United States of America v. Tammi Gladys Camacho

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
TAMMI GLADYS CAMACHO,
Defendant-Appellant.
No. 17-50171
DC No. CR 16-769 JFW
MEMORANDUM*
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
John F. Walter, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted March 9, 2018
Pasadena, California
Before: TASHIMA and NGUYEN, Circuit Judges, and SIMON,** District
Judge.
As defendant Tammi Camacho passed through the security checkpoint at
Los Angeles International Airport, the x-ray machine alerted Transportation
Security Administration (“TSA”) officer Elaine Benedict that Camacho had an
FILED
APR 02 2018
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
** The Honorable Michael H. Simon, United States District Judge for the
District of Oregon, sitting by designation.

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oversized liquid, gel, or aerosol container in her bag, prompting a required
secondary search. During this secondary search, Benedict picked up an unsealed,
folded envelope. Benedict felt a hard mass inside the envelope and thought it
might be something hazardous. To be sure that it was not such an item, Benedict
looked inside the envelope for about fifteen seconds and found multiple IDs and
credit cards with different names. Camacho was arrested for identity theft-related
crimes.
Camacho moved to suppress the evidence from the envelope, arguing that
Benedict exceeded the appropriate scope of the administrative search. The district
court rejected Camacho’s request for an evidentiary hearing on the motion to
suppress and denied the motion. Camacho appeals both decisions. We affirm.
1. Camacho first contends that she was entitled to an evidentiary hearing
on her motion to suppress because of: (1) contradictions between Benedict’s
account of the search and the video recording of the search; and (2) contradictions
between Benedict’s initial statements about the search and a later-filed declaration.
Neither argument convinces us that the district court abused its discretion in
declining to hold an evidentiary hearing. See United States v. McTiernan, 695 F.3d
882, 891 (9th Cir. 2012).
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The district court is required “to conduct an evidentiary hearing when the
moving papers filed in connection with a pre-trial suppression motion show that
there are contested issues of fact relating to the lawfulness of a search.” United
States v. Mejia, 69 F.3d 309, 318 (9th Cir. 1995) (citing United States v. Walczak,
783 F.2d 852, 857 (9th Cir.1986)). Camacho did not establish a contested issue of
fact.
First, by not raising the issue below, Camacho waived the argument that the
video recording contradicted Benedict’s account of the search. See United States v.
Murillo, 288 F.3d 1126, 1135 (9th Cir. 2002) (citing United States v. Wright, 215
F.3d 1020, 1026 (9th Cir. 2000)). Regardless, the video is consistent with
Benedict’s statements about the search.
Second, while Benedict’s initial statements about the search and her later-
filed declaration are not identical, the disparities are not contradictory.
Specifically, Benedict first noted that she felt a hard mass in the envelope and
thought it could be “something hazardous.” Later, in her declaration she stated that
she thought the hard mass may have been “an initiator for an explosive” or “a
knife.” Therefore, Benedict’s declaration simply provided a more specific
description of her previous statement. The district court did not abuse its
discretion in concluding that there was no issue of contested fact.
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2. Camacho next contends that Benedict exceeded the scope of a valid
airport screening search by looking inside the envelope and reading the names on
the ID cards. Benedict did not exceed the permissible scope of a screening search
and the district court did not err in denying Camacho’s motion to suppress.
“[A]irport screening searches, like the one at issue here, are constitutionally
reasonable administrative searches because they are ‘conducted as part of a general
regulatory scheme in furtherance of an administrative purpose, namely, to prevent
the carrying of weapons or explosives aboard aircraft, and thereby to prevent
hijackings.’” United States v. Aukai, 497 F.3d 955, 960 (9th Cir. 2007) (en banc)
(quoting United States v. Davis, 482 F.2d 893, 908 (9th Cir.1973)). To be
constitutional, “the individual screener’s actions [must] be no more intrusive than
necessary to determine the existence or absence of explosives.” United States v.
McCarty, 648 F.3d 820, 831 (9th Cir. 2011) (citing United States v. $124,570 U.S.
Currency, 873 F.2d 1240, 1245 (9th Cir. 1989)).
Here, Benedict’s decision to look in the unsealed envelope, after feeling a
hard mass in it and concluding that it could contain something hazardous, was not
more intrusive than necessary. See id. at 836 (“[T]he scope of the permissible
search . . . [is] defined by the point at which the screener [is] convinced the bag
pose[s] no threat to airline safety.”). We reject Camacho’s assertion that TSA
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officers are only allowed to search for the specific item that the x-ray machine
detected in the first place and must ignore other potential safety issues.
Likewise, Benedict’s action of thumbing through the cards in the envelope
was not unreasonable, even though she read the names on them. First, hazardous
materials such as blades or “sheet explosives” could be hidden between the cards.
See id. Second, whereas the TSA officer in McCarty conceded that she was no
longer searching for safety hazards when she read the letters at issue in that case,
see id., Benedict consistently maintained that she was searching for safety hazards.
Noticing that the ID cards had different names is distinguishable from reading
letters for the purpose of collecting evidence of illegality.1
• ! •
The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
1 Camacho also contends that the district court’s finding that the video
evidence corroborated Benedict’s account of the search was clearly erroneous. For
the reasons stated above, Camacho waived this argument. Nevertheless, after
reviewing the video, we disagree with Camacho. The district court’s interpretation
of the video was not clear error.
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