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Reasonable suspicion is required to justify border search of cruise ship passenger's cabin

By Candace Hom, Melinda Ghilardi, Nancy Rimmer, Sarah Gannett, Renee Pietropaolo and Tieffa Harper

In a matter of first impression, the Third Circuit ruled in United States v. Whitted, 06-3271 (3d Cir. Sept. 4, 2008) that reasonable suspicion was required to justify a border search of a passenger cabin on a cruise ship arriving in the United States from a foreign port. The Court found that a passenger's private living quarters while on a ship were more akin to an individual's home than an automobile and, therefore, were entitled to more rigorous Fourth Amendment protection. As such, a search of a cruise ship passenger's cabin at the functional equivalent of a border constituted a non-routine border search which must be supported by reasonable suspicion.Applying this standard, the Third Circuit concluded that reasonable suspicion existed to support the search in this case...continue to full post

Full post as published by Third Circuit Blog on November 10, 2008 (boomark / email).