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Law enforcement agencies have a special language they use to manufacture probable cause to search and seize property. The goal is to make ordinary situations seem as shady as possible, creating a faux urgency to snoop. Even the U.S. Postal Service officials know the drill.
They described taped cardboard boxes in a mailroom as suspicious, which would be like flagging books in a library or cars in a parking garage. The over-the-top alarmism might have been comical, except California screen printer René Quiñonez suffered serious consequences.
The saga started when protest organizers needed COVID-19 masks in summer 2020, and they hired Quiñonez to customize them with slogans like “STOP KILLING BLACK PEOPLE.” Working around the clock, Quiñonez and a small team of family, friends and employees stuffed boxes with thousands of finished products and mailed them from Oakland to Minneapolis, St. Louis, Brooklyn and Washington, D.C., where crowds were gathering daily following the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
Quiñonez paid for overnight shipping, but the packages did not arrive on time. The delay was not due to an honest mistake or a backlog. The Postal Service detained the boxes intentionally.
Quiñonez learned about the interference from an alert on the Postal Service online tracking system: “Seized by law enforcement.” Concerned about the hit to his reputation, Quiñonez asked for clarification. That’s when the doublespeak started.
The Postal Service had no good reason to target Quiñonez, a legitimate business owner who had spent 10 years building his brand of social-justice-oriented screen printing. Officials had no warrant, emergency or suspicion that Quiñonez had done anything wrong. So they juiced up the situation to create cover for themselves.
Postal officials characterized the ordinary brown boxes as problematic because Quiñonez had taped the seams shut to keep the tightly packed masks from bulging out. Yet using tape is not suggestive of a crime. Neither is having bulges.
Officials also labeled the destination cities as “known drug trafficking” areas. Yet the same smear could apply to any city (and often is when officers seek to manufacture probable cause), rendering the phrase meaningless. Despite the negative description, mailing packages to high-population areas is not suggestive of a crime.
Officials also characterized the origin city as suspicious. Initially, they suggested the shipment had come from Eureka, California, a large cannabis-producing region about 275 miles north of Oakland. Yet Quiñonez actually mailed the packages from a post office near his shop. Either way, mailing packages from Eureka or Oakland is not suggestive of a crime.
Finally, they pointed out that Movement Ink “frequently mailed parcels from the same sender/address.” Conducting business by mail is not, of course, suggestive of a crime.
Quiñonez simply mailed brown boxes from one city to another, and the Postal Service turned this normal activity into something sinister. The main problem with law enforcement spin like this is not that it fools politicians and journalists (which it often does), but that it sways credulous courts. Many judges accept government claims without pushback—giving wide deference to police and prosecutors to violate the Constitution.
Rather than accept the abuse, which caused Quiñonez to lose customers and a hard-earned reputation, he filed a constitutional lawsuit on June 1, 2022. Our public interest law firm, the Institute for Justice, represents him and his business, Movement Ink.
The case will hinge on Quiñonez’s Fourth Amendment right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures. Unfortunately courts increasingly allow government officials to use innuendo and vague generalities to explain away constitutional violations.
Officers in Arizona, for instance, faulted truck driver Jerry Johnson for looking “nervous” during an airport police interrogation. Officers in North Carolina faulted African immigrant Sidialy Diaafar for driving southbound on Interstate 95 in a rental car. And officers in Michigan faulted Stephanie Wilson for being in a “bad neighborhood.”
Related Articles Opinion | People with old records deserve a chance to move forward Opinion | California voters should nix flavored tobacco ban Opinion | Will the overturning of Roe really help Democrats in the midterms? Opinion | Maximalists threaten a federalist compromise on abortion Opinion | Orange County’s political circus None of these people did anything illegal or unusual, but the police conducted warrantless searches and seizures anyway. Judges are supposed to see through government pretenses and hold officers accountable. Instead, compliant courts signed off on all these constitutional violations.
Some people worry about activist judges who legislate from the bench. But equally problematic are passive judges who accept government arguments and abuses without scrutiny. What we need instead are engaged judges who enforce constitutional standards with rigor.
The Postal Service had excuses ready for its warrantless search and seizure of Quiñonez’s brown boxes, but talk is cheap. The Constitution demands respect for individual rights, not spin.
Jaba Tsitsuashvili is an attorney and Daryl James is a writer at the Institute for Justice in Arlington, Virginia.
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