United States of America v. Justin Robert White Cruz

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
JUSTIN ROBERT WHITE CRUZ,
Defendant-Appellant.
No. 17-10138
D.C. No.
1:15-cr-00041-FMTG-1
MEMORANDUM*
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Guam
Frances Tydingco-Gatewood, Chief Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted October 12, 2018
Honolulu, Hawaii
Before: WARDLAW, BERZON, and RAWLINSON, Circuit Judges.
Justin Robert White Cruz (“Cruz”) appeals his drug and related witness
tampering and obstruction convictions under 21 U.S.C. §§ 841, 846, 1512, and
1510. He argues that the district court erroneously denied his motions to suppress
two packages (“Sullivan packages”), which contained distributable quantities of
methamphetamine and were held by a postal clerk at the direction of police. We
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
FILED
FEB 11 2019
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

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have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we reverse.
The district court’s finding that United States Postal Service Task Officer
Jeffrey Palacios (“Officer Palacios”) instructed the postal clerk at UR Market to set
aside the two Sullivan packages—and that she did as instructed—was not clearly
erroneous. The postal clerk did not respond when directly asked whether she
would have delivered the packages to the recipient had they arrived before Officer
Palacios. And the district court could properly have drawn a negative inference
from that questioning sequence.
The district court correctly held that the postal clerk’s removal of the
Sullivan packages from the stream of delivery, for the purpose of awaiting Officer
Palacios arrival, was a “meaningful interference with . . . [Cruz’s] possessory
interests in” the packages and thus constituted a seizure. United States v. England,
971 F.2d 419, 420 (9th Cir. 1992) (citation and internal quotations omitted); see
United States v. Hernandez, 313 F.3d 1206, 1210 (9th Cir. 2002).
The district court incorrectly found that reasonable suspicion existed to
justify this seizure, as the government now concedes. See United States v. Aldaz,
921 F.2d 227, 229 (9th Cir. 1990) (“Postal authorities may seize and detain
packages if they have a reasonable and articulable suspicion of criminal activity.”
(citation omitted)); see also United States v. Reed, 15 F.3d 928, 931 (9th Cir. 1994)
(defining when a private individual is acting as a government agent). Because the

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Sullivan packages were seized without reasonable suspicion in violation of Cruz’s
Fourth Amendment rights, and because the government also concedes that it
cannot show the seizure was harmless error, we reverse the denial of the motions to
suppress, vacate Cruz’s convictions, and remand this case to the district court for
further proceedings. See United States v. Job, 871 F.3d 852, 865 (9th Cir. 2017).
REVERSED.

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