In re Adewumi C.
Opinion of the Court
In a juvenile delinquency proceeding pursuant to Family Court Act article 3, the appeal is from an order of disposition of the Family Court, Queens County (Torres, J.) dated November 17, 1989, which, upon a fact-finding order of the same court, dated September 25, 1989, made upon his admission, finding that the appellant had committed an act which, if committed by an adult, would have constituted the crime of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the fourth degree, adjudged him to be a juvenile delinquent and placed him with the Division for Youth, Title II, for a period of 18 months. The appeal brings up for review the fact-finding order dated September 25, 1989, and the denial, after a hearing, of that branch of the appellant’s omnibus motion which was to suppress physical evidence.
Ordered that the order of disposition is affirmed, without costs or disbursements.
On June 21, 1989, the appellant, age 14, flew from Nigeria, a country believed by United States Customs officials to be a source of illegal narcotics, to John F. Kennedy International Airport, the functional equivalent of a border (see, People v Luna, 73 NY2d 173). His unusual T-shirt caught the eye of a customs inspector, who examined his traveling documents and learned that his round trip ticket was recently purchased with
We conclude that, under the circumstances extant here, the customs inspector reasonably suspected that the appellant was smuggling contraband in his alimentary canal (see, United States v Montoya de Hernandez, 473 US 531; see also, United States v Asbury, 586 F2d 973, 976-977). His contention that his detention for six hours was violative of the Fourth Amendment is thus without merit (see, United States v Montoya de Hernandez, supra; see also, People v Waring, 174 AD2d 16; cf., People v Hollman, 79 NY2d 181) and the Family Court properly declined his motion to suppress physical evidence.
We have considered the appellant’s remaining contentions and find them to be without merit. Bracken, J. P., Sullivan, Harwood and Pizzuto, JJ., concur.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.