CA10: Seizure of def’s unlabeled bag from Amtrak baggage car to carry it through train was a Fourth Amendment seizure

Defendant was riding Amtrak from Los Angeles which stops in Albuquerque. As usual, the DEA boarded the train. After a walk through they seized defendant’s unlabeled bag from the baggage car and carried it through the train looking for its owner. That was a Fourth Amendment seizure and interfered with defendant’s possessory interests despite the fact he was temporarily separated from the bag. United States v. Hill, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 19520 (10th Cir. Nov. 9, 2015):

Existing cases addressing potential seizures of luggage fall within two typical paradigms. Courts have routinely held that taking luggage from the direct possession of a traveler amounts to a seizure. See, e.g., Place, 462 U.S. at 708; United States v. Scales, 903 F.2d 765, 766, 769 (10th Cir. 1990). Alternatively, courts have consistently held that a brief detention of checked baggage that does not delay the bag from reaching its intended destination does not amount to a seizure. See United States v. Va Lerie, 424 F.3d 694, 703-07 (8th Cir. 2005) (en banc) (discussing numerous cases). This is so because “a passenger gives up his immediate possessory interest when he checks his bags with the commercial carrier as bailee.” Id. at 706. Upon checking a bag, the traveler’s possessory interest is limited to the right to reclaim the bag at the specified time and place. Id. Thus, the case law is clear that a traveler’s possessory interest in his luggage is at its zenith when the luggage is in his direct possession and is at its nadir when the luggage has been checked with a common carrier. Although these precedents do not provide a meaningful answer to the question faced in this case, they do state a sensible rule: in assessing whether a detention of property amounts to a meaningful interference with the property owner’s possessory interests, courts must be mindful of the nature of the possessory interest implicated. See id.

Hill’s possessory interest in the Coogi bag stowed in the common luggage area of the coach is intermediate between a bag in his direct possession and a bag checked with Amtrak. Because the bag was in a common storage area, rather than his immediate possession, Hill could reasonably expect the bag could be moved about the storage area as new passengers boarded the train and existing passengers exited the train. See id. (considering what a traveler would “reasonably expect” in defining the nature of the traveler’s possessory interest in his luggage); cf. Nicholson, 144 F.3d at 637 (examining what a traveler “reasonably might expect” in determining whether physical manipulation of luggage amounted to a search). That is, Hill could reasonably expect departing passengers might remove his luggage from the rack to get a firm grip on an adjacent bag. He could likewise expect that arriving passengers might reposition his bag to an adjacent rack in an effort to consolidate the arriving passengers’ luggage. On the other hand, having retained responsibility for the bag instead of checking it with Amtrak officials, he could reasonably expect that he could access that bag in the common storage area at any time he might choose. Small’s actions, in taking the bag into his own dominion and control for the purpose of finding its owner and conducting narcotics interdiction, deviated significantly from a reasonable traveler’s expectations as to how his bag would be treated in the common storage area and, concomitantly, deprived Hill of his possessory interest in being able to access his luggage on his own schedule. This intrusion, being entirely at odds with the expectations of a reasonable traveler, is meaningful in the Fourth Amendment sense. Thus, Small’s actions amounted to a seizure of Hill’s luggage. Because that seizure, as the United States concedes, was undertaken without reasonable suspicion, the existence of exigency, or the issuance of a warrant, it was in violation of the Fourth Amendment.