VI: No REP in a bag on ground outside an apt building

Defendant’s apartment was subjected to a search warrant, and defendant argued that a Crown Royal bag outside on the ground was outside the scope of the warrant and couldn’t be seized. The court applies Dunn and the curtilage analysis to find that it wasn’t curtilage because of the “sheer number of people” who could walk by there, and there wasn’t a reasonable expectation of privacy in that place. People v. George, 2016 V.I. LEXIS 103 (Super. Ct. Aug. 5, 2016).*

Defendant was the target of a sex trafficking investigation in Wasilla AK, and the information came in over three months and was corroborated by text messages and listening to telephone calls in the two weeks prior to the warrant’s issuance. The offense was ongoing, and the warrant was not constitutionally stale by the time it was issued. There was also a Franks challenge rejected as immaterial to the finding of probable cause. United States v. Keehn, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 105003 (D.Alaska May 23, 2016).*