The Ninth Circuit holds that a screen door still exhibits a reasonable expectation of privacy against entry, but, in this case, exigent circumstances permitted the entry. United States v. Arellano-Ochoa, 461 F.3d 1142 (9th Cir. August 31, 2006):
We first address whether opening the screen door has any Fourth Amendment significance. Whether opening a screen door breaches a reasonable expectation of privacy depends on the circumstances. During winter in a cold climate, people ordinarily keep the solid door shut. About the only way for mail and package delivery people, solicitors, missionaries, children funding school trips, and neighbors to knock on the door is to open the screen door and knock on the solid door. People understand that visitors will need to open the screen door, and have no expectation to the contrary. The reason why people do not feel that their privacy is breached by opening the screen door to knock is that it isn’t; the solid door protects their privacy.
In the summer, when people leave their solid doors open for ventilation, the screen door is all that separates the inside from the outside. People can get a resident’s attention by knocking on the screen door without opening it. Where the solid door is wide open, the screen door is what protects the privacy of the people inside–not just their visual privacy, which it protects only partially, but also their privacy from undesired intrusion. Where the solid door is open so that the screen door is all that protects the privacy of the residents, opening the screen door infringes upon a reasonable and legitimate expectation of privacy. That is what happened here. The police cannot breach the reasonable expectation of privacy that people have in their homes without consent or a search warrant, unless one of the exceptions to the search warrant requirement applies. Once the screen door was open and the officers spotted the gun, the legal distance to a justified entry was short indeed. But the gun was not spotted until after the agent opened the screen door. Where the screen door is the only barrier between the inside of the house and the outside, the police cannot open the screen door without consent or some exception. Arrellano-Ochoa did not consent.
“White collar” defendant can be compelled on conviction to give a DNA sample. United States v. Rudd, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 62197 (S.D. Ohio August 31, 2006).
PC for issuance of a search warrant at defendant’s new business premises for old records was found based on the fact that the defendant previously complied with a subpoena for records by mailing them from the new address. United States v. Fiata, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 62338 (D. S.C. August 30, 2006).*
Claim for Fourth Amendment violation stated for use of an arrest warrant to enter the home of a third party where there was a factual dispute as to whether the officers had a reasonable belief that the person named in the warrant would be there. Grenci v. Ocean County, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 62319 (D. N.J. August 15, 2006):
The officers, here, did not have a warrant to search 1473 Colorado Drive. They had warrants to arrest Angelo Jr. As recognized in Payton, an arrest warrant permits police to enter a suspect’s dwelling. Payton, 445 U.S. at 603. An arrest warrant alone, however, does not permit the police to enter the home of a third-party to arrest the subject of an arrest warrant. See Steagald, 451 U.S. at 216. The legality of the officers’ conduct, therefore, depends on whether the officers (1) reasonably believed 1473 Colorado Drive was Angelo Jr.’s residence, and (2) Angelo Jr. was in the house on August 6, 2003.
“It was realistic for the trial court to believe that even if Appellant had been a guest in the apartment, the duration of his stay expired when Dwyer arranged to have him arrested and thereby removed from his home. It was within the trial court’s discretion to rule that Appellant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the apartment, and therefore lacked the requisite standing to challenge the search and seizure.” Zuniga v. State, 2006 Tex. App. LEXIS 7868 (Tex. App. – El Paso August 31, 2006).
Officers had the defendant under surveillance for having stolen property from city vehicles, and, at the time of the search of his vehicle, they had PC to believe he had committed an offense because property they observed left with others had been stolen from the city. The consent issue, then, did not have to be addressed. Fineron v. State, 201 S.W.3d 361 (Tex. App. – El Paso August 31, 2006).*
