CA1: Length of trip adds nothing to standing

The long duration of a trip does not give the passenger any enhanced reasonable expectation of privacy in car, akin to an overnight guest. United States v. Symonevich, 688 F.3d 12 (1st Cir. 2012):

Symonevich argues in the alternative that the particular circumstances in this case gave him a reasonable expectation of privacy in the vehicle. Relying on our decision in United States v. Lochan, 674 F.2d 960, 963-65 (1st Cir. 1982), Symonevich argues that the duration of the trip between Maine and Massachusetts — a nearly six hour round-trip drive — was long enough that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the vehicle. We did say in Lochan that the fact of a long trip “would engender a slightly greater privacy expectation than would a short trip.” Id. at 965. Symonevich says that vehicle passengers on long rides are akin to overnight guests and thus have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the vehicle. As he puts it, “[s]ociety would consider it reasonable to bring personal items along on such a lengthy car ride … and recognize that this long of a trip would give rise to some expectation of privacy on the part of a passenger within the vehicle.”

We are skeptical about the continued relevance of the type of duration argument that Symonevich makes.5 Since we decided Lochan, the Supreme Court has developed extensive case law on the automobile exception, circumscribing the amount of privacy one can expect in a vehicle and further differentiating searches of automobiles from searches of homes. Compare, e.g., New York v. Class, 475 U.S. 106, 112-113 (1986) (“One has a lesser expectation of privacy in a motor vehicle because its function is transportation and it seldom serves as one’s residence or as the repository of personal effects. A car has little capacity for escaping public scrutiny. It travels public thoroughfares where both its occupants and its contents are in plain view.” (quoting Cardwell v. Lewis, 417 U.S. 583, 590 (1974) (plurality opinion) (internal quotation marks omitted)), and St. Hilaire v. City of Laconia, 71 F.3d 20, 28 n.6 (1st Cir. 1995) (“Fourth Amendment law … recognizes a distinction between a person’s home and a person’s car. For example, the Fourth Amendment permits a slightly broader search pursuant to the arrest of the occupant of a vehicle and some warrantless searches of vehicles are permitted even if there are not emergency circumstances.”), with Carter, 525 U.S. at 99 (Kennedy, J., concurring) (“The Fourth Amendment protects ‘[t]he right of the people to be secure in their … houses,’ and it is beyond dispute that the home is entitled to special protection as the center of the private lives of our people.” (alteration in original) (quoting U.S. Const. amend. IV)). Thus, any analogy between an automobile and a house is suspect. In any event, without categorically rejecting the relevance of the duration of a trip in an automobile to the reasonable expectation of privacy analysis, we conclude that the duration of the trip here, under all of the circumstances, did nothing to enhance Symonevich’s expectation of privacy.

I applaud defense counsel for the ingenuity of this argument. We need more creative defense lawyers to keep Fourth Amendment rights viable.