Court Opinion

ID: 9497455
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:51:35.754347+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:12.159687
License: Public Domain

RILEY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Our federal Constitution mandates “[t]he right of the. people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and. effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” U.S. Const. amend. IV; see United States v. Ameling, 328 F.3d 443, 447 (8th Cir.2003) (Fourth Amendment applies to states through the Fourteenth Amendment). This appeal asks whether the Nebraska State Patrol’s (NSP) removal of a commercial bus passenger’s checked luggage from the bus’s lower luggage compartment to a room inside the bus terminal constituted an unreasonable seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Because Eighth Circuit precedent in this area has evolved into different lines of authority, and because I would not follow the line chosen by the majority, I respectfully dissent. Based on my analysis of this circuit’s precedent, I would hold law enforcement’s temporary removal of a commercial bus- passenger’s checked luggage from a lower luggage compartment to a room inside the terminal does not constitute a seizure if the removal of the luggage does not delay the passenger’s travel, affect the timely delivery of the checked luggage, or interfere with the carrier’s normal processing of the checked luggage. I also join Judge Melloy’s plea to our circuit to “re-visit the -issue of what constitutes a seizure in -the context of a temporary removal and inspection of packages and luggage that have been sent or checked with common carriers.”
This panel has no authority to overrule a prior panel’s decision; only the court sitting en banc can take such action. Netland v. Hess & Clark, Inc., 284 F.3d 895, 899 (8th Cir.2002). However, when a panel is confronted with varying lines of cases, the panel is “free to chose which line of cases to follow.” Kostelec v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., 64 F.3d 1220, 1228 n. 8 (8th Cir.1995).
Our circuit’s precedent on what constitutes a seizure in cases involving checked luggage or mailed packages is not a model of clarity. Compare United States v. Gomez, 312 F.3d 920, 923-24 (8th Cir.2002) (holding no seizure occurred when a drug interdiction officer at a U.S. Postal Service facility moved a package to a command center twenty yards from a conveyor belt in a sorting area), United States v. Vasquez, 213 F.3d 425, 426 (8th Cir.2000) (holding no seizure occurred when drug interdiction officers at a Federal Express facility subjected a package to a drug-sniffing dog), United States v. Harvey, 961 F.2d 1361, 1363-64 (8th Cir.1992) (holding no seizure occurred when police removed luggage from a bus’s overhead luggage compartment to subject the luggage to a drug-sniffing dog), and United States v. Riley, 927 F.2d 1045, 1048 n. 4 (8th Cir.1991) (implying no seizure occurred when police subjected an airline passenger’s checked luggage to a drug-sniffing dog), *1152mth United States v. Morones, 355 F.3d 1108, 1111 (8th Cir.2004) (holding seizure occurred when a law enforcement officer at a Federal Express facility removed a package from a conveyor belt to subject the package to a drug-sniffing dog), and United States v. Demoss, 279 F.3d 632, 636 (8th Cir.2002) (same). Following the principles enunciated in Harvey, Vasquez and Gomez, I conclude the removal of Va Ler-ie’s checked luggage from the bus’s lower luggage compartment to a room inside the terminal was not a seizure under the Fourth Amendment.
The Fourth Amendment protects against both unreasonable searches and unreasonable seizures. The Supreme Court has stated “[a] ‘search’ occurs when an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to consider reasonable is infringed.” United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 113, 104 S.Ct. 1652, 80 L.Ed.2d 85 (1984). The Court declared “[a] ‘seizure’ of property occurs when there is some meaningful interference with an individual’s possessory interests in that property.” Id. The Court recognized seizure relates to freedom of movement: “While the concept of a ‘seizure’ of property is not much discussed in our cases, this definition follows from our oft-repeated definition of the ‘seizure’ of a person within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment-meaningful interference, however brief, with an individual’s freedom of movement.” Id. n. 5.
This is not a search case; this is a seizure case. And this is not a seizure case involving luggage physically possessed by a commercial bus passenger. See United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 708, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983) (recognizing detention of luggage within passenger’s immediate possession intrudes on passenger’s freedom of movement, in addition to the luggage’s freedom of movement, such that the passenger’s travel plans may be disrupted). This case involves checked luggage, which a passenger cannot claim until the luggage reaches its destination.8
*1153To understand the state of Eighth Circuit precedent in Fourth Amendment seizure cases, I will discuss a few cases which, to me, announce different standards, reach inconsistent results, and create a division in our circuit authority. In United States v. Harvey, 961 F.2d 1361, 1362 (8th Cir.1992), police officers and a drug-sniffing dog, on a mission to find illegal drugs, boarded a Greyhound bus after it stopped for cleaning and refueling. The dog alerted to an overhead luggage compartment. The officers removed some luggage from the overhead compartment, and the dog alerted to two bags. The officers returned the bags to the overhead compartment and exited the bus. After the passengers re-boarded the bus, the officers asked who owned the bags to which the dog had alerted. When two passengers acknowledged they owned the bags, the officers asked them to take their bags off the bus and wait for the officers. Confronted with the question whether the removal of the bags from the overhead compartment constituted an unlawful seizure, we held it did not. Id. at 1363. Our court held “there was no meaningful interference with [the passengers]’ possessory interests in their baggage,” because “the temporary removal of the bags caused no delay to [their] travel.”9 'Id. at 1364.
In United States v. Vasquez, 213 F.3d 425, 426 (8th Cir.2000), drug interdiction officers examined packages at a Federal Express sorting station. When the officers’ suspicions about a certain package became aroused, the officers used a drug-sniffing dog to sniff the package. After the dog alerted to the package, the officers detained the package, and later obtained a search warrant. Asking whether the officers seized the package, our court held “the officers’ actions in examining the outside of the package and then subjecting the package to a dog sniff as it sat at the rear of the délivery truck do not constitute a detention requiring a reasonable, articu-lable suspicion because, at that point, the officers had not delayed or otherwise interfered with the normal processing of the package.” Id.. In reaching this conclusion, the court relied on Harvey and United States v. Ward, 144 F.3d 1024 (7th Cir.1998). Having already discussed Harvey, I will discuss the Seventh Circuit’s decision in Ward.
*1154In Ward, 144 F.3d at 1027, an individual checked a bag with a Greyhound luggage handler, who placed the bag in the luggage compartment accessible only from the outside. The bag’s owner did not board the bus, but instead flew to the bus’s destination to await the bus and claim the bag. When the bus stopped for a passenger meal break, drug enforcement officers questioned some bus passengers. When an officer’s investigation led him to the outside luggage compartment, he noticed a suspicious bag. When no passenger claimed ownership of the bag, the officer removed the bag from the bus to subject the bag to a drug-sniffing dog. Before a dog could arrive at the bus station, the bus left without the detained bag. When a dog finally arrived, it alerted to the bag. Once a search warrant was obtained, the officer searched the bag and discovered a kilogram of cocaine and a semi-automatic handgun loaded with hollow-point bullets. Drug enforcement officers then set up a sting at the bus’s final destination, and caught the bag’s owner as he attempted to claim his bag.
Did the drug enforcement officers violate the bag owner’s Fourth Amendment rights by unlawfully seizing his bag? The Seventh Circuit held they did not. Id. at 1082-34. The bag’s owner argued the officers were constitutionally authorized only to handle the bag and remove it from the compartment. The Seventh Circuit disagreed, and recognized the defendant “could reasonably have foreseen that the bag would be handled, moved around, and even taken off the bus, whether at intermediate stops when the driver might need to remove the bag to sort and/or gain access to other luggage, or at a hub like St. Louis where the bag would have been transferred to another bus. He could have no reasonable expectation, in other words, that the bag would not be touched, handled, or even removed from the bus prior to the bag’s arrival” at its destination. Id. at 1032. Thus, the court held the detention of the bag would have been a seizure only when it “interfer[ed] with [the defendant’s contractually-based expectation that he would regain possession of the bag at a particular time.” Id. at 1033.
In United States v. Demoss, 279 F.3d 632, 634 (8th Cir.2002), a law enforcement officer was working drug interdiction at a Federal Express facility when he noticed a suspicious package. The officer removed the package from a conveyor belt, and then noticed some indicators the package contained drugs. The officer took the package to another room in the facility and subjected the package to a dog sniff. Based on these facts, the court asked when a Fourth Amendment seizure occurred. The court concluded no seizure occurred when the officer removed the package from the conveyor belt. Id. at 635. However, the court held the package was seized when the officer “moved the package away from the conveyor belt and detained the package for a canine sniff,” because the officer “exert[ed] dominion and control over the package.” Id. at 636 (quoting Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 121 n. 18, 104 S.Ct. 1652) (alteration in original). Notwithstanding the seizure holding, the court held the seizure was not unreasonable because the officer had reasonable suspicion to detain the package. Id. at 636-37,104 S.Ct. 1652.
The court’s ultimate holding garnered the concurrence of Judge Hansen, who wrote separately to state his belief “that no seizure occurred in this case until [the officer] infringed upon [the defendant]^ interest in the timely delivery of the package.” Id. at 637 (Hansen, J., concurring). In reaching this conclusion, Judge Hansen discussed Harvey, Vasquez and Ward, focusing his Fourth Amendment seizure analysis on whether a package’s “ultimate contracted for timely delivery [is] frustrat*1155ed.” Id. at 640. Judge Hansen also impliedly recognized our seizure jurisprudence has not been settled: “I choose to cast my lot with those cases both from this and other circuits indicating that a piece of luggage or mail delivered to a common carrier is not ‘seized’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment until the authorities have interfered with a possessory interest in the luggage or mail such that the expectation of timely delivery of the package or luggage has been frustrated.” Id.
Ten months after our court decided De-moss, we decided United States v. Gomez, 312 F.3d 920, 923 (8th Cir.2002), in which we said removing a package at a post office from a conveyor belt to a position twenty yards away “was minimal interference with [the mailerj’s possessory interest in the package.” We further stated, “When the package was taken to the command post, away from the normal activity near the conveyor belt but still within the confines of the processing center, it was merely ‘stopped,’ and reasonable suspicion was not required for that stop.” Id. at 923-24. Specifically distinguishing De-moss, the court ultimately held the pack: age “was not seized until [the officer] opted not to return it to the conveyor belt for transfer to its intended destination, that is, until he ‘exert[ed] dominion and control over the package for [his] own purposes.’ ” Id. at 924 (quoting Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 121 n. 18, 104 S.Ct. 1652) (alteration, in original).
Finally, our court again addressed a seizure issue earlier this year. In United States v. Morones, 355 F.3d 1108, 1110 (8th Cir.2004), a police officer was inspecting packages at a Federal Express facility when he removed a package from a conveyor belt, set it aside, and retrieved a drug-sniffing dog, which alerted to the package. Our court held the officer “exercised ‘meaningful interference’ with [the mailer]’s ‘possessory interests’ in the package-that is, he seized it-when he removed it from the mail stream and held it for the dog sniff.” Id. at 1111.
If anything is clear, it is that our seizure cases involving checked luggage and mailed packages are not.
The doctrine of stare decisis, which means to' stand by things decided, “promotes the evenhanded, predictable, and consistent development of legal principles, fosters reliance on judicial decisions, and contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of the judicial process.” Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808, 827, 111 S.Ct. 2597, 115 L.Ed.2d 720 (1991). The Supreme Court has recognized “the important doctrine of stare decisis ... ensure[s] that the law will not merely change erratically, but will develop in a principled and intelligible fashion.” Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U.S. 254, 265, 106 S.Ct. 617, 88 L.Ed.2d 598 (1986). The Court also has acknowledged stare decisis “permits society to presume that bedrock principles are founded in the law rather than in the proclivities of individuals, and thereby contributes to the integrity of our constitutional system of government, both in appearance and in fact.” Id. at 265-66, 106 S.Ct. 617.
It is absolutely critical that citizens and law enforcement understand what the Fourth -Amendment protects. Unfortunately, pur decisions in the Fourth Amendment seizure area do not clearly enunciate and -faithfully .apply a consistent standard. Our court should uniformly resolve Fourth Amendment -seizure cases to help our citizens understand the freedoms guaranteed by their Constitution. Consistent resolution of, these cases also will ensure law enforcement fulfills its solemn duties in a constitutional manner. Although any debate over the scope of the Seizure Clause of the Fourth Amendment necessarily and rightly concentrates on the rights of our *1156citizens, there should be little debate that law enforcement officers must understand what conduct the Fourth Amendment authorizes and what conduct it condemns.
Efforts to rid our society of illegal drugs are indeed solemn tasks: “The public has a compelling interest in detecting those who would traffic in deadly drugs for personal profit. Few problems affecting the health and welfare of our population, particularly our young, cause greater concern than the escalating use of controlled substances. Much of the drug traffic is highly organized and conducted by sophisticated criminal syndicates. The profits are enormous. And many drugs ... may be easily concealed. As a result, the obstacles to detection of illegal conduct may be unmatched in any other area of law enforcement.” United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 561-62, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980) (Powell, J., concurring). I urge the court to speak with one voice about the appropriate standard for Fourth Amendment seizure cases.
When studying our circuit’s seizure cases, do our holdings depend on how far law enforcement officers move a package or piece of luggage? Do we focus on the commercial traveler’s expectations? Do we fully discuss what possessory interests a commercial traveler has in his checked luggage? One principle which is beyond reproach is commercial travelers expect their luggage to be handled. Of course, if their luggage were not handled, it could hardly reach its destination. It would seem obvious that, once a traveler checks his luggage, he gives up his immediate possessory interests in that luggage until he claims his luggage at its destination. During his travel, he must expect his luggage to endure a fair amount of handling, including the removal of his luggage from the luggage compartment. For instance, a commercial passenger’s luggage may be damaged in transit and require removal from the luggage compartment. If a bus breaks down, a passenger should expect his luggage to be removed from the luggage compartment and either transferred to another bus or taken inside the bus terminal. When a bus reaches its destination, every passenger expects-or at least hopes-his luggage survived the trip and will be removed from the bus and taken to the luggage claim area. Thus, I conclude the Fourth Amendment does not frown on law enforcement handling luggage checked by a commercial bus passenger to the same degree as a reasonable traveler would expect the bus company’s employees to handle the luggage, as long as any interference does not delay the traveler or frustrate his expectations of timely delivery at the luggage’s destination.
If painting on a blank canvas, Judge Melloy would hold “a brief detention of a piece of [checked] luggage that does not result in the delay of either the passenger, or ultimate delivery of the luggage, is not a seizure.” I agree with this standard, as have other circuits. See, e.g., Ward, 144 F.3d at 1031-32; United States v. Johnson, 990 F.2d 1129, 1132 (9th Cir.1992); United States v. Lovell, 849 F.2d 910, 916 (5th Cir.1988). As discussed above, I also believe some of our cases already have announced-and even applied-this standard.
The NSP’s handling of Va Lerie’s luggage did not constitute a seizure under the Fourth Amendment, because the handling did not amount to a meaningful interference with Va Lerie’s possessory interest in his luggage nor impact Va Lerie’s freedom of movement. When the NSP removed Va Lerie’s checked luggage from the bus’s lower luggage compartment to a room inside the terminal and asked Va Lerie to consent to a search of his luggage, Va Lerie’s travel was not delayed. While Va Lerie reasonably should have expected his checked luggage would be handled by *1157Greyhound employees, Ya Lerie’s posses-sory interest in his checked luggage certainly did not include an expectation that Greyhound-or others at Greyhound’s request-would not remove the luggage from the lower luggage compartment. The NSP removed Va Lerie’s checked luggage from the lower luggage compartment to a room inside the terminal at Greyhound’s request, and the NSP never took custody of the luggage from Greyhound. Had the NSP ignored Greyhound’s request to remove the luggage from the lower luggage compartment to a room inside the terminal and asked Va Lerie for consent to search while standing by the bus, I cannot imagine this court holding an unlawful seizure occurred. By handling the luggage in a way requested by Greyhound and consistent with Va Lerie’s expectations as to how his luggage would be handled, I cannot comprehend how this constitutes a meaningful interference with Va Lerie’s posses-sory interest in his luggage. Applying the proper Fourth Amendment seizure principles to this case, I conclude an unreasonable seizure did not occur when the NSP removed Va Lerie’s checked luggage from the lower luggage compartment to a room inside the terminal to ask Va Lerie for consent to search the luggage.10

. A casual observer might cite Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 507, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983), to support the district court’s decision in this case. A plurality in Royer held an airline passenger had been detained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. In Royer, 460 U.S. at 493, 103 S.Ct. 1319, law enforcement officers became suspicious of an airline passenger who fit a drug courier profile. The officers approached the passenger in the airport terminal after the passenger had checked his luggage and headed for his boarding area. Ultimately, the officers and the passenger ended up in a private room off the concourse. The officers also retrieved the passenger’s luggage from the airline and brought the luggage to the room. When asked whether the officers could search the luggage, the passenger produced a key and unlocked one piece of luggage. A fractured Supreme Court asked whether a state court properly applied Fourth Amendment principles in holding the airline passenger "was being illegally detained at the time of his purported consent to a search of his luggage.” Id. While five justices held the passenger had been detained in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights, only three justices (Justices White, Marshall and Stevens) mentioned the possibility that an illegal seizure of the passenger’s luggage had occurred. Id. at 503, 103 S.Ct. 1319 (stating the officers had the passenger and his seized luggage in the private room). These justices did not discuss the seizure issue or their analysis in concluding the luggage had been seized. Instead, these justices simply stated the luggage had been seized. Justice Powell, who cast the critical fifth vote, wrote a separate concurrence in which he focused on the passenger, not the luggage. In doing so, he referenced how the officers, when they met with the passenger in the private room, "already had obtained possession of his checked luggage.” Id. at 508, 103 S.Ct. 1319 (Powell, J., concurring). Justice Brennan, who wrote a separate concurrence, did not discuss whether the luggage had been seized, but rather wrote the passenger had been seized illegally when the officers first stopped the passenger. Id. at 511, 103 S.Ct. 13191 (Brennan, J., concurring). Justice Blackmun, who wrote a sepa*1153rate dissent concluding the passenger’s Fourth Amendment rights had not been violated, wrote “[t]he officers acted reasonably in taking [the passengerj's baggage stubs and bringing his luggage to the police room without his consent.” Id. at 518 n. 3, 103 S.Ct. 1319 (Blackmun, J., dissenting). Finally, Justice Rehnquist, with whom Chief Justice Burger and Justice O'Connor joined, wrote a separate dissent concluding the officers' conduct was reasonable and the passenger's Fourth Amendment rights had not been violated. Id. at 519-32, 103 S.Ct. 1319 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). At no point did Justice Rehnquist intimate the officers seized the passenger’s luggage when they retrieved the luggage from the airline. Understanding our seizure precedent is a formidable task by itself. Trying to understand and apply the Supreme Court’s decision in Royer is even more daunting. Suffice it to say, a majority of .justices in Royer did not agree on-and certainly did not articulate-a standard to be applied in Fourth Amendment seizure cases involving checked luggage. Therefore, I cannot rely on Royer, but relegate Royer to this footnote.

. Oúr decision in Harvey was later cited by a federal district court in Kansas. In United States v. Wood, 6 F.Supp.2d 1213, 1224 (D.Kan.1998) (citing Harvey, 961 F.2d at 1363-64), the district court relied on Harvey in pronouncing "a seizure [does not] occur when baggage is temporarily removed from one public area to another without causing any delay in travel plans.” The court held the only possessory interest a mailer of a package has is a “contract-based expectancy that the package would be delivered to the designated address” at the expected time. Id. (quoting United States v. LaFrance, 879 F.2d 1, 7 (1st Cir.1989)).

. Two other issues lurk beneath the surface in this case. First, do Fourth Amendment seizure principles change depending on whether we confront checked luggage at the airline terminal or checked luggage at the bus terminal? Second, do domestic and worldwide terrorist events involving commercial transportation impact our Fourth Amendment seizure analysis involving checked luggage? The district court made a cursory pass at these issues. Specifically, the district court discussed the impact the tragic events of September 11, 2001, have on commercial travel in America and on Fourth Amendment seizure jurisprudence. The district court stated "[pjassengers on a bus-unlike airline passengers-still retain some expectation of privacy in their baggage that the court is required to protect,” and also opined "train passengers- and presumably bus passengers as well-have not yet had to surrender all subjective expectations of privacy in their personal luggage." United States v. Va Lerie, No. 8:03CR23, 2003 WL 21956437, *2-3 (D.Neb. Aug.14, 2003). However, the district court also recognized we live in a dramatically altered world since our Nation was attacked on September 11: "Based on the national security measures introduced following the events of 9/11, air travelers can no longer have a subjective expectation of privacy in luggage or personal property. However, national security concerns with bus and train travel are somewhat less pressing than those with air travel.... Because the mandatory search provisions for luggage and packages put on airplanes do not apply to trains or buses, train or bus travelers can at least argue that they have a subjective expectation of privacy in their personal property, subject to the many qualifications already imposed by Fourth Amendment case law. But whether a post-9/11 society would recognize any mass transit traveler’s subjective expectation of privacy as objectively reasonable is, obviously, another matter.” -Id. 2003 WL 21956437 at *3 n. 1 (citations omitted). Ultimately, the district court concluded that, "until Congress or the Eighth Circuit decides differently, a bus passenger’s subjective expectation of privacy, however limited, is one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable.” Id. 2003 WL 21956437 at *3. Since the district court penned these words, we have witnessed terrorist bombings of trains in Madrid, Spain, numerous bus bombings in Israel, and bombings in other nations.
The district court raises issues vitally important to this Nation. However, I do not need to address these issues at this time in this case, because Fourth Amendment seizure principles dictate Va Lerie’s checked luggage was not seized when it was removed from the bus to a room inside the terminal.