Post details: D.Neb.: Seizure of defendant's bag off a bus was seizure of the person without reasonable suspicion
07/26/08
D.Neb.: Seizure of defendant's bag off a bus was seizure of the person without reasonable suspicion
Seizure of defendant's luggage off a bus was an interference with his freedom of movement and was a seizure of the person. United States v. Alvarez-Manzo, 625 F. Supp. 2d 832 (D. Neb. 2008), Affirmed 570 F.3d 1070, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 14854 (8th Cir. Neb., July 6, 2009):
With respect to the first factor the evidence supports the defendant's contention that the officers' detention of the luggage significantly impacted the defendant's freedom of movement. At the time the officers entered the bus with Alvarez-Manzo's luggage, the bus was preparing to depart. The officers boarded the bus and announced that they were looking for the owner of certain luggage. Alvarez-Manzo was not free to leave the bus, for to do so, he would have had to leave the luggage with the officers and would have risked missing the next leg of his journey. Additionally, the officers' removal of Alvarez-Manzo's checked luggage from the bus's luggage compartment to inside the bus to seek consent to search constitutes a meaningful interference with Alvarez-Manzo's possessory interests in his luggage. There was no indication as to what the officers intended to do with this luggage, the length of time that they intended to hold on to it, or whether the luggage would be returned to the owner once the owner was identified. There is no evidence that Greyhound personnel approved the removal of the luggage from the undercarriage of the bus, and no Greyhound personnel was present on the bus when the officers were questioning the passengers. Therefore, the officers' removal and possession of the defendant's luggage was a seizure.
Because the court has determined that the officers meaningfully interfered with the defendant's possessory interest in the luggage, the government must show that reasonable suspicion existed in order to detain a person's luggage and it must derive from more than a hunch. United States v. Tillman, 81 F.3d 773, 775 (8th Cir. 1996). A warrantless seizure and detention of packages or luggage being transported by third parties such as Greyhound is permissible only if the officers have a reasonable and articulable suspicion of criminal activity. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20-23, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889 (1968); Place, 462 U.S. at 708. In analyzing the problem from a totality of the circumstances approach, the officers did not have reasonable suspicion, much less probable cause, to remove the bag and detain it.
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