U.S. Free to Search Any Parcel From Abroad, Court Says in Irvine Case

U.S. Customs agents can open and search any package mailed from abroad to a U.S. post office, a federal appeals court has ruled in a case involving an Irvine man.

In an 11-0 decision last Friday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overruled its own 1977 decision, which said Customs agents needed reasonable cause to believe a package contained drugs or other contraband before they could open it.

That standard was wrong, the court said Friday, because a federal law authorizes agents to search any package at the border. A post office receiving international mail is considered the equivalent of a border.

The new ruling follows other federal appeals courts that have decided the same issue.

The court did not say whether Customs agents would be authorized to open letters from foreign countries without evidence of contraband.

But the opinion by Judge Betty Fletcher said that federal regulations require “reasonable cause” to suspect contraband before international letters can be searched.

The ruling allows federal prosecutors in Los Angeles to use evidence of more than three pounds of opium found in a package mailed from Ankara, Turkey, to a Los Angeles post office box in February, 1991.

Customs agents opened the package, then resealed it and followed Kamyard Taghizadeh to his Irvine home after he picked it up. They found more evidence at his home and charged him with smuggling.

In March, a three-judge panel of the appeals court said the search was legal under the “reasonable cause” standard. The mailing of a package from Turkey, a “source country” for drugs, and the use of a post office box, which is relatively anonymous and secure, provided agents with ample reason to suspect contraband, the court said.

A defense appeal prompted the court to refer the case to an 11-judge panel for reconsideration in September. Without holding a new hearing, the court ruled in favor of the prosecution on broader grounds Friday.

Taghizadeh’s lawyer, Alan Rubin, said he was disappointed.

“Customs now will be allowed to search anything that comes into the country without any suspicion,” he said. “That’s a little scary to me.”