Court Opinion

ID: 9492208
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:35:00.732215+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:10.751930
License: Public Domain

BENAVIDES, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I dissent from the majority’s decision because I disagree with their conclusion that the border patrol agents had probable cause to arrest Michael and Juan Garcia before Michael Garcia confessed at the checkpoint station. In finding probable cause, the majority both contravenes precedent in this Circuit and establishes a threshold for arrest that threatens to eviscerate protections afforded by the Fourth Amendment.
When the Garcias were taken into custody, the border patrol agents were aware of only two potentially incriminating facts. First, the Garcias had just left a trail sometimes used by drug traffickers, and they provided the agents with inconsistent statements about that fact. Second, one of the Garcias might have been carrying something at some point along the trail, as evidenced by bruises on one of their shoulders and some deep footprints found along the trail. Although these two facts legitimately raised suspicion, I do not find them sufficient to establish probable cause. In none of the cases cited by the majority or the government was probable cause for a drug-related arrest founded on such scant information. In each of those cases, extremely suspicious behavior was combined with at least some evidence indicating the existence and whereabouts of drugs. See United States v. Adcock, 756 F.2d 346, 347 (5th Cir.1985) (probable cause based in part on cocaine found on a person who had just exited the suspect’s house); United States v. Antone, 753 F.2d 1301, 1304 (5th Cir.1985) (probable cause based in part on an informant’s tip concerning the location of marijuana and the smell of marijuana from a suspect’s vehicle); United States v. Harlan, 35 F.3d 176, 179 (5th Cir.1994) (probable cause based in part on a “visible large bulge,” presumed to be cocaine, in the suspect’s jacket); United States v. Piaget, 915 F.2d 138, 140 (5th Cir.1990) (probable cause based in part on the transfer between the suspects of a gray canvas bag which was presumed to contain narcotics); United States v. Willis, 759 F.2d 1486, 1495 (5th Cir.1985) (probable caused based, in part, on stuffed duffel bags, presumed to contain cocaine, in the passenger area of a private luxury passenger plane). In this case, the border patrol agents had no physical evidence suggesting that the Garcias possessed any narcotics. While it was reasonable for the border patrol to suspect that the Garcias had hidden marijuana somewhere in the brush, such conjecture does not constitute probable cause to make an arrest. Only once Michael Garcia’s admission to Agent Perez substantiated that conjecture did the border patrol have probable cause to place the Garcias under arrest.
*271Instead of stretching the facts of this case to eke out a basis for probable cause, I would have this court review the decision of the district court on the grounds on which it was decided. The district court found that the temporary detention of the Garcias in a jail cell was lawful under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), based solely on the border patrol agents’ reasonable suspicion that criminal activity was afoot. Thus, the district court found that when the Garcias were placed in holding cells, they were not arrested but only reasonably detained. Although several Courts of Appeals have, on the basis of reasonable suspicion, sanctioned less drastic uses of force, see, e.g., United States v. Sanders, 994 F.2d 200, 206 (5th Cir.1993) (allowing use of handcuffs on the basis of reasonable suspicion), none have yet considered whether detaining a suspect in a cell necessarily exceeds the limits on investigatory detentions prescribed by Terry and its progeny. Rather than help elucidate this area of unsettled law, the majority elects to muddle the previously settled protections afforded citizens under the Fourth Amendment. I dissent.