Airport search of checked bag constitutional, rules 9th Circuit

Airport security did not violate the Fourth Amendment when they opened a child pornography suspect's checked bag after an explosives screening machine indicated it contained a dense object, the 9th Circuit has ruled in reversing a suppression order.

The defendant checked two bags for a flight in Hawaii. One of the bags triggered an alarm when Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents passed it through an x-tray device used to screen for explosives. The alarm indicated that the bag held a dense item.

When TSA agents opened the bag for further inspection, they discovered a laptop and photographs of nude and partially nude minors.

In moving to suppress, the defendant argued that the TSA agents turned a routine administrative search for explosives into an unauthorized investigatory search for contraband.

But the court concluded that the search was lawful.

"[A]s long as (1) the search was undertaken pursuant to a legitimate administrative search scheme; (2) the searcher's actions are cabined to the scope of the permissible administrative search; and (3) there was no impermissible programmatic secondary motive for the search, the development of a second, subjective motive to verify the presence of contraband is irrelevant to the Fourth Amendment analysis. ...

"Thus, the presence here of a secondary desire to confirm that the items searched might be contraband could not, in and of itself, invalidate the initially constitutional administrative search [the TSA agent] conducted, at least as long as she actually engaged

in a search for explosives and her actions were no more intrusive than necessary to clear the bag of any safety concerns," the court said.

U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit. U.S. v. McCarty, No. 09-10504. Aug. 3, 2011. Lawyers USA No. 993-3134.