United States of America, Plaintiff-Counterdefendant/appellant v. $25,000 U.S. Currency, and Tomasino Gino Cirimele, Claimant/appellee

The United States filed a civil forfeiture action pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 881 (a)(6) against money seized from Tomasino Ciri-mele (“Cirimele”) following his arrest at Los Angeles International Airport. Ciri-mele moved to suppress the evidence obtained from him at the airport. The district court granted Cirimele’s motion, stating that the agents did not have a reasonable and articulable suspicion of criminal activity so as to justify Cirimele’s detention. Cirimele .thereafter moved for summary judgment against the government in the forfeiture action. The district court granted the motion, finding that the government had failed to establish probable cause to forfeit. We find that tbe district court erred in granting Cirimele’s motion to suppress and his motion for summary judgment. The district court’s ruling is reversed and this case is remanded to the district court for further proceedings.

I

On November 10, 1982, a Drug Enforcement Agent (“D.E.A.”) from Atlanta relayed information to D.E.A. Joseph Leszc-zynski, in Los Angeles, that narcotics couriers were using an Eastern Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Miami to transport the profits of narcotics transactions. The…

dissenting.

I respectfully dissent. This case should be remanded to the district court for a determination whether Cirimele felt free to leave at the time he was initially questioned and detained. If the officers did not possess founded suspicion at the moment the investigatory stop occurred, see Guam v. Ichiyasu, 838 F.2d 353, 355 (9th Cir.1988), the development of that suspicion during the detention cannot be used to support the initial stop. United States v. Espinosa, 827 F.2d 604, 608 (9th Cir.1987); United States v. Erwin, 803 F.2d 1505 , 1510 n. 2 (9th Cir.1986); see also Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U.S. 543 , 548 n. 10, 88 S.Ct. 1788 , 1791 n. 10, 20 L.Ed.2d 797 (1968) (search not justified by what it turns up).

A Fourth Amendment stop based on hunches alone will not withstand constitutional scrutiny. United States v. Kerr, 817 F.2d 1384, 1387 (9th Cir.1987). As a threshold matter, Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491 , 103 S.Ct. 1319 , 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983) controls our analysis of the existence of a reasonable suspicion to support a brief investigatory stop. While it is true under Royer that the Fourth Amendment is not violated by merely approaching someone in a public…

853 F.2d 1501 UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Counterdefendant/Appellant, v. $25,000 U.S. CURRENCY, Defendant, and Tomasino Gino Cirimele, Claimant/Appellee. No. 85-5854. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted July 10, 1987. Decided April 28, 1988. Amended June 21, 1988. Second Amended Aug. 8, 1988. Ian Fan, Asst. U.S. Atty., Los Angeles, Cal., for plaintiff-counterdefendant/appellant. Michael N. Berke, Sherman Oaks, Cal., for claimant/appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Before NELSON, HALL and THOMPSON, Circuit Judges. CYNTHIA HOLCOMB HALL, Circuit Judge: 1 The United States filed a civil forfeiture action pursuant to 21 U.S.C. Sec. 881 (a)(6) against money seized from Tomasino Cirimele ("Cirimele") following his arrest at Los Angeles International Airport. Cirimele moved to suppress the evidence obtained from him at the airport. The district court granted Cirimele's motion, stating that the agents did not have a reasonable and articulable suspicion of criminal activity so as to justify Cirimele's detention. Cirimele thereafter moved for summary judgment against the government in the…