Court Opinion

ID: 9497454
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:51:35.74978+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:12.155475
License: Public Domain

MELLOY, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result of this case because I believe the seizure issue is controlled by this Court’s decision in United States v. Demoss, 279 F.3d 632 (8th Cir.2002). See also, United States v. Walker, 324 F.3d 1032 (8th Cir.2003); and United States v. Morones, 355 F.3d 1108 (8th Cir.2004). Demoss held that the removal of a package from a Federal Express conveyor belt to a nearby room for further inspection constituted a seizure. Demoss, 279 F.3d at 636. In this case, the removal was even more intrusive than the removal the Court held to be a seizure in Demoss. In Demoss, the package had been given to Federal Express for delivery. In our case, Mr. Va Lerie was traveling on the same bus with his luggage, and the luggage was removed from the checked luggage bin of the bus to a separate building. For purposes of Fourth Amendment analysis, I find the present facts to be indistinguishable from Demoss and, therefore, based upon our prior precedent, a seizure occurred.
It is also important to note that the government expressly conceded that there was no reasonable suspicion to remove Mr. Va Lerie’s luggage. As the majority opinion notes, the government also elected, in this case, not to argue that Mr. Va Lerie’s consent to search purged the taint of the illegal seizure. The government made the tactical decision to challenge the district court decision solely on the grounds that the district court was wrong in its ruling that a seizure occurred. Based upon our prior precedent, I believe the majority correctly analyzed that issue, and the luggage was seized.
Having said that, however, I believe that our prior precedent dealing with the definition of a seizure is of questionable validity. Specifically, I join in Judge Hansen’s well-written concurrence in Demoss. I believe that our cases place undue emphasis on the issue of whether there was more than a superficial review of the package, or whether the package (or in this case, a piece of luggage) was moved to another room. Proper analysis requires consideration of the temporal element of the inspection. I believe that a brief detention of a piece of luggage that does not result in the delay of either the passenger, or ultimate delivery of the luggage, is not a seizure. Other circuits have so held. See, e.g., United States v. Johnson, 990 F.2d 1129, 1132 (9th Cir.1992); United States v. Ward, 144 F.3d 1024, 1031-32 (7th Cir.1998); and United States v. Lovell, 849 F.2d 910, 916 (5th Cir.1988).
To be fair to the appellee in this case, the record is not well developed on the issue of whether the removal of the luggage from the bus would have resulted in any delay in its ultimate delivery. Like many cases, this one evolved through the litigation process. At the initial hearing before the magistrate judge, the parties focused the evidentiary record on whether there was reasonable suspicion to seize the luggage and whether the defendant consented to the search. The parties seemed to assume that a seizure occurred. It was not until later that the government abandoned the reasonable suspicion argument and focused on the seizure issue. Consequently, the record is unclear as to what delay, if any, there may have been in the *1151ultimate delivery of the luggage. The record is clear that the bus had not left at the time the drugs were discovered, because officers went onto the bus to remove Mr. Va Lerie’s carry-on items after the search. It is unclear, however, how much time elapsed between the removal of the luggage from the luggage bin and the discovery of the drugs. It does appear that this time period was fairly brief. It is also unclear as to whether the bus was held by law enforcement to allow for the removal of the carry-on items or whether the scheduled departure had not yet occurred (assuming those facts are even relevant).
In sum, I concur. I believe that based upon our prior precedent, a seizure occurred. At some point, however, I believe our circuit should 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.