Is a search of two suitcases a seizure under the Fourth Amendment?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from People v. Souza, 36 Cal.Rptr.2d 569, 885 P.2d 982, 9 Cal.4th 224 (Cal. 1994):

At issue in Florida v. Royer was an airport search of two suitcases belonging to a nervous young man who had paid cash for an airline ticket from Miami to New York City under an assumed name and who was approached by two narcotics officers who believed that the man's characteristics fit a "drug courier profile." In the course of the opinion, the high court considered whether approaching the traveler for questioning was a seizure, concluding it was not. (460 U.S. at p. 493, fn. 2, 103 S.Ct. at p. 1322, fn. 2.) As the court explained, "law enforcement officers do not violate the Fourth Amendment by merely approaching an individual on the street or in another public place, by asking him if he is willing to answer some questions, by putting questions to him if the person is willing to listen, or by offering in evidence in a criminal prosecution his voluntary answers to such questions." (Id. at p. 497, 103 S.Ct. at pp. 1323-1324.) The court pointed out, however, that a person approached by police for questioning "need not answer any question put to him; indeed, he may decline to listen to the questions at all and may go on his way. [Citations.] He may not be detained even momentarily without reasonable, objective grounds for doing so; and his refusal to listen or answer does not, without more, furnish those grounds." (Id. at p. 498, 103 S.Ct. at p. 1324, italics added.)

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