the right to search, the probationer would be assured that so long as his illegal activities were sufficiently concealed as to give rise as to no more than reasonable suspicion, they would go undetected and uncorrected. In those circumstances, the Court found it was both unrealistic and destructive of the probation relationship to insist upon a showing of probable cause or the issuance of a warrant to search the probationer’s home.
These same factors are applicable to weighing the governmental interest in the protection of the border against the rights of a motorist to operate a vehicle along the unique collector highway that runs into the mountainous funnel at Sierra Blanca.
We live in a society that searches citizens without warrants when they choose to use air carriers for domestic transportation, and when they elect to enter public buildings or other areas where restricted activities are conducted. The constitutional test for such searches is reasonableness. It is a test that can be administered only by weighing the facts of the situation in which the search is conducted in the public/private balance. The searches of these three defendants at Sierra Blanca passed the test.
VII.
The majority holds that the Border Patrol should follow the suggestion contained in some opinions of the Supreme Court which speculate that an “area warrant” procedure might supply constitutional reasonableness to searches made by roving patrols and at fixed checkpoints other than Sierra Blanca. Our view that procedures now employed at Sierra Blanca in these cases was constitutional would make this conjecture unnecessary here. We would only observe that the information which should be furnished to a magistrate to obtain such an “area warrant” would be the same information now utilized by Border Patrol officers in directing the present operations at Sierra Blanca. This exercise would substitute the magistrate for the experienced Border Patrol supervisors. This is precisely what the Court refused to do in Griffin in the magistrate-probation officer context. Given the fact that such a warrant would operate on unknown motorists in future situations which could only be predicted, it seems probable to us that the issuance of such a warrant could add to rather than detract from the intrusion on personal rights of motorists passing through the checkpoint. If the “area warrant” may only authenticate searches for aliens, it also would deprive the public interest of a significant degree of protection which our balancing would require.
Because we disagree with the holdings of the majority that these searches were unconstitutional, we concur in its conclusion that appellants’ convictions should be affirmed.