{"id":3253,"date":"2010-03-23T08:13:44","date_gmt":"2009-07-17T06:42:15","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-17T06:42:15","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=3253","title":{"rendered":"CA9: Police illegally followed up private search; Jacobsen<\/em> applies only to contraband findings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Defendant had been locked out of his room by hotel security, but he had not been evicted yet. He retained an expectation of privacy in his hotel room. The private search doctrine of Jacobsen<\/a> is limited to pure contraband in the container, following the Sixth Circuit in United States v. Allen, 106 F.3d 695 (6th Cir. 1997). The government also failed in showing that inevitable discovery permitted admission of the gun found into evidence. United States v. Young<\/a>, 573 F.3d 711 (9th Cir. 2009):<\/p>\n

It is a crime to possess cocaine, and the package in Jacobsen<\/a> contained “nothing but contraband.” 466 U.S. at 120 n.17. This case is distinguishable from Jacobsen<\/a> because neither the hotel room nor the backpack contained only contraband. It is not a crime in most circumstances for a non-felon to possess a gun, and the hotel did not know at the time of its private search that Young was a felon. The hotel could not have been “virtually certain,” as the postal workers were in Jacobsen<\/a>, that the gun was contraband, and the closed backpack supported a reasonable expectation of privacy. Stoner, 376 U.S. at 490; Nerber, 222 F.3d at 600; see also United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 822-23, 102 S. Ct. 2157, 72 L. Ed. 2d 572 & n.30-31 (1982). Until a hotel guest’s lease of the room expires or he checks out, the room is like a home. United States v. Jeffers, 342 U.S. 48, 51-52, 72 S. Ct. 93, 96 L. Ed. 59 (1951). A guest has a legitimate and significant privacy interest in the room’s contents, and does not lose his expectation of privacy against unlawful government intrusions into his closed briefcase or the contents of his computer hard drive when hotel staff sees the briefcase, laptop, or other belongings while cleaning the room or changing a light bulb. See id. Closed packages or containers, such as Young’s backpack, “are in the general class of effects in which the public at large has a legitimate expectation of privacy,” making warrantless searches of them “presumptively unreasonable.” Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 114-15. Even in circumstances (none of which were present here) where government agents may lawfully seize a package to prevent loss or destruction of suspected contraband, “the Fourth Amendment requires that they obtain a warrant before examining the contents of such a package.” Id.; Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 14 n.14, 68 S. Ct. 367, 92 L. Ed. 436 (1948) (“Belief, however well founded, that an article sought is concealed in a dwelling house, furnishes no justification for a search of that place without a warrant. And such searches are held unlawful notwithstanding facts unquestionably showing probable cause.”).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

During defendant’s traffic stop, routine questions led to him admitting that he was in possession of a shotgun. The questions were not unreasonable and were brief. United States v. Derverger<\/a>, 337 Fed. Appx. 34 (2d Cir. 2009) (unpublished).*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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