The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit decided the issue of whether a postal inspector violated a defendant's Fourth Amendment constitutional rights by seizing a package from a mail cart that contained methamphetamine.
In this case, U.S. Postal Inspector Kevin Marshall, a law enforcement officer, was conducting a routine examination of Express Mail packages at a mail processing center in Des Moines, Iowa, when a package on a mail cart from Joshua Gomez Huerta, the defendant-appellant, caught his eye because the seams of the package were taped and it had a handwritten label. When Marshall further examined the package he thought it was suspicious because the package was mailed from a post office with a different ZIP code than the return address, it was addressed to an individual at a hotel, it consisted of two boxes taped together to form one box and the numbers in the return address had been scratched out. Marshall checked the return address in an electronic database and discovered that although the address was valid, the name on the return address was not associated with the address.
Marshall set up a controlled delivery to Huerta by sending the hotel's front desk employee to where the package was addressed and informing Huerta that the package had arrived. When Huerta arrived to pick up the package, he admitted that he was expecting a package from California and identified himself. After Marshall revealed that he was a law enforcement officer, Huerta declined consent to a search of the package and then denied knowing anything about it. Marshall later obtained a warrant to search the package and found that it contained methamphetamine.
A grand jury indicted Huerta on drug trafficking charges. Huerta moved to suppress the methamphetamine found in the package on the ground that the search warrant was invalid. Huerta also sought to suppress statements he made during the controlled delivery. The district court denied both motions. Huerta entered a conditional guilty plea to conspiracy to distribute more than 500 grams or more of methamphetamine mixture and methamphetamine. Huerta appealed the district court's denial of a motion to suppress evidence. At the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Huerta argued that Inspector Marshall seized the package when he removed it from the mail cart, and that he lacked reasonable suspicion to do so.
For the sake of analysis, the appeals court assumed that a seizure occurred and decided the issue of whether Marshall had reasonable suspicion to seize the package.
The Eighth Circuit has held that the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures extends to packages placed in the mail. As such, a law enforcement officer may seize a package in the mail for investigative purposes only if he has reasonable suspicion that the package contains contraband.
The Court of Appeals concluded that Inspector Marshall had reasonable suspicion to seize the package due to the handwritten label, the different ZIP codes for the return address and the place of mailing, the scratched-out number in the return address, the composition of the box and the hotel destination. And, through Marshall's more than seven years of experience of investigating mail containing narcotics and other dangerous substances, he learned that people shipping narcotics often use a fictitious name, address or telephone number in order to avoid detection if law enforcement officers attempt to trace the package. While innocuous if viewed independently, the Court of Appeals determined that the package's taped seams, the California origin and handwritten label, the scratched-out number in the return address, the difference between the mailing zip code and the zip code on the return address, and the fact that the destination address was a hotel all reinforced the suspicion when considered as part of the totality of the circumstances.
Therefore, the Court of Appeals determined that these circumstances, along with a fictitious return address and disconnected telephone number associated with the sender, gave the experienced postal inspector ample basis to suspect wrongdoing. Thus, the Court of Appeals held that there was reasonable suspicion to seize the package and affirmed the judgment of the district court.
The case is U.S. v. Huerta, No. 10-3434, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, dated September 13, 2011. The full decision is available here.
