Removing Package From Airport Sorting Conveyor Was Not an Unlawful Seizure. Dog Sniff of Package Was Not a Search

State v. Eichers, Minn.S.Ct., 9/10/2014.  An airport narcotics officer pulled a package off the UPS conveyor belt for reasons that you can read about here.  The officer put the package amongst a pile of other packages and had his drug sniffing dog “seek dope.”  Which the dog did, alerting only to this package.  Eventually, Mr. Eicher’s claimed the package whereupon authorities arrested him and charged him with first degree drugs.

He moved to suppress the drugs.  He said that grabbing the package off the conveyor belt was a seizure and that the dog sniff was a search, neither of which was supported by reasonable, articulable suspicion.  The court of appeals said that pulling the package off the belt and placing it on the floor amongst other packages was a seizure because the officer thereby asserted dominion and control over it.  That court also said that the dog sniff required a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity under the Minnesota Constitution.  Even so, no federal or state constitutional violation occurred because the officer had a reasonable articulable suspicion that ht package might contain contraband. 

Justice Anderson, writing for all but Justice Page who did not participate, upholds the denial of the suppression motion but for different reasons.  The first question that the court looked at was whether there had been a seizure of the package.  Justice Anderson said that the test to determine that question is whether there is a meaningful interference with an individual’s possessory interest in the property.  The Justice looked to an Eighth Circuit opinion, United States v. Va Lerie, 424 F.3d. 694 (8th Cir. 2005), which identified three factors bearing on the question of a “meaningful interference”:

1) the detention of property impacted a person’s freedom of movement; 2) the detention delayed timely delivery of the property; and 3) law enforcement deprived the carrier of custody of the property.

The court adopts this test.  Looking to the facts, the court concludes that there was no meaningful delay in timely delivery; indeed, officers attempted a controlled delivery the same afternoon following its discovery at the airport.  The court found no infringement of any possessory interest that Mr. Eichers enjoyed by grabbing the package off the belt and setting it on the floor.  His interest in the carrier maintaining custody of the package was infringed, but not until after the dog sniff, which established probable cause.  What that boils down to is that there was no cognizable seizure of the package when the officer removed it from the conveyor belt and put it on the floor for the dog to sniff.

That gets us to the dog sniff.  The court concludes that a dog sniff of a mailed package which reveals only contraband, does not compromise any legitimate expectation of privacy under both the Fourth Amendment and Article 1, Section 10 of the state constitution.  The sniff was thus not a search.