Raul Martinez

English 2
May 18, 2015
Bond v. United States
In the Bond v. United States case Steven Dewayne Bond was traveling from California to
Arkansas riding a Greyhound bus. On their way to Arkansas the bus stopped at the border
patrol checkpoint where Border Patrol Agent Cesar Cantu would check everybodys immigration
status. When Agent Cantu entered the bus he made sure that all passengers were legally in the
United States then started walking back to the front of the bus after he verified that indeed
everybody was a United States citizen. On his way back he squeezed the soft luggage which
passengers had placed in the overhead storage space above the seats. When Agent Cantu
walked by Bond, he felt a bag which appeared to have a brick-like object which Bond
admitted was his and agreed to allow Agent Cantu to open it. After opening the Bonds green
canvas bag he discovered that the object he had felt was methamphetamine wrapped in duct
tape and then rolled into a pair of pants. Bond then argued that Agent Cantu manipulated the
bag in a way that other passengers would not and conducted a search of his bag which
violated his fourth Amendment rights. In this case the Supreme Courts legal questions were
whether Bond had exhibited an actual expectation of privacy; that is, whether he has shown
that he [sought] to preserve [something] as private and if we inquire whether the individuals
expectation of privacy is one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable.
In order for the Supreme Court to answer whether Bonds privacy was violated they
would need to look at a similar case. In an earlier similar case, Katz v. United States, the
Supreme Court rule was that in order to claim protection under the fourth Amendment the actor
pursuing you is of the state and you need a reasonable expectation to privacy. To determine
whether or not someone has a reasonable expectation to privacy the Supreme Court included
two questions to the rule, Has the individual manifested a subjective expectation of privacy in
the object of the challenged search? and, Is society willing to recognize that expectation as
reasonable? The Supreme Court will have to use this rule and apply them into Bonds case to
figure out if Bonds bag search violated his fourth Amendments rights.
Although Bonds bag was located in a place where people could potentially touch his
bag to slightly move it, Cantu had no reason to squeeze his bag and try to figure out what the
bag contained. Cantus search of Bonds bag was based solely on suspicion just because Cantu
felt a brick-like object when squeezing Bonds bag. Agent Cantu is definitely a government
official working for the United States as a border patrol. Agents Cantus job was only to enter the
bus and check that people were legally in the United States. Bonds methamphetamine was
wrapped in duct tape until it was oval-shaped and then rolled in a pair of pants creating a
physical barrier keeping his bag private from other people. When Bond placed his bag on the
overhang compartment he expected people to possibly touch or move his bag around, but
people respect that whatever Bond had in his bag were his private belongings and that they

should not be going through his things. Bond had a reasonable expectation of privacy and
people did recognized that. Agent Cantu had no concrete evidence that would suggest Bond
had had anything illegal in his bag since a brick-like object could have been many things.
Overall, Bond definitely seeked to preserve his methamphetamine private by hiding it
inside his bag and society recognized that whatever it was that he had in the bag was private ti
Bond. Agent Cantu not only had no reasonable excuse to search Bonds bag, but also
squeezed his bag to figure out what Bonds bag contained Violating Bonds fourth Amendment
rights. This however does not mean Bond was not guilty for contraband of methamphetamine
which led him to spend 57 months in prison.