Opinion
NO. 2015-CA-001848-MR
02-24-2017
BENJAMIN RINGO KNIGHT APPELLANT v. COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY APPELLEE
BRIEF FOR APPELLANT: David R. Steele Fort Mitchell, Kentucky BRIEF FOR APPELLEE: Andrew Beshear Attorney General Emily Bedelle Lucas Assistant Attorney General Frankfort, Kentucky
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED APPEAL FROM BOONE CIRCUIT COURT
HONORABLE JAMES SCHRAND, II, JUDGE
ACTION NO. 15-CR-00190 OPINION
AFFIRMING
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BEFORE: ACREE, JONES, AND VANMETER, JUDGES. VANMETER, JUDGE: Benjamin Ringo Knight appeals from a judgment entered by the Boone Circuit Court pursuant to his conditional plea of guilty to trafficking in marijuana over five pounds wherein he was sentenced to five-years' imprisonment. On appeal, Knight alleges that evidence obtained from his luggage was illegally obtained. After review of the record, we affirm.
Judge Laurance B. VanMeter authored this opinion prior to being elected to the Supreme Court of Kentucky. Release of this opinion was delayed by administrative handling.
I. Factual and Procedural Background
On January 16, 2015, Officer Eli Sautter of the Drug Enforcement Agency Task Force at the Cincinnati Northern Kentucky International Airport was contacted by personnel from the Drug Enforcement Agency in San Francisco, California concerning Knight's travel itinerary for January 17, 2015. Knight purchased his airfare one day prior to his scheduled travel to Northern Kentucky. Upon learning that Knight booked his flight unusually close to traveling and because San Francisco is a known source city for narcotics, Sautter had a criminal background check executed on Knight. The criminal background check revealed that Knight's criminal history included charges for possession and trafficking in controlled substances. Thereafter, Sautter consulted with additional airport law enforcement personnel, Lieutenant Tony Steimle, Detective Kenneth Coyle and Officer Rob Minter, to develop a plan to approach Knight upon his arrival.
Prior to Knight's arrival in Northern Kentucky on January 17, Minter confirmed that Knight was a passenger on a flight from San Francisco to the Cincinnati Northern Kentucky International Airport and that Knight had checked two bags. Minter obtained the tag numbers for Knight's checked baggage and waited at the plane's scheduled gate to await the plane's arrival. When Knight's airplane landed, Minter watched all of the checked bags be removed from the airplane, retrieved both of Knight's bags, placed them in his vehicle, and drove to the baggage staging area, an area of the airport underneath the baggage claim area where baggage is loaded onto the carousels. Upon reaching the baggage staging area, Minter retrieved Knight's two bags from his vehicle, randomly selected two pieces of similarly sized luggage from the same flight and placed all four bags on the ground. Minter then obtained Faith, a canine single-purpose narcotics officer, and permitted Faith to inspect the four bags with a sniff test. Upon sniffing the bags, Faith immediately indicated the presence of narcotics in Knight's luggage. At the conclusion of Faith's sniff test, all of the luggage from the airplane, including the four bags selected for Faith's inspection, was placed on the carousel and sent to baggage claim for passenger pick-up. Minter then left the baggage staging area and went to the airport's baggage claim area to join his law enforcement colleagues.
The officers observed Knight retrieve his two checked bags from baggage claim. As Knight walked toward the airport's exit, Sautter and Minter approached Knight, introduced themselves and asked Knight if he would speak with them. Knight agreed to speak with the officers. During this conversation, Knight admitted that he possessed contraband and produced a small bag containing marijuana and hash from his backpack. Sautter and Minter advised Knight that Faith alerted them to the presence of narcotics in his checked bags and requested consent to search both bags. Knight granted consent to search his bags. Coyle and Sautter searched Knight's two checked bags. Inside some clothing, the law enforcement personnel found marijuana sealed in a vacuum-packed bag. As a result of the seizure of the marijuana from Knight's bags, the officers placed Knight under arrest. After Knight's arrest, the officers weighed the marijuana. The marijuana weighed approximately 15.562 pounds.
The Boone County grand jury returned an indictment charging Knight with one count of trafficking in more than five pounds of marijuana and one count of being a persistent felony offender in the second degree. Knight filed a motion to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of the search of his checked luggage. Following a hearing, the Boone Circuit Court denied Knight's motion. Thereafter, Knight entered a conditional plea of guilty pursuant to RCr 8.09 for trafficking in more than five pounds of marijuana. By final judgment, the Boone Circuit Court sentenced Knight to five-years' imprisonment, a $1,000 fine and court costs. This appeal followed.
Kentucky Rules of Criminal Procedure.
II. Standard of Review
The standard of review on a trial court's ruling on a suppression motion following a hearing is twofold. First, this Court examines the trial court's findings of fact for clear error, upholding findings "supported by substantial evidence." Peyton v. Commonwealth, 253 S.W.3d 504, 514 (Ky. 2008). Second, when findings of fact are supported by substantial evidence, this Court engages in a "de novo review of the trial court's application of the laws to those facts." Guzman v. Commonwealth, 375 S.W.3d 805, 807 (Ky. 2012).
In this case, Knight does not contest the trial court's factual findings. Rather, Knight argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress based on its application of the law to those facts. Specifically, Knight asserts that Minter's retrieval of his checked luggage prior to the canine sniff test was an improper seizure which, in turn, invalidates the consent he granted to the officers for the subsequent search of his luggage.
III. Analysis
The Fourth Amendment guards against unreasonable searches and seizures of one's "persons, houses, papers and effects" by the government. All warrantless searches are unreasonable, unless a search falls within an exception to the warrant requirement. Commonwealth v. Hatcher, 199 S.W.3d 124, 126 (Ky. 2006)(citing Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 514, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967)). A seizure of property occurs when some meaningful interference occurs with an individual's possessory interest in that property." United States v, Jacobson, 466 U.S. 109, 113, 104 S.Ct. 1652, 1657, 80 L.Ed.2d 85 (1984). As a seizure affects only a person's possessory interests, it is generally considered less intrusive than a search which affects a person's privacy interests. Guzman, 375 S.W. 3d. at 810-11 (Cunningham, J., concurring) (citing Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796, 806, 104 S.Ct. 3380, 3386, 82 L.Ed.2d 599 (1984)). An individual's Fourth Amendment privacy interest specifically applies to luggage. California v. Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565, 111 S.Ct. 1982, 114 L.Ed.2d 619 (1991).
The United States Supreme Court, however, has interpreted the Fourth Amendment to permit seizure of personal belongings under certain circumstances. "[W]hen an officer's observations lead him reasonably to believe that a traveler is carrying luggage that contains narcotics, the principles of Terry and its progeny would permit the officer to detain the luggage briefly to investigate the circumstances that aroused his suspicion, provided that the investigative detention is properly limited in scope." United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 706, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 2644, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983). Moreover, the United States Supreme Court held that a canine sniff of an airline passenger's luggage is not a seizure prohibited by the Fourth Amendment because the sniff is minimally intrusive, detects only the presence of contraband and does not subject the passenger to the embarrassment and inconvenience that looking through luggage would cause. Id., 462 U.S. at 707, 103 S.Ct. at 2644. Accordingly, using a trained canine to sniff an airline passenger's luggage does not constitute a seizure under the Fourth Amendment.
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) permits the police to make a brief investigative stop and search if they have a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot. --------
In this case, law enforcement personnel became aware that Knight booked his flight the day before traveling to Northern Kentucky, that he was traveling from San Francisco, California, a known source city for narcotics and a criminal background check conducted on Knight showed that Knight's criminal history included charges for possession and trafficking in controlled substances. Under these circumstances, law enforcement personnel possessed sufficient reasonable suspicion of criminal activity to justify retrieving Knight's two checked bags as they were unloaded from the airplane upon his arrival. The sniff test was brief, conducted out of public view and did not interfere with Knight's intended travel or his possessory interest in his luggage. Thus, the brief detention of the two checked bags for the purpose of conducting a canine sniff test of the luggage did not violate Knight's Fourth Amendment protection against illegal seizures.
Knight further argues that law enforcement personnel improperly coerced him to consent to the search of his luggage by advising him of the canine sniff test. We disagree. Consent is one of the exceptions to the warrant requirement. Cook v. Commonwealth, 826 S.W.2d 329, 331 (Ky. 1992)(citing United States v. Watson, 423 U.S. 411, 96 S.Ct. 820 (1976)). Consent obtained through coercion violates Fourth Amendment principles. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 227, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 2048, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973). In this case, the dog sniff was properly conducted as no improper seizure occurred under Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Accordingly, law enforcement personnel's disclosure of the results of Faith's sniff of the luggage did not coerce Knight's consent to the search of his checked bags.
IV. Conclusion
The trial court did not err in denying the motion to suppress the evidence obtained from Knight's checked luggage. For the foregoing reasons, the Boone Circuit Court's judgment is affirmed.
ALL CONCUR. BRIEF FOR APPELLANT: David R. Steele
Fort Mitchell, Kentucky BRIEF FOR APPELLEE: Andrew Beshear
Attorney General Emily Bedelle Lucas
Assistant Attorney General
Frankfort, Kentucky