TN: Defendant abandoned house that was finally condemned; no REP in child porn found inside months later

Defendant abandoned his house that was being condemned by the city for being in severe disrepair. The door was off, and it was falling apart. When the city came to tear it down, they removed what was of any use inside and gave it away and destroyed the rest. The process took months. They found child pornography in the house. State v. Ledford, 2014 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 20 (January 13, 2014):

In the present case, the City of Sweetwater initiated a legal process to enforce its ordinances relative to public health and safety. Based upon complaints about the defendant’s property at 199 Oakland Road, the process began with the issuance of an administrative inspection warrant and the resulting discovery of the unsanitary and unsafe condition of the property, and it entailed citing and giving notice to the defendant to appear in city court on a condemnation complaint. On March 7, 2011, the defendant attended the hearing on the complaint, which resulted in the city court’s ordering an additional inspection of the property to determine the economic feasibility of repair. The court conducted a further hearing on June 20, 2011, which resulted in an order for the defendant to demolish the house on the property within 30 days, and the defendant failed to act. The city also cited the defendant back into court to obtain an order for the defendant to clean up the debris outside the house. After the October 26, 2011 hearing on this citation, the city court ordered the defendant to clean up the property within 10 days. The defendant did not comply with this order. On December 20, 2011, the city conducted an environmental inspection prefatory to having the house demolished per the court’s order, and the evidence was discovered and seized at this time.

During the pendency of the proceedings in city court, notice of the city’s pending action was posted on the house. During this time, the door to the house not only was unlocked but was unattached to the door frame.

The defendant challenges neither the city’s power to undertake the process to clean up the property and demolish the house nor the legitimacy and efficacy of its procedures, including the issuance of legal process and notices, to exercise that power.

We note that the process that authorized the city to demolish the defendant’s house began on March 7, 2011, and continued through the discovery of the contraband on December 20, 2011, a period of more than nine months. During this time, despite being informed of the city’s ongoing efforts to demolish the house, the defendant made no discernible effort to secure, seclude, or remove the contents of the house. Much of the contraband seized by the officers was in plain view to anyone entering the house, and its nature was obvious. We note that, after the contraband was seized, the city sold the contents that had redeemable value and destroyed the rest. “A person can, through his own acts or omissions, manifest an intent to relinquish his legitimate expectation of privacy in his real property ….” Harrison, 689 F.3d at 309. We conclude that the defendant here did just that. The record establishes that the defendant knowingly exposed the illicit materials to anyone entering the house, including city officials who entered the house upon legal process, and that he abandoned this property, leaving it to the whim of anyone entering the house. We hold, therefore, that the defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the house or in these materials. Consequently, no search occurred for constitutional purposes, and the seizure of evidence from the house on December 20, 2011, or thereafter, was not violative of the defendant’s constitutional rights.