691 F.

2d 1376

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.
Mark J. KENT, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 81-5776.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eleventh Circuit.
Nov. 22, 1982.

Richard A. Gargiulo, Constance L. Rudnick, Boston, Mass., Michael A.

Lipsky, Mandina & Lipsky, Philip J. Mandina, Miami, Fla., for defendantappellant.
Robert J. Bondi, James S. McAdams, III, Asst. U.S. Attys., Miami, Fla.,
for plaintiff-appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of
Florida.
Before GODBOLD, Chief Judge, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judge, and
HOFFMAN* , District Judge.
R. LANIER ANDERSON, III, Circuit Judge:

Appellant was charged with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute in

violation of 21 U.S.C.A. Sec. 841(a)(1) (West 1981). Appellant was convicted
in a bench trial and appeals the denial of his motion to suppress evidence. We
affirm.I. FACTS

At approximately 4:30 P.M. on March 7, 1980, an informant notified the

Customs Patrol office in Miami that a 50-foot, white, yacht-type vessel with
three persons on board would be coming into the area of the Coral Gables
Waterway within an hour carrying a load of marijuana. The Customs Patrol
promptly launched a Customs vessel which proceeded to the Coral Gables
Waterway area. At approximately 5:15 P.M., Customs Patrol Officer Joseph
Brookins observed a vessel which matched the description provided by the

informant. The vessel, which was subsequently identified as the

SUNDANCER, was entering the first waterway south of the Coral Gables
Waterway and was the only vessel observed in the area at that time.
3

After maintaining visual contact with the SUNDANCER for approximately

thirty minutes, the Customs vessel drew alongside and asked the captain, later
identified as appellant Kent, where the SUNDANCER was coming from. Kent
responded that he was coming from the West Palm Beach area. Officer
Brookins believed that this was an "unusual response" because the
SUNDANCER had been heading in a northwesterly direction when originally
sighted.1 Brookins also asked Kent where the SUNDANCER was going to
dock, but Kent did not give an answer to this inquiry. Officer Brookins then
decided to board the SUNDANCER, and Kent apparently agreed to permit the
boarding.2

After boarding the SUNDANCER, Brookins asked Kent for the ship's
documents. While Brookins accompanied Kent to look for the documents,3 the
other Customs Patrol officer who boarded the ship, James Carlin, began to look
around the vessel. When he examined the pilot house, Carlin discovered an
open doorway leading from the pilot house to the interior of the vessel. Carlin
stepped into the doorway, bent over slightly due to a partially closed partition
above the doorway, and took one or two steps down the stairwell leading into
the lounge area. From that position, Carlin observed several large bales
wrapped in burlap through a half-open door at the opposite end of the lounge
which led to the forward stateroom. Recognizing that the bales were
characteristic of marijuana, Carlin proceeded forward through the lounge and
the galley to the forward stateroom. Carlin then confirmed that the bales
contained marijuana and learned that both the forward and rear staterooms were
filled with marijuana bales. Carlin informed Officer Brookins about his
discoveries, and the Customs Patrol officers arrested Kent and the two other
individuals on board the SUNDANCER.

II. THE STOP AND BOARDING OF THE SUNDANCER

5

The first issue presented on this appeal is the constitutionality of the stop and
boarding of the SUNDANCER. Our cases hold that Customs officers may
make investigatory stops of vessels on inland waters "on facts which justify a
reasonable suspicion of illegal activity." United States v. Ruano, 647 F.2d 577,
579 (5th Cir. 1981);4 United States v. D'Antignac, 628 F.2d 428, 434 (5th
Cir.1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 967, 101 S.Ct. 1485, 67 L.Ed.2d 617 (1981);
United States v. Serrano, 607 F.2d 1145, 1148 (5th Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 445
U.S. 965, 100 S.Ct. 1655, 64 L.Ed.2d 241 and 446 U.S. 910, 100 S.Ct. 1838, 64

L.Ed.2d 263 (1980). The crucial question, therefore, is whether the Customs
Patrol officers who stopped and boarded the SUNDANCER had knowledge of
facts which justified a reasonable suspicion of illegal activity.
6

We agree with the district court that the information contained in the
informant's tip coupled with the subsequent verification of that information
gave the Customs Patrol officers a reasonable suspicion that the SUNDANCER
was engaged in illegal activity. The tip indicated that a 50-foot, white, yachttype vessel with three people on board would enter the area of the Coral Gables
Waterway within an hour carrying a large load of marijuana. When the officers
investigated this information, they found a vessel which matched the
description given by the informant, which had three people on board, and
which was entering the Coral Gables Waterway area at the time designated by
the informant. Further, the Customs Patrol officers sighted no other vessels in
the Coral Gables Waterway area at that time. These facts corroborated the
information contained in the informant's tip.

Appellant argues, however, that the corroborated tip could not properly provide
the basis for a reasonable suspicion of illegal activity. Appellant contends that
the tip was unsupported by any indicia of the informant's reliability because the
government did not present evidence which established the reliability of the
informant or disclosed the source of the informant's information. Consequently,
appellant argues, the Customs Patrol officers did not have a reasonable
suspicion of illegal activity when they stopped and boarded the SUNDANCER.
We disagree.

Admittedly, the record does not establish the informant's past reliability or
disclose the manner in which the informant obtained his information. The
Customs Patrol officer who received the tip testified only that he knew the
informant and had talked to him in the past. A tip from an informant of
unknown reliability ordinarily will not create a reasonable suspicion of
criminality. See United States v. McLeroy, 584 F.2d 746 (5th Cir. 1978). Cf.
Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964); Spinelli
v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969). However,
the tip was not so completely lacking in indicia of reliability that the Customs
Patrol officer had to "shrug his shoulders and allow a crime to occur or a
criminal to escape." Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 145, 92 S.Ct. 1921,
1923, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972).

We believe that the tip the Customs Patrol officer received was similar to the
tip in Adams v. Williams, supra. In that case, an informant of unproven
reliability advised a police officer that "an individual seated in a nearby vehicle

was carrying narcotics and had a gun at his waist." Id. at 145, 92 S.Ct. at 1923.
The Court found that the tip carried enough indicia of reliability to justify the
officer's forcible stop of the defendant. The Court based its decision on the fact
that "[t]he informant was known to [the officer] personally and had provided
him with information in the past." Id. at 146, 92 S.Ct. at 1923. Thus, the Court
found that the tip had more indicia of reliability than "in the case of an
anonymous telephone tip," id., and, therefore, the officer had reasonable cause
to act on it. The Court's description of the tip in Adams v. Williams also applies
to the tip the Customs Patrol received in this case. Consequently, we believe
the tip must be given considerable weight when determining whether the
officers had a reasonable suspicion of criminality sufficient to justify the stop
and boarding of the SUNDANCER. 5
10

After the Customs Patrol officers received the tip, they conducted an
independent investigation of the information provided by the informant. This
court has held that "[w]here insufficient information about the tip and the
tipster is available to justify reliance on it alone, investigating officers may
supplement the tip by surveillance of the subject or corroboration of key
elements of the tip from relatively objective sources." United States v. Brennan,
538 F.2d 711, 720 (5th Cir. 1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1092, 97 S.Ct. 1104,
51 L.Ed.2d 538 (1977). This court also has stated that "corroboration of
innocent details might change an otherwise insubstantial tip into a proper basis
for a reasonable suspicion of criminality." United States v. McLeroy, 584 F.2d
at 748. 6 In this case, the informant gave relatively detailed information
regarding the description and location of a vessel carrying marijuana. This
information was not "readily available to many persons," United States v.
McLeroy, 584 F.2d at 748, and could not "easily have been obtained from an
offhand remark heard at a neighborhood bar." Spinelli v. United States, 393
U.S. at 417, 89 S.Ct. at 589. Rather, the information provided by the informant,
particularly the vessel's location at a particular place and time, inferred "that
the informant had gained his information in a reliable way." Spinelli v. United
States, 393 U.S. at 417, 89 S.Ct. at 589. See also Draper v. United States, 358
U.S. 307, 79 S.Ct. 329, 3 L.Ed.2d 327 (1959). Only a person with personal
knowledge of a vessel's activities would have been able to accurately predict
the vessel's location in the future.7 The Customs Patrol officers' subsequent
verification of the informant's tip provided the corroboration necessary to
justify a reasonable suspicion that the SUNDANCER was engaged in illegal
activity.

11

Several previous decisions by this court support our conclusion that a tip from a
known, albeit unproven, informant coupled with subsequent corroboration of
the tip's details can justify a reasonable suspicion of criminality. In United

States v. Afanador, 567 F.2d 1325 (5th Cir. 1978), for example, this court
upheld the strip search of an airline stewardess based on a tip from a first-time
informant which indicated that the stewardess would arrive on a particular
flight into Miami body-carrying cocaine. The court noted that the authorities
had ascertained that the informant was not being paid for the information and
had no criminal record, facts which are not present in this case; however, the
information provided by the informant in United States v. Afanador, supra, was
not nearly as detailed as the information which the Customs Patrol officers
received and verified before stopping and boarding the SUNDANCER. See
also United States v. Worthington, 544 F.2d 1275, 1279 (5th Cir.) (although tip
was "lacking in detail," agents had reasonable suspicion for investigatory stop
when tip's accuracy and reliability were corroborated by subsequent
surveillance), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 817, 98 S.Ct. 55, 54 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977).
Cf. United States v. Nunn, 525 F.2d 958, 959 n. 2 (5th Cir. 1976) (anonymous
tip indicated that illegal aliens could be found in open bed of two-tone late
model Ford pick-up being driven north on a certain highway by two black men;
dicta suggests that investigatory stop of vehicle fitting that description was
justified); Bailey v. United States, 386 F.2d 1 (5th Cir. 1967), cert. denied, 392
U.S. 946, 88 S.Ct. 2300, 20 L.Ed.2d 1408 (1968) ("The veracity of an unknown
informer can be sufficiently determined by the searching officer's personal
observation of some activity which is consistent with the tip but which would
appear harmless without it.").8
12

In summary, we hold that the Customs Patrol officers who stopped and boarded
the SUNDANCER had facts which justified a reasonable suspicion of illegal
activity. Although the tip which they received was from an informant of
unproven reliability, the tipster's identity was known and he had talked to one
of the officers in the past, the tip included facts regarding a vessel's future
location which normally would be available only to a limited number of
persons who had personal knowledge of the vessel's activities, the information
contained in the tip could be objectively verified, and the officers' subsequent
investigation corroborated every key element of the tip except the presence of
marijuana. Under these circumstances, the stop and boarding of the
SUNDANCER was not unreasonable and, therefore, did not contravene the
Fourth Amendment.9

III. THE DISCOVERY OF THE MARIJUANA

13

The second issue presented by this appeal is the constitutionality of the

discovery of marijuana in the interior of the SUNDANCER. The government
contends that Officer Carlin observed the marijuana in plain view from a
position where he had a legitimate right to be. 10 Appellants argue that the plain

view doctrine does not justify Officer Carlin's discovery of the marijuana.
14

Under the plain view doctrine, "[a] law enforcement officer may seize an item
in plain view without a warrant if the officer (1) has an independent and legally
sufficient justification for being in the position from which he can view the
item, (2) immediately recognizes the item as evidence, and (3) discovers the
evidence inadvertently." United States v. Antill, 615 F.2d 648, 649 (5th Cir.),
cert. denied, 449 U.S. 866, 101 S.Ct. 200, 66 L.Ed.2d 85 (1980). See Coolidge
v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 465-73, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 2037-42, 29 L.Ed.2d
564 (1971). See also United States v. Diecidue, 603 F.2d 535 (5th Cir. 1979),
cert. denied, 445 U.S. 946, 100 S.Ct. 1345, 63 L.Ed.2d 781 and 446 U.S. 912,
100 S.Ct. 1842, 64 L.Ed.2d 266 (1980); United States v. Duckett, 583 F.2d
1309 (5th Cir. 1978). Appellant argues that Officer Carlin's discovery of the
marijuana did not meet the first two prongs of this test.

15

Appellant's first contention is that Officer Carlin did not view the marijuana
from a position where he had a right to be. Appellant points out that Officer
Carlin took one or two steps down a stairway leading to the lounge area of the
SUNDANCER before he observed the marijuana bales. This action, appellant
argues, constituted an unreasonable intrusion into the vessel's "private living
quarters" in violation of the Fourth Amendment.11

16

This court has not yet determined the minimum degree of suspicion necessary
for law enforcement officers to search the private living quarters of a vessel.
See United States v. Gray, 659 F.2d 1296, 1299 (5th Cir. 1981) (Unit B);12
United States v. DeWeese, 632 F.2d 1267, 1270-71 (5th Cir. 1980); United
States v. Williams, 617 F.2d 1063, 1087 (5th Cir. 1980) (en banc); United
States v. Whitmire, 595 F.2d 1303, 1316 (5th Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 448 U.S.
906, 100 S.Ct. 3048, 65 L.Ed.2d 1136 (1980). However, we find it unnecessary
to resolve that issue because we believe that, under the circumstances of this
case, Officer Carlin's decision to step through the open door onto the stairway
leading to the lounge area was justified as part of the protective sweep that law
enforcement officers are permitted to make after boarding a vessel.

17

United States v. Alfrey, 620 F.2d 551, 555 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S.
938, 101 S.Ct. 337, 66 L.Ed.2d 160 (1980), held that when law enforcement
officers board a vessel they have a right to conduct a limited topside inspection
to ascertain whether all persons on board are accounted for. The rationale for
permitting such an inspection is to insure the safety of the officers as they go
about their duties. Id. In this case, the Customs Patrol officers already had a
reasonable suspicion that the SUNDANCER was engaged in criminal activity
and, therefore, had reason to take all permissible safety precautions. When the

officers boarded the vessel, Officer Brookins accompanied the captain to look
for the SUNDANCER's documents while Officer Carlin began to inspect the
vessel. During his inspection of the pilot house, Officer Carlin found an open
doorway leading down into the interior of the vessel. Because of a partially
closed partition over the top of the doorway, Carlin stooped over and took one
or two steps down the stairwell to a position where he was able to ascertain
whether there was anyone in the lounge area. Consequently, while Officer
Carlin went one or two steps beyond the "topside" inspection permitted by
United States v. Alfrey, supra, we believe that this limited intrusion into the
SUNDANCER'S interior was reasonable under the circumstances here as part
of a protective sweep. Assuming arguendo that the lounge area was a part of
the SUNDANCER'S "private living quarters," we hold that it is reasonable as
part of a protective sweep for an officer to look through an open door into the
lounge and to take one or two steps down a stairway to view the area which is
readily accessible through such an open door.13
18

Appellant admits that in some cases law enforcement officers have a right to
make a protective sweep after boarding a vessel. Nevertheless, appellant
contends that the discovery of the marijuana was illegal in this case because
Officer Carlin had an improper motivation when he stepped onto the stairwell
which led to the lounge area. According to appellant, Officer Carlin was
looking for contraband rather than attempting to ascertain whether there were
any people below who might pose a threat to the safety of the boarding party.
However, even if we accept appellant's argument that Officer Carlin's primary
purpose was to look for contraband, the record clearly indicates that Officer
Carlin also was checking to make sure that there were no additional persons
aboard the SUNDANCER.14 We have previously determined that the
lawfulness of the boarding of a vessel is not vitiated by the fact that the officer
in charge had mixed purposes, both to make a document and safety check and
to search for contraband. See United States v. Jonas, 639 F.2d 200, 202-03 (5th
Cir. 1981). We see no reason to apply a different standard to an officer's
conduct once on board a vessel.15 In this case, we believe that Officer Carlin
had a right to step through the open doorway onto the stairwell leading to the
lounge area as part of a protective sweep to insure the boarding party's safety.
The fact that Officer Carlin also was looking for contraband does not make his
action illegal. Thus, we conclude that Officer Carlin was in a place where he
had a right to be when he observed the marijuana.

19

Appellant's second contention, that the plain view doctrine does not apply
because Officer Carlin did not immediately recognize that the bales were
contraband, is without merit. Law enforcement officers "are not required to
ignore the significance of items in plain view even when the full import of the

objects cannot be positively ascertained without some examination." United

States v. Roberts, 619 F.2d 379 (5th Cir. 1980). See also United States v.
Diecidue, 603 F.2d 535, 559 (5th Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 445 U.S. 946, 100
S.Ct. 1345, 63 L.Ed.2d 781 and 446 U.S. 912, 100 S.Ct. 1842, 64 L.Ed.2d 266
(1980); United States v. Bills, 555 F.2d 1250 (5th Cir. 1977); cf. United States
v. Marshall, 672 F.2d 425, 426 (5th Cir. 1982) ("obviousness of the nature of
the contents of the packages discovered aboard the vessel in the environment
wherein they were discovered equates the discovery of the packages with the
discovery of their contents"). In this case, Officer Carlin observed the bales
from a position where he had a right to be and recognized that the bales were
characteristic of marijuana. He clearly had a right to examine the bales more
closely in order to ascertain whether the bales actually were contraband.
20

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of conviction is

21

AFFIRMED.

Honorable Walter E. Hoffman, U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of
Virginia, sitting by designation

After examining nautical maps at the suppression hearing, Officer Brookins

conceded that the SUNDANCER could have been coming from the West Palm
Beach area even though it was heading northwest when sighted

The government contends that Kent consented to both the boarding and a
search of the SUNDANCER. Because we conclude below that the officers'
reasonable suspicion justified the boarding and that the officers then found the
marijuana in plain view, we need not consider the consent issue

Kent apparently was unable to produce the documents

In Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206 (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc), this
court adopted as binding precedent all of the decisions of the former Fifth
Circuit handed down prior to the close of business on September 30, 1981. Id.
at 1209

Other courts have recognized the difference between a tip from an anonymous
telephone informant and an informant who, while of unproven reliability, is
known to the law enforcement officer. See, e.g., United States v. SierraHernandez, 581 F.2d 760, 763 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 936, 99 S.Ct.
333, 58 L.Ed.2d 333 (1978) ("Unlike a person who makes an anonymous

phone call ... the informant was in a position to be held accountable for his
intervention. The reliability of the information was thus increased.")
6

After making the statement quoted in the text, the court in United States v.
McLeroy went on to hold that the facts known to the law enforcement officers
did not justify an investigative stop of the defendant's automobile. The police
had stopped the automobile after receiving information that a black and white
chevrolet with a particular license number was parked at the defendant's home.
The tipster indicated that the vehicle had a damaged right side, was possibly
stolen, and might have been involved in a hit-and-run accident. The tipster also
suggested that the defendant might be carrying a sawed-off shotgun. There was
no indication that the police had talked to the informant previously, and "the
only elements of the tip corroborated by the police investigation were the
suspect's name and address and the description of his automobile." 584 F.2d at
748. The court observed that the informant's knowledge of "these few
corroborated facts in no way suggests that the informant knew more personal
facts about McLeroy, such as whether he was involved in crime." Id. In the
present case, in contrast, the Customs Patrol officers had talked to the
informant previously and the tip included information, such as the location of
the vessel at a particular place and time, which, when corroborated, suggested
that the informant had personal knowledge of the defendant's activities. Thus,
the factual setting of this case is distinguishable from United States v. McLeroy

It is possible that a tip describing a vessel and accurately predicting its future
location could come from a prankster who merely observed the vessel's
location, speed and heading. That is a remote possibility in this case, however,
because the Customs Patrol officer who received the tip knew the informant's
identity

We believe that the facts of this case present a stronger basis for a reasonable
suspicion of criminality than the facts in several other circuit court decisions
which have upheld investigatory stops based on the corroboration of innocent
details contained in tips received from anonymous informants. See United
States v. McClinnhan, 660 F.2d 500, 502 (D.C.Cir.1981) (reasonable suspicion
necessary to justify stop and frisk could be based on "anonymous tip that, while
lacking indicia of reliability, was corroborated in every significant detail" by
pre-stop observation); United States v. White, 648 F.2d 29, 43 (D.C.Cir.1981)
("An anonymous tip about an ongoing transaction, detailed as to time and place,
including a specific description of one of the participants and their vehicles as
well as their modus operandi, and verified by the officers through surveillance
in all details except for the actual possession or exchange of narcotics provides
a sufficient basis for a legitimate Terry stop to question the occupants as to their
identity and visually check inside the car."); United States v. Andrews, 600

F.2d 563, 569 (6th Cir.) (anonymous tipster's description of defendant and
accurate prediction that defendant would arrive on flight from Los Angeles to
deliver drugs to named individual provided enough detail to indicate that tip
was not fabricated "out of whole cloth" and satisfy the lowered standard of
reasonable suspicion), cert. denied sub nom. Brooks v. United States, 444 U.S.
878, 100 S.Ct. 166, 62 L.Ed.2d 108 (1979)
9

Because we believe that the corroboration of the informant's tip justified a

reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, we do not need to consider the effect
of Officer Brookins' questions and Kent's unsatisfactory responses when the
Customs Patrol vessel drew alongside the SUNDANCER. At oral argument,
the government's attorney suggested that the Customs Patrol officers did not
stop the SUNDANCER until after questioning Kent. If that were the case,
Kent's unsatisfactory responses gave the officers additional information to
justify the stop and boarding of the SUNDANCER. Even if the officers
stopped the SUNDANCER before asking questions, we note they did not take
the more intrusive step of boarding the SUNDANCER until after questioning
Kent

10

Our conclusion that the marijuana was discovered in plain view makes it
unnecessary to consider the government's additional argument that the
defendant does not have standing to contest the discovery of the marijuana

11

We need not decide whether appellant has properly characterized the entire
interior of the SUNDANCER as "private living quarters." The vessel's interior
included a lounge area, a galley, and two staterooms. Both the lounge area and
the galley apparently were open to all persons on board the vessel. We note that
dicta in one of our prior cases involving a commercial, as opposed to a private,
vessel indicates that "neither captain nor crew has a legitimate expectation of
privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment in an area which is subject to the
common access of those legitimately aboard the vessel." United States v.
Freeman, 660 F.2d 1030, 1034 (5th Cir. 1981). See also United States v.
DeWeese, 632 F.2d 1267, 1270-71 (5th Cir. 1980), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 878,
102 S.Ct. 358, 70 L.Ed.2d 188 (1981). For the purposes of this opinion, we
assume arguendo, without deciding, that the lounge area was part of the
"private living quarters" of the vessel

12

In Stein v. Reynolds Securities, Inc., 667 F.2d 33 (11th Cir. 1982), this court
adopted as binding precedent all of the post-September 30, 1981, decisions of
Unit B of the former Fifth Circuit. Id. at 34

13

Cf. United States v. Freeman, 579 F.2d 942, 944, 947-48 (5th Cir. 1978) (no
constitutional violation when Customs officer, while properly on board vessel,

"glanced down through a wide-open door (hatch) to ascertain that no one with
weapons was lurking below"). We need not consider whether a different result
might be required if Officer Carlin had confronted, and opened, a closed
doorway leading to the vessel's interior
14

At the suppression hearing, Officer Carlin stated that he always checks around
a vessel after boarding to make sure that the crew is accounted for and that
there are no individuals with weapons on board. In this regard, the trial judge
noted:
This gentlemen [Officer Carlin] ... did what he regularly does because he is
enjoying life to some degree; notwithstanding the work he is in, he wants to
stay alive ... [I]n today's world of drug smuggling, a police officer is a little bit
nutty if he doesn't look down in the hold to see if there is somebody else
crouched down there, because weapons are on the boats and [were] on this
boat, so I don't see anything unreasonable about looking into the hold ....

15

In United States v. Alonso, 673 F.2d 334, 336 (11th Cir. 1982), a panel of this
court found it unnecessary to decide whether boarding officers' suspicions of a
narcotics violation on a vessel would "taint" actions of the officers while on
board the vessel which could be justified on other grounds, such as a documents
and safety inspection or, as in this case, a protective sweep. Our decision today
resolves that issue in a manner which is consistent with previous authority in
this circuit. See, e.g., United States v. Hillstrom, 533 F.2d 209, 210-11 (5th Cir.
1976) (prior suspicion of presence of drugs does not taint the validity of a
documents and safety inspection), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1038, 97 S.Ct. 734, 50
L.Ed.2d 749 (1977); United States v. Willis, 476 F.Supp. 201, 203
(E.D.La.1979) (fact that searching officer's personal motive was to look for
drugs did not render search of hold illegal when Coast Guard had legitimate
reasons to enter hold to examine main beam number and to check for illegal
fish), aff'd in part, rev'd in part on other grounds, 639 F.2d 1335 (5th Cir. 1981).
But see United States v. Ruano, 647 F.2d 577, 579 n. 5 (5th Cir. 1981)
(indicating, possibly in dicta, that the stop of a vessel could not be justified
under the documents and safety inspection rationale when the Customs officers'
motivation for stopping the vessel was to investigate suspicious circumstances).
Moreover, our ruling finds support in decisions of several other federal courts.
For example, in United States v. Arra, 630 F.2d 836 (1st Cir.1980), the First
Circuit upheld the search of a vessel pursuant to the Coast Guard's authority to
conduct document and safety inspections even though the appellant argued that
the real purpose of the search was to check for contraband. The First Circuit
refused to look "into the minds of the officers" because "[a]scertaining the real
motivation or suspicions of [law enforcement officers] would prove
intractable." Id. at 846. See also United States v. Demanett, 629 F.2d 862, 868-

69 (3d Cir. 1980) (fact that boarding officers suspected presence of contraband
and might have conducted intrusive inspection had they not discovered
marijuana in plain view did not invalidate the discovery of marijuana during
check of vessel's identification number), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 910, 101 S.Ct.
1347, 67 L.Ed.2d 333 (1981); cf. Scott v. United States, 436 U.S. 128, 138, 98
S.Ct. 1717, 1723, 56 L.Ed.2d 168 (1978) ("fact that the officer does not have
the state of mind which is hypothecated by the reasons which provide the legal
justification for the officer's action does not invalidate the action taken as long
as the circumstances, viewed objectively, justify that action")