[PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT ________________________

No. 18-14336 ________________________

D.C. Docket No. 9:17-cr-80222-KAM-2

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

versus LATECIA WATKINS,

Defendant-Appellee.

________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida ________________________

(September 16, 2021) Before LUCK, ED CARNES, and MARCUS, Circuit Judges. ED CARNES, Circuit Judge:

The government brought this case here on interlocutory appeal from the district court’s order suppressing evidence in a case involving illegal drugs. See USCA11 Case: 18-14336 Date Filed: 09/16/2021 Page: 2 of 30

United States v. Watkins, 981 F.3d 1224 (11th Cir. 2020). We reversed the suppression order. Id. at 1239. Rehearing en banc was granted, our initial opinion in this case was vacated, and the case was remanded to us for further proceedings consistent with the opinion of the en banc Court. United States v. Watkins, — F.4th —, No. 18-14336, 2021 WL 3700295, at *5 (11th Cir. Aug. 20, 2021) (en banc). Our initial opinion remains vacated. In its place we issue this decision on remand from the en banc Court.

I. FACTS

Two packages were sent into this country from Trinidad and Tobago. Both had cocaine hidden inside. And both were oddly addressed. One was addressed to “Margaret Simpson” at the Boca Raton Post Office, but with no post office box number. The other was addressed to “Jason Stanley” at a UPS Store that was a couple of hundred feet from the Boca Raton Post Office, but there was no box number included in that address either. The absence of box numbers was notable because neither a post office nor a UPS store accepts packages addressed for delivery there unless the addressee rents a box at that location.

At the international mail facility, after finding cocaine hidden in the two packages, law enforcement agents had removed the drugs from them, placed a GPS tracking device and sham cocaine into each package, and then put both packages into the mail stream, headed to their original destinations.

2 USCA11 Case: 18-14336 Date Filed: 09/16/2021 Page: 3 of 30

The agents monitored the packages’ locations using both the inserted tracking devices and the Postal Service’s internal tracking system, which is routinely used on all packages. They also set up surveillance of the Boca Raton Post Office on the morning of August 11, 2017, when they expected the packages to be delivered. But that morning the GPS tracking devices the agents had put into both packages unexpectedly stopped working. That happened around 9:42 a.m.

Unlike the GPS tracking devices used by law enforcement, the Postal Service’s routine package tracking system does not continuously pinpoint a package’s location as it moves or is stationary. Instead, it uses scans of a package’s unique tracking number to show the history of its journey: where the package came into the postal system, some of the stops along the way, and where it was finally delivered. The package is scanned at each stage, and unless it is tampered with, the tracking system automatically updates to the database the location, date, and time a package is manually scanned as it proceeds through the postal system to delivery.

A few of the codes that are routinely entered