## Facts

- Steven Dewayne Bond was a passenger on a Greyhound bus traveling from California to Little Rock, Arkansas.
- The bus stopped at a permanent Border Patrol checkpoint in Sierra Blanca, Texas.
- A Border Patrol agent boarded the bus to check passengers’ immigration status.
- After completing the status check, the agent walked down the aisle and squeezed passengers’ soft luggage stored in the overhead rack.
- The agent squeezed a green canvas bag above Bond’s seat and felt a “brick-like” object.
- Bond acknowledged the bag was his and consented to the bag being opened.
- Inside, the agent found a duct-tape-wrapped “brick” of methamphetamine rolled in clothing.
- Bond was charged with drug offenses under 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and moved to suppress the drugs on Fourth Amendment grounds.
- The district court denied suppression, Bond was convicted, and he received a 57-month sentence; the Fifth Circuit affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether a law enforcement officer’s physical manipulation (squeezing) of a bus passenger’s carry-on luggage in an overhead rack constitutes a “search” under the Fourth Amendment.
2. Whether placing a bag in a shared overhead rack eliminates a reasonable expectation of privacy against tactile, investigative probing by others, including police.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Fifth Circuit.
- The Court held that the agent’s physical manipulation of Bond’s carry-on bag was a Fourth Amendment search.
- The Court concluded Bond retained a reasonable expectation that his opaque bag would not be subjected to exploratory tactile examination, even though others might handle it for ordinary reasons.
- The Court distinguished incidental handling and visual exposure from deliberate, investigative squeezing intended to discover concealed contents.

## Legal Principles

- Personal luggage is an “effect” protected by the Fourth Amendment.
- A person may retain a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of closed, opaque luggage placed in a location where others may make ordinary contact with it.
- The Fourth Amendment distinguishes between expected handling (moving or repositioning luggage) and exploratory tactile manipulation aimed at learning concealed contents.
- Tactile inspection designed to detect what is not otherwise exposed is more intrusive than visual observation of what is knowingly exposed to public view, and can constitute a search.

## Conclusion

The Court held that an officer’s deliberate squeezing of a bus passenger’s carry-on bag to discern its contents is a Fourth Amendment search; placing luggage in an overhead rack does not forfeit privacy against exploratory tactile probing by law enforcement.


Bond v. United States, 529 U.S. 334 (2000)