D.N.M.: Peering through defendant’s blinds into the house was a search

While the police did, in fact, violate defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights by looking through a crack in the blinds through a window, the police would have obtained a search warrant anyway under inevitable discovery. United States v. Christy, 810 F. Supp. 2d 1219 (D. N.M. 2011), Motion granted by, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 127233 (D.N.M., Sept. 8, 2011):

Although the deputies’ presence in the area from which Littlefield looked into Christy’s residence window did not violate the Fourth Amendment, Littlefield’s act of peering into a small crack in the blinds constituted a search. The crack in the blinds was a little longer than half the length of the blinds, and the height of the crack was approximately an inch or less. “The touchstone of Fourth Amendment analysis is whether a person has a ‘constitutionally protected reasonable expectation of privacy.’” California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207, 211 (1986) (quoting Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 360 (1967)(Harlan, J., concurring)). Courts generally “determine whether a person has a constitutionally protected expectation of privacy by making two inquiries: first has the person exhibited a subjective expectation of privacy in the place or thing searched? Second, is the person’s expectation of privacy one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable?” United States v. Hatfield, 333 F.3d at 1195. The “prototypical … area of protected privacy” is the interior of a residence. Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 57, 35 (2001).