D.Minn.: Govt pinned its vehicle search on lack of standing and lost, so vehicle search suppressed; house search, however, shown to be by consent

Even though somebody else owned the van, defendant was a regular user and that gave him standing. At the time of the seizure, it had broken down, and he used it then for storage. The government failed to show any justification for the seizure and then search of the van in response to defendant’s motion to suppress. Instead, it simply relied on standing, which it lost on. The search of a house, however, was by consent of the owner. United States v. Hill, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 193796 (D. Minn. Oct. 16, 2017), adopted, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 192106 (D. Minn. Nov. 21, 2017). (There’s a moral here. Defendant’s standing was evident, so address the merits of the vehicle search. Maybe they didn’t think they could win on it anyway.)

Defendant’s argument to suppress the search doesn’t really even address reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment and is “meritless,” but there is an intervening source of information that moots all that. United States v. Wilkerson, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 192201 (S.D. W.Va. Nov. 20, 2017).*