Court Opinion

ID: 9495161
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:56:00.832077+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:51.228932
License: Public Domain

PAEZ, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
In United States v. Bravo, 295 F.3d 1002 (9th Cir.2002), a case addressing issues similar to those presented here, the court today holds that customs inspectors at the border may handcuff a detainee without any justification whatsoever. I dissented in Bravo because, in my view, there was no justification for the handcuffing. I join the majority here, however, because there was a particularized concern for handcuffing Zaragoza as the customs inspector escorted him from the primary to secondary inspection station.
A customs inspector testified that one of the reasons he handcuffed Zaragoza was that, based on the fact that he was looking down the freeway, Zaragoza could have been a potential “port-runner.” Zaragoza was looking toward the freeway, avoiding eye contact, and nervous. He was only about 20 feet away from two freeways. Based on Zaragoza’s behavior and the ease of escape, it was reasonable for the officers to handcuff Zaragoza for 20-25 seconds to mitigate the risk of flight.
As in Bravo, there was no evidence to suggest that there were particularized safety concerns that would have made it reasonable to handcuff Zaragoza, and therefore this cannot be an adequate basis for using handcuffs. Nor would being nervous or avoiding eye contact alone be enough reason to think that there was a particularized risk that Zaragoza might run the port. See United States v. Chavez-Valenzuela, 268 F.3d 719, 726 (9th Cir.2001) (holding that nervousness alone does not establish a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and therefore cannot justify a continued detention beyond the purposes of a Terry stop); id. at 727 n. 6 (“We have held ... that avoidance of eye contact is an appropriately considered factor only under special circumstances that make innocent avoidance improbable ... because avoidance of eye contact is a common sign of nervousness^]”).1 However, the combination of Zaragoza’s nervousness and his staring down the road toward the freeway, in addition to the brevity of the handcuffing, provided a reasonable basis for the inspector’s belief that Zaragoza might run the port, and thus justified handcuffing Zaragoza as they walked to the secondary inspection station. Because of the particularized concern of flight here, I concur.

. In United States v. Taylor, 934 F.2d 218, 220 (9th Cir.1991), nervousness was sufficient for a continued detention at the border to permit a drug-detection dog to walk around a car. We focused on the "limited delay while a dog walks around a lawfully stopped automobile" and the minimal intrusion on the defendant. Id. In contrast, as our cases reflect, see Bravo at 1015-16, handcuffing is a highly intrusive measure, even if it lasts for only a short time.