N.D.Ga.: No REP in hospital ER from a plain view

An officer who came to the trauma section of Grady Hospital in Atlanta could seize defendant’s clothing in plain view. Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the ER. United States v. Howard, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 41211 (N.D. Ga. April 14, 2011):

Here, to the extent Defendant had an actual expectation of privacy, that expectation was unreasonable in light of case law on point and in light of evidence tending to show that Detective Fries was lawfully present in the trauma room where he observed Defendant’s clothing in plain view. Courts in numerous jurisdictions have held that a defendant does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in an emergency, operation, or—directly on point—trauma room that the defendant shares with other patients and in which medical staff administers critical treatment. See, e.g., Dombrovski v. State, Nos. A-7238, A-4253, 2000 Alas. App. LEXIS 106, 2000 WL 1058953, at *1, 3 (Alaska Ct. App. Aug. 2, 2000) (no reasonable expectation of privacy when police trooper entered a “temporary holding room for emergency treatment,” its door open, and questioned and tested defendant, who was sitting on a hospital gurney while medical personnel walked into and out of the holding room); People v. Torres, 144 Ill. App. 3d 187, 494 N.E.2d 752, 755, 98 Ill. Dec. 630 (Ill. App. Ct. 1986) (no reasonable expectation of privacy in hospital emergency room because the “record contains no suggestion that the defendant was in a position to either permit or deny anyone, including a police officer, access to the emergency room”); State v. Cromb, 220 Ore. App. 315, 185 P.3d 1120, 1122, 1126 (Or. Ct. App. 2008) (no reasonable expectation of privacy in a “curtained off” area of the emergency room that was not open to the general public); State v. Rheaume, 179 Vt. 39, 889 A.2d 711, 714 (Vt. 2005) (no reasonable expectation of privacy in a hospital’s trauma room, located within the emergency room, which was a “freely accessible area over which a patient has no control” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

The Court agrees with these jurisdictions and with Magistrate Judge Brill that Defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the Grady Hospital trauma room. Despite the holdings of these courts, Defendant argues that a hospital trauma room “is perhaps more intrusive for third parties to insert themselves there” than in a private hospital room and that only medical personnel should be present [Doc, 4 7 at 15]. This argument is not only foreclosed by the holdings of these courts, but also by the sound reasoning upon which these courts relied, which the Court adopts.