KS: Passenger had no standing in car he bought for girlfriend

The fact defendant paid for the car for his girlfriend but was a mere passenger at the time of the stop was not enough for standing under Byrd. He still had no reasonable expectation of privacy in it. State v. Scheuerman, 2022 Kan. LEXIS 8 (Jan. 14, 2022), rev’g in part, aff’g in part 60 Kan. App. 2d 48, 486 P.3d 676 (2021):

Scheuerman’s arguments demonstrate neither a right of lawful possession nor control of the vehicle. While the evidence showed he paid for the car, the car nevertheless belonged to his girlfriend, Finnigan. Finnigan, not Scheuerman, was driving the car at the time of the stop, and Scheuerman presented no evidence that he had any right to control the car or to exclude others from it at any time. And while some of Paden’s testimony could support an inference that Scheuerman had used the vehicle in the past—at least enough to be associated with it by law enforcement—that alone does not support a finding that Scheuerman had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the car. Consequently, we affirm the panel’s conclusion that Scheuerman lacked Fourth Amendment “standing” to challenge the search.

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