CA1: Church rectory was objectively a single family dwelling; it had common living areas

It was reasonable for officers seeking a search warrant for a church rectory for child pornography to consider it a single-family dwelling. All the objective information was that it was single family residence. It turned out to be a residence with common living spaces. United States v. Jackson, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 24636 (1st Cir. Sep. 30, 2024):

The district court found that the rectory is “best characterized as a single-family residence,” although it qualified its finding by noting that this distinction could not “be conclusively determined based on the available information.” … As the court observed, the warrant was premised upon externally observable indicia that the rectory was a single-unit dwelling, including the fact that the property did not have separate or independent entrances, doorbells, or mailboxes. See id. What is more, the property contained common, as opposed to separate, living spaces. See id. In our view, these considerations reasonably differentiate singleunit dwellings from multi-unit dwellings. See, e.g., United States v. Williams, 917 F.2d 1088, 1091 (8th Cir. 1990); Hinds, 856 F.2d at 441-42; see also United States v. Werra, 638 F.3d 326, 334-36 (1st Cir. 2011) (considering, among other factors, shared use of house and common areas as a whole in determining whether occupant of non-traditional house had reasonable expectation of privacy in entire house). The evidence that Detective Evans disclosed and should have disclosed to the issuing judge indicates that the rectory was properly characterized as a single-unit dwelling. See Garrison, 480 U.S. at 85.

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