D.N.J.: Standing was found in one’s office desk and computers

In a search of business’s desks and computers, the individual defendants had standing under Mancusi v. DeForte. Also, one password protecting her computer supported standing as to her computer. The warrant limited seizure of records to 2007, and the government’s seizure of records before that violated the terms of the warrant, and the motion to suppress is granted to that. United States v. Shellrock, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68962 (D. N.J. May 17, 2012):

The Court finds both Meloney and Bryan have standing to challenge the search of the Harbor House premises. First, Bryan is a co-owner of Harbor House and Defendant Meloney worked directly for Bryan and was his personal assistant. As co-owner of the corporation, Bryan had an ownership and possessory interest in Meloney’s workplace computer and as Meloney’s direct supervisor, he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the work she completed on the computer at his direction. Therefore, the court finds that Defendant Bryan has standing to challenge the search of Harbor House’s premises.

Defendant Meloney also has standing to challenge the search of her computer. Though Meloney did not have a private office and her workspace was in a common area, is not conclusive of whether Meloney had an expectation of privacy in this area. The area searched was Meloney’s personal desk and workspace where she worked for more than ten years. She did not share this desk, computer, and workspace with other employees. Other employees did not use her computer or her desk to complete their work. Meloney also kept personal items on her desk in her workspace.

The Supreme Court has clearly held that even where a person’s workspace is located in a room shared with others, the person’s expectation of privacy in their own desk and files is not diminished. See Mancusi, 392 U.S. at 369 (holding that a union officer has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his workspace which was located in one large room which was shared with several other union officials and therefore had standing to successfully challenge the warrantless search therein). Here, the court is satisfied that the area searched was Meloney’s personal workspace which she did not share with other employees and was used as her workspace on a regular basis for more than ten years.

In addition, Meloney’s computer was password protected. While her password was commonly known at the work place among her fellow employees, it was not known to the public and could not be accessed by anyone outside this small, closely held corporation. This is sufficient to show her intent to exclude members of the public and maintain privacy in the documents kept on her computer, an expectation shared with the business owner. The electronic documents were retrieved from Meloney’s “My Documents” folder and it is unclear from the record whether this folder was part of the network or an independent folder on Meloney’s desktop. However, these documents were found on Meloney’s computer and there is no evidence that these documents were found in any of the other computers searched by the government. This leads to the conclusion that the “My Documents” folder was not part of the general corporate network. While Meloney’s standing is a closer question than Bryan’s, the court is satisfied that society would recognize that Meloney has a reasonable expectation of privacy in her personal workspace and that subjectively, Meloney intended to keep her workspace private as she did not share or allow others to use her desk or computer.

Therefore, both Meloney and Bryan have standing to challenge the execution of the search warrant at Harbor House.