D.Md.: Regular visitor with run of the house who never spent the night didn’t have standing

Defendant was a regular visitor at the place searched, but he did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in it. He was a regular social visitor about once a week for three years and had free run of the house when he was there, but he kept nothing there and he never spent the night. United States v. Green, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 129550 (D. Md. Aug. 2, 2018) [so, is the determinative fact spending the night or leaving your stuff there?]:

While the facts of this case lie somewhere in between the extremes of Olson and Carter, the Court concludes that the Defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in Yates’s property. On the one hand, the Defendant was at Yates’s property for more than a simple “business transaction” and had a preexisting relationship with the property and its owner. He had been coming to the property for at least three years, visited at least once a week, his visits were social in nature, and he had a familial relationship with Yates. Yates explained that the Defendant had free rein of the house when he was there. However, it is undeniable that the Defendant was not an overnight guest at the time of the search, had never spent the night, did not store any personal possessions on the property and had not been given permission to bring the illegal firearm onto the property. See Craddock v. Fisher, No. 12-430, 2015 WL 1825720, at *7-8 (E.D.Va. April 21, 2015) (analyzing Fourth Amendment claim in civil suit and finding that plaintiff did not have reasonable expectation of privacy in grandmother’s house where he visited and engaged in criminal conduct but did not reside.). Cf. United States v. Pollard, 215 F.3d 643 (6th Cir. 2000) (reasoning that defendant did have reasonable expectation of privacy in property searched where he “had been staying at the home earlier in the week, … occasionally spent the night at the residence and kept some personal belongings in a closet in the living room”). The Court concludes that the Defendant’s connections with the property were too tenuous to establish a Fourth Amendment reasonable expectation of privacy. Thus, he may not challenge the search of Yates’s house that led to the recovery of the firearm.