N.D.Ga.: Running away from the getaway car is an abandonment

Officers had probable cause to search defendant’s car for DNA and other evidence connecting it to a bank robbery that the car was connected to. Aside from that, everybody in the car fled when it was stopped, and that’s an abandonment. Defendant argued that closing the doors wasn’t abandonment, but the court sees the car essentially as a disposable [my word, not the court’s] getaway car because the occupants switched cars. It was left unlocked with a window down. United States v. Hill, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 81286 (N.D.Ga. March 28, 2016), adopted 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 80932 (N.D. Ga. June 22, 2016):

Defendant argues that he cannot be accused of abandonment by simply parking a car in a marked spot, closing the doors, and leaving it. That is true, but this does not include all of the facts. All of this had happened after the police chased the Mercedes into the parking lot. See Tr. at 37. And then, according to video surveillance, the occupants ran away from the car and hopped into another apparent getaway vehicle. Tr. at 37-40. The occupants left the doors unlocked (but closed), and with a window open. Id. Further suggesting that the Mount Zion Road location was just a place to stop and switch vehicles, the police had confirmed that the vehicle was registered to a different address. Id. at 40-41.

The Defendant points out that the only two binding cases cited by the Government are the pre-1981 5th Circuit cases Williams and Edwards, and those cases are factually distinguishable. Clearly, leaving keys in the ignition of a running car while running away from the police (Edwards), and speeding off onto a highway while leaving an unlocked trailer behind at a rest stop (Williams), are stronger fact patterns supporting abandonment. Nevertheless, while not binding, several persuasive Eleventh Circuit and other Circuit decisions are highly similar to this case, and consistently find in favor of abandonment. In both Falsey and Vasquez, for example, the suspects parked their car in a marked spot, left the door closed, and ran off before the police even arrived on the scene. In the end, the totality of the facts weigh in favor of a finding of abandonment here too. The occupants of the Mercedes entered the parking lot under hot pursuit, and then ran from that car into another one in which they apparently escaped. While they closed the doors, they left them unlocked and a window open. The most logical conclusion is that the occupants understood that they were leaving their car behind and, because of the obvious police surveillance that would surround the car within a short time, that they did not intend to return. Thus, not only is a finding of abandonment strongly supported by the weight of the persuasive authorities, it is the most straightforward conclusion from the particular fact pattern here.

Suppression should be denied on this independent basis.

There could also be stolen cars or other disposable cars used as a getaway car that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in at all.