Illinois v. Andreas

463 U.S. 765, 103 S. Ct. 3319, 77 L. Ed. 2d 1003, 1983 U.S. LEXIS 106, 51 U.S.L.W. 5157

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: July 5, 1983
• Docket: 81-1843
• Status: Published

Opinions

Chief Justice Burger

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The question presented is whether a warrant was required to reopen a sealed container in which contraband drugs had been discovered in an earlier lawful border search, when the container was seized by the police after it had been delivered to respondent under police supervision.

hH

A large, locked metal container was shipped by air from Calcutta to respondent in Chicago. When the container arrived at O’Hare International Airport, a customs inspector opened it and found a wooden table approximately three feet in diameter and 8 to 10 inches thick. Marihuana was found concealed inside the table.

The customs inspector informed the Drug Enforcement Administration of these facts and Special Agent Labek came to the airport later that day. Labek chemically tested the substance contained in the table, confirming that it was marihuana. The table and the container were resealed.

The next day, Labek put the container in a delivery van and drove to respondent’s building. He was met there by Chicago Police Inspector Lipsek. Posing as delivery men, Labek and Lipsek entered the apartment building and announced they had a package for respondent. Respondent came to the lobby and identified himself. In response to Lipsek’s comment about the weight of the package, respondent answered that it “wasn’t that heavy; that he had packaged it himself, that it only contained a table.” App. 14.

At respondent’s request, the officers making the delivery left the container in the hallway outside respondent’s apartment. Labek stationed himself to keep the container in sight and observed respondent pull the container into his apartment. When Lipsek left to secure a warrant to enter and search respondent’s apartment, Labek maintained surveillance of the apartment; he saw respondent leave his apartment, walk to the end of the corridor, look out the window, and then return to the apartment. Labek remained in the building but did not keep the apartment door under constant surveillance.

Between 30 and 45 minutes after the delivery, but before Lipsek could return with a warrant, respondent reemerged from the apartment with the shipping container and was immediately arrested by Labek and taken to the police station. There, the officers reopened the container and seized the marihuana found inside the table. No search warrant had been obtained.

Respondent was charged with two counts of possession of controlled substances. Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 56 Vt, ¶¶ 704(e) and 705(e) (1981). Prior to trial, the trial court granted respondent’s motion to suppress the marihuana found in the table, relying on Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U. S. 753 (1979), and United States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1 (1977).

On appeal, the Appellate Court of Illinois, First Judicial District, affirmed. 100 Ill. App. 3d 396, 426 N. E. 2d 1078 (1981). It relied primarily on Sanders and Chadwick in holding that respondent had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the contents of the shipping container. 100 Ill. App. 3d, at 399-401, 426 N. E. 2d, at 1080-1082. It recognized that no warrant would be necessary if the police had made a “controlled delivery” of the container following a lawful search, but held that here the police had failed to make a “controlled delivery.”

A “controlled delivery,” in the view of the Illinois court, requires that the police maintain “dominion and control” over the container at all times; only by constant control, in that court’s view, can police be “absolutely sure” that its contents have not changed since the initial search. Id., at 402, 426 N. E. 2d, at 1082. Here, according to the court, the police could not have been “absolutely sure” of the container’s contents for two reasons: (1) Labek was not present when the container was resealed by the customs officers, and thus he knew of its contents only by “hearsay,” ibid., 426 N. E. 2d, at 1083, and (2) the container was out of sight for the 30 to 45 minutes while it was in respondent’s apartment; thus, in the court’s view, “there is no certainty that the contents of the package were the same before and after the package was brought into [respondent’s] apartment.” Ibid. Accordingly, the Illinois court held that the warrantless reopening of the container violated the Fourth Amendment.

We granted certiorari, 459 U. S. 904 (1982), and we reverse.

II

The lawful discovery by common carriers or customs officers of contraband in transit¹ presents law enforcement authorities² with an opportunity to identify and prosecute the person or persons responsible for the movement of the contraband. To accomplish this, the police, rather than simply seizing the contraband and destroying it, make a so-called controlled delivery of the container to its consignee, allowing the container to continue its journey to the destination contemplated by the parties. The person dealing in the contraband can then be identified upon taking possession of and asserting dominion over the container.³

The typical pattern of a controlled delivery was well described by one court:

“Controlled deliveries of contraband apparently serve a useful function in law enforcement. They most ordinarily occur when a carrier, usually an airline, unexpectedly discovers what seems to be contraband while inspecting luggage to learn the identity of its owner, or when the contraband falls out of a broken or damaged piece of luggage, or when the carrier exercises its inspection privilege because some suspicious circumstance has caused it concern that it may unwittingly be transporting contraband. Frequently, after such a discovery, law enforcement agents restore the contraband to its container, then close or reseal the container, and authorize the carrier to deliver the container to its owner. When the owner appears to take delivery he is arrested and the container with the contraband is seized and then searched a second time for the contraband known to be there.” United States v. Bulgier, 618 F. 2d 472, 476 (CA7), cert. denied, 449 U. S. 843 (1980).

See also McConnell v. State, 595 P. 2d 147 (Alaska 1979).

Here, a customs agent lawfully discovered drugs concealed in a container and notified the appropriate law enforcement authorities. They took steps to arrange delivery of the container to respondent. A short time after delivering the container, the officers arrested respondent and reseized the container.⁴ Respondent claims, and the Illinois court held, that the warrantless reopening of the container following its reseizure violated respondent’s right under the Fourth Amendment “to be secure . . . against unreasonable searches and seizures . . . .” We disagree.

The Fourth Amendment protects legitimate expectations of privacy rather than simply places. If the inspection by police does not intrude upon a legitimate expectation of privacy, there is no “search” subject to the Warrant Clause. See Walter v. United States, 447 U. S. 649, 663-665 (1980) (Blackmun, J., dissenting). The threshold question, then, is whether an individual has a legitimate expectation of privacy in the contents of a previously lawfully searched container. It is obvious that the privacy interest in the contents of a container diminishes with respect to a container that law enforcement authorities have already lawfully opened and found to contain illicit drugs. No protected privacy interest remains in contraband in a container once government officers lawfully have opened that container and identified its contents as illegal. The simple act of resealing the container to enable the police to make a controlled delivery does not operate to revive or restore the lawfully invaded privacy rights.

This conclusion is supported by the reasoning underlying the “plain-view” doctrine. The plain-view doctrine authorizes seizure of illegal or evidentiary items visible to a police officer whose access to the object has some prior Fourth Amendment justification and who has probable cause to suspect that the item is connected with criminal activity. Texas v. Brown, 460 U. S. 730, 738, and n. 4, 741-742 (1983) (plurality opinion); id., at 746 (Powell, J., concurring in judgment); id., at 748, 749-750 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment). The plain-view doctrine is grounded on the proposition that once police are lawfully in a position to observe an item firsthand, its owner’s privacy interest in that item is lost; the owner may retain the incidents of title and possession but not privacy. That rationale applies here; once a container has been found to a certainty to contain illicit drugs,⁵ the contraband becomes like objects physically within the plain view of the police, and the claim to privacy is lost. Consequently, the subsequent reopening of the container is not a “search” within the intendment of the Fourth Amendment.

However, the rigors and contingencies inescapable in an investigation into illicit drug traffic often make “perfect” controlled deliveries and the “absolute certainty” demanded by the Illinois court impossible to attain. Conducting such a surveillance undetected is likely to render it virtually impossible for police so perfectly to time their movements as to avoid detection and also be able to arrest the owner and reseize the container the instant he takes possession. Not infrequently, police may lose sight of the container they are trailing, as is the risk in the pursuit of a car or vessel.

During such a gap in surveillance, it is possible that the container will be put to other uses — for example, the contraband may be removed or other items may be placed inside. The likelihood that this will happen depends on all the facts and circumstances, including the nature and uses of the container, the length of the break in surveillance, and the setting in which the events occur. However, the mere fact that the police may be less than 100% certain of the contents of the container is insufficient to create a protected interest in the privacy of the container. See Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U. S., at 764-765, n. 13. The issue then becomes at what point after an interruption of control or surveillance, courts should recognize the individual’s expectation of privacy in the container as a legitimate right protected by the Fourth Amendment proscription against unreasonable searches.

In fashioning a standard, we must be mindful of three Fourth Amendment principles. First, the standard should be workable for application by rank-and-file, trained police officers. See New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454, 458-460 (1981); United States v. Ross, 456 U. S. 798, 821 (1982). Second, it should be reasonable; for example, it would be absurd to recognize as legitimate an expectation of privacy where there is only a minimal probability that the contents of a particular container had been changed. Third, the standard should be objective, not dependent on the belief of individual police officers. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 21-22 (1968). A workable, objective standard that limits the risk of intrusion on legitimate privacy interests is whether there is a substantial likelihood that the contents of the container have been changed during the gap in surveillance. We hold that absent a substantial likelihood that the contents have been changed, there is no legitimate expectation of privacy in the contents of a container previously opened under lawful authority.

Ill

Applying these principles, we conclude there was no substantial likelihood here that the contents of the shipping container were changed during the brief period that it was out of sight of the surveilling officer. The unusual size of the container, its specialized purpose, and the relatively short break in surveillance combine to make it substantially unlikely that the respondent removed the table or placed new items inside the container while it was in his apartment. Thus, reopening the container did not intrude on any legitimate expectation of privacy and did not violate the Fourth Amendment.

The judgment of the Illinois Appellate Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

1 Common carriers have a common-law right to inspect packages they accept for shipment, based on their duty to refrain from carrying contraband. See United States v. Pryba, 163 U. S. App. D. C. 389, 397-398, 502 F. 2d 391, 399-400 (1974). Although sheer volume prevents systematic inspection of all or even a large percentage of the cargo in their care, see, e. g., McConnell v. State, 595 P. 2d 147, 148, and n. 1 (Alaska 1979), carriers do discover contraband in a variety of circumstances. Similarly, although the United States Government has the undoubted right to inspect all incoming goods at a port of entry, see United States v. Ramsey, 431 U. S. 606, 616-619 (1977), it would be impossible for customs officers to inspect every package. In the course of selective inspections, they inevitably discover contraband in transit.

2 When common carriers discover contraband in packages entrusted to their care, it is routine for them to notify the appropriate authorities. The arrival of police on the scene to confirm the presence of contraband and to determine what to do with it does not convert the private search by the carrier into a government search subject to the Fourth Amendment. E. g., United States v. Edwards, 602 F. 2d 458 (CA1 1979).

3 Of course, the mere fact that the consignee takes possession of the container would not alone establish guilt of illegal possession or importation of contraband. The recipient of the package would be free to offer evidence that the nature of the contents were unknown to him; the nature of the contents and the recipient’s awareness of them would be issues for the fact-finder.

4 Respondent has not claimed that the warrantless seizure of the container from the hallway of his apartment house following his arrest violated the Fourth Amendment; his claim goes only to the warrantless reopening of the container.

5 The Illinois Court held that Labek’s absence when the container was resealed by customs officers somehow made less than certain his knowledge of the container’s contents. This was plain error: where law enforcement authorities are cooperating in an investigation, as here, the knowledge of one is presumed shared by all. See Whiteley v. Warden, 401 U. S. 660, 568 (1971).