S.D. Iowa: Just removing a suitcase from the back of a taxicab was a seizure

Officer’s removing of defendant’s gym bag from a taxicab was a seizure because it was a meaningful interference with his interest in the property. An interference could have been justified by reasonable suspicion in a proper case, and there was none here. United States v. Allison, 637 F. Supp. 2d 657 (S.D. Iowa 2009):

The threshold question, then, is whether Deputy Hedgecock meaningfully interfered with Defendant’s possessory interests in the gym bag when he removed it from the taxicab. The Supreme Court has noted that removal of an individual’s luggage to another location constitutes a “substantial intrusion on [the individual’s] possessory interests.” United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 710 n.9, 103 S. Ct. 2637, 77 L. Ed. 2d 110 (1983) (finding that law enforcement officers’ removal of luggage within the defendant’s immediate possession from one airport to another airport in order to subject the luggage to a “sniff test” by a trained narcotics detection dog constituted a seizure). The argument that a meaningful interference can result from moving an individual’s luggage without his consent is further bolstered in light of United States v. Alvarez-Manzo, No. 08-2647, F.3d , 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 14854, 2009 WL 1905437, at *4-6 (8th Cir. July 6, 2009), a recent Eighth Circuit case, wherein the court concluded that a seizure occurred when law enforcement officers removed a suitcase from the lower storage area of a commercial passenger bus and brought it into the passenger cabin of the bus in order to ascertain the whereabouts of the suitcase’s owner. In Alvarez-Manzo, the court reasoned that merely moving the luggage deprived a common carrier of the possessory interest it had obtained through its status as bailee of the checked luggage; the court did not concern itself with where the luggage was being taken but rather focused solely on whether the bailee-common carrier had authorized the movement. Id.

This is not a common carrier case in the variety of Va Lerie or Alvarez-Manzo. While the bag was in a public transportation vehicle, it was never provided to the taxi driver as a bailee but remained in Defendant’s immediate possession until he was removed from the taxi. Whether the bag was zippered shut or folded over, Defendant had an expectation of privacy in the bag. At no time did Defendant give Deputy Hedgecock permission to move the gym bag from its location in the back of the taxicab. When Deputy Hedgecock pulled the bag toward him, he effected a meaningful intrusion on Defendant’s possessory interests in the gym bag. Consequently, the gym bag was seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.