Ramona Cipres and Juan Montes Deoca v. United States

Pursuant to our remand ( 343 F. 2d 95,100 ), the district court held an evidentiary hearing and entered detailed findings and conclusions on the issues of waiver and probable cause. The court’s ultimate findings were that Ciprés had not waived her Fourth Amendment rights, but that at the time the suitcases were searched the officers had probable cause to believe that she was committing an offense and that an immediate search and seizure was necessary to prevent removal of the marihuana. We are satisfied from our examination of the record that those findings, and the subsidiary findings upon which they rest, are supported by the evidence.

Appellants argue that the Customs agents did not have probable cause to believe that Ciprés knew the suitcases contained marihuana. As we noted on the first appeal, circumstances known to the officers were sufficient to support the jury’s conclusion that the suitcases were in Cipres’s immediate possession and subject to her dominion and control ( 343 F. 2d at 99 ); a fortiori, these circumstances furnished a sufficient basis for the same inference by the officers. From the facts of immediate possession, dominion, and control, the officers were…