United States v. Mark James Williams , 419 F. App'x 902 ( 2011 )

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FILED
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUITU.S. COURT OF APPEALS
________________________ ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
MARCH 23, 2011
No. 09-15663 JOHN LEY
CLERK
Non-Argument Calendar
________________________
D. C. Docket No. 09-60079-CR-WPD
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
MARK JAMES WILLIAMS,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
_________________________
(March 23, 2011)
Before WILSON, MARTIN and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Mark James Williams was tried and convicted by a jury for possessing
cocaine with the intent to distribute, and importing it into the United States. The
cocaine was found in Williams’s cabin while he was a passenger on a cruise ship
that was docked at Port Everglades, Florida after returning from three foreign ports
of call including Mexico, Panama and Costa Rica. Before trial, Williams filed a
motion to suppress, arguing that the search and seizure by the Customs and Border
Patrol violated his Fourth Amendment rights because it was not a routine border
search, and that, therefore, reasonable suspicion or probable cause was required to
justify the search. Reviewing the district court’s factual findings for clear error and
in the light most favorable to the government,1 we find de novo that there was
reasonable suspicion for the search of Williams’s cabin.
Officer Bradley testified that Costa Rica is “a source country” for narcotics
and child exploitation. Williams traveled to Costa Rica alone, using his middle
name, and had previously taken flights and cruises to Costa Rica. Two of
Williams’s prior flights to and from Costa Rica were shortly before he took cruises
there, which Bradley had seen other cruise ship passengers do to arrange drug
deals. Williams had a criminal history, and Bradley learned that when Williams
traveled using his middle name, he was not stopped by Customs. Prior to searching
Williams’s cabin, Bradley had also learned that Williams declined to have his
1
See United States v. Tovar-Rico, 61 F.3d 1529, 1534 (11th Cir. 1995).
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room cleaned the day he came back onto the ship from Costa Rica. These
circumstances demonstrate that Williams traveled to “a source country for
narcotics and child exploitation” in a manner that drug traffickers had been known
to use, he used the name which would allow him to pass Customs officers without
being questioned about his criminal history, and he declined to have his room
cleaned after returning from a drug source country. We find no error in the district
court’s conclusion that these seemingly innocuous acts nevertheless constituted
reasonable suspicion to an officer trained in investigating the travel patterns of
cruise passengers.
In any event, 19 U.S.C. § 1581 permits Customs officers “at any time [to] go
on board of any vessel or vehicle at any place in the United States or within the
customs waters . . . and examine, inspect, and search the vessel or vehicle and
every part thereof and any person, trunk, package, or cargo on board.” 19 U.S.C. §
1581(a). Although reasonable suspicion may be required for “highly intrusive
searches of a person’s body such as a strip search or an x-ray examination,” we
have held that the suspicionless search of a crew member’s cabin on a foreign
cargo ship while it was docked on the Miami River was not a violation of the
Fourth Amendment. United States v. Alfaro-Moncada, 607 F.3d 720, 729, 732
(11th Cir. 2010).
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Since Williams’s cabin was searched by a Customs officer on a vessel at a
port of entry – a functional equivalent of the border – the officer did not need
reasonable suspicion to conduct the search, and the district court correctly denied
Williams’s motion to suppress.
AFFIRMED.
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