OR concludes that pulling a package out of sorting line violates possessory interest

The recipient of a package has, under U.S. Mail regulations, a limited right to control the package even when in transit because it can be redirected. Here, the package was pulled out for a dog sniff. (Decided under Fourth Amendment and Oregon Constitution. State v. Barnthouse, 271 Or App 312 (May 20, 2015):

We do, however, take issue with the state’s conclusion that the addressee does not have a possessory interest in an in-transit express mail package. That conclusion is directly contradicted by Helton’s testimony at the suppression hearing that, before delivery, there is “a time along this path of delivery, that the public could intercede.” According to Helton, “a customer could go to their local post office and say I’m expecting an express mail package, if you could hold it out and let me pick it up early in the morning, I know that postal employees will provide that service for customers.”

The state’s conclusion is further undermined by the USPS standards, which the state itself cited as a source of a mailer’s possessory interest in an express mail package. Those standards make it clear that “[a]ddressees may control delivery of their mail.” USPS, Mail Manual, § 508.1.1.1 at 711. Specifically, under the “Recipient Services” section of the manual, the standards provide for a “Hold For Pickup” service, which “allows mail pieces [including express mail] to be held at a designated Post Office location for pick up by a specified addressee or designee.” USPS, Mail Manual § 508.7.2.1 at 743; see also USPS, Hold For Pickup Service Expanded, MailPro 6 (Jan/Feb 2011) (“The ‘Hold For Pickup’ service *** provid[es] customers with more options to have packages held at a Post Office until they’re able to pick them up ***.”). Indeed, a recipient who would “like to redirect an incoming package to a Post Office for pickup *** can select Hold For Pickup using USPS Package Intercept,” the very service that the state asserted was unavailable to addressees. USPS, Track & Manage, I don’t want to receive mail at home: Hold for Pickup, https://www.usps.com/manage/wel-come.htm (accessed May 14, 2015).

In short, the USPS standards and Helton’s testimony both indicate that an addressee of an express mail package has something akin to a legal right to control–i.e., to exercise restraining or directing influence over-a pack-age (addressed to the addressee) while that package is in transit. Under the case law summarized above, that evidence is sufficient to establish an addressee’s constructive possession of such a package and, therefore, the addressee’s constitutionally protected possessory interest in that package.

The USPS standards and Helton’s testimony also both indicate that an addressee’s possessory interest in an in-transit express mail package vests once the package has been deposited in the stream of mail. The package-intercept service that the USPS directs the recipient to use in order to divert a package to a post office for pickup is available at any point after the package has been sent, prior to its delivery or release for delivery. See USPS, Package Intercept, How It Works, https://retail-pi.usps.com/retailpi/actions/index. action (accessed May 14, 2015) (so stating). And, as noted above, Helton testified that an addressee can “go to their local post office and say I’m expecting an express mail package, if you could hold it out and let me pick it up early in the morning, I know that postal employees will provide that service.” In other words, the addressee can request hold-for-pickup service at a post office the day before the package’s arrival at that facility. Here, the facts summarized above establish that, generally, express mail packages addressed within Oregon arrive at the air cargo facility on the morning of the day that they are delivered and that, specifically, the package addressed to defendant arrived at that facility at 6:00 a.m. with a guaranteed delivery time of 12:00 p.m. later that day. Thus, as Helton testified, defendant could have exercised his ability to intercept the package as early as the day before Castaneda removed it from the sorting bin. Indeed, under the USPS standards, defendant could have exercised that ability before that point: essentially, at any point after the sender placed the package in the mail in Delaware.