IN: Def didn’t show standing in an apartment where his pants were

Defendant failed to show standing in an apartment he had a pair of jeans in where the officer stepped on them during a walk through and felt drugs underfoot. The police responded to a domestic call, and found defendant outside in his underwear. It was as reasonable to conclude he’d been kicked out as stayed there. Still, he needed to show standing. Harris v. State, 2020 Ind. App. LEXIS 459 (Sept. 24, 2020):

To the extent that Harris points to his consent for the officers to enter the apartment as proof of his interest in the apartment, we conclude that Harris’s act of giving the officers consent to enter the apartment for the limited purpose of conducting a welfare check on any other potential occupants, without more, is insufficient to prove that Harris controlled or owned the apartment. Given the lack of evidence that Harris sought to preserve anything as private or to prove control or ownership, we, like the trial court, conclude that Harris did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy under these circumstances and therefore lacked standing to challenge the constitutionality of the search pursuant to the Fourth Amendment. See Peterson, 674 N.E.2d at 533 (“Because we find that, as a matter of law, the defendant lacked standing to challenge the
search, we reject his claim that the admission of the shotgun violated his Fourth Amendment rights.”).