UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-4263

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

THOMAS LAMONT LEGALL, a/k/a Clarence Shamel Rahmeik Gatling,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of Virginia, at Newport News. Robert G. Doumar, Senior 

District Judge. (4:12-cr-00106-RGD-LRL-1)

Submitted: September 23, 2014 Decided: October 20, 2014

Before NIEMEYER, KING, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Crystina M. O’Brien, THE O’BRIEN LAW FIRM, PLC, Hampton, 

Virginia, for Appellant. Dana J. Boente, United States 

Attorney, Richard D. Cooke, Assistant United States Attorney, 

Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

Thomas Lamont Legall pleaded guilty to one count of 

conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 

five kilograms or more of cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. 

§§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A), and 846 (2012), but reserved his right 

to appeal the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress 

the evidence seized from his hotel room. On appeal, Legall 

argues that the use of a drug-detecting dog constituted an

illegal warrantless search. Finding no error, we affirm.

This court reviews a district court’s legal 

conclusions on a motion to suppress de novo. United States v. 

Guijon-Ortiz, 660 F.3d 757, 762 (4th Cir. 2011). Because the 

district court denied the motion, we construe the evidence in 

the light most favorable to the Government, the party prevailing 

below. United States v. Black, 707 F.3d 531, 534 (4th Cir. 

2013).

Legall first argues, relying on Florida v. Jardines, 

133 S. Ct. 1409 (2013), that police entered the curtilage of his 

hotel room when they approached the threshold and deployed a 

drug-detecting dog to conduct a sniff of his hotel room door. 

In Jardines, the Supreme Court applied the “traditional 

property-based understanding of the Fourth Amendment,” 133 S. 

Ct. at 1417, to hold that “using a drug-sniffing dog on a 

homeowner’s porch to investigate the contents of the home is a 
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‘search’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” Id. at 

1413, 1418. Because “the officers’ investigation took place in 

a constitutionally protected area,” id. at 1415, and the 

officers exceeded the scope of the implicit license permitting 

them to approach the front door, the search was 

unconstitutional. Id. at 1416.

 We conclude that, here, the officer did not enter the 

curtilage of the hotel room when conducting the search. In 

determining whether an area is curtilage to the home, this court 

considers “‘[1] the proximity of the area claimed to be 

curtilage to the home, [2] whether the area is included within 

an enclosure surrounding the home, [3] the nature of the uses to 

which the area is put, and [4] the steps taken by the resident 

to protect the area from observation by people passing by.’” 

United States v. Jackson, 728 F.3d 367, 373 (4th Cir. 2013) 

(quoting United States v. Dunn, 480 U.S. 294, 301 (1987)) 

(alterations in Jackson), cert. denied, 134 S. Ct. 1347 (2014). 

The “centrally relevant consideration” is “whether the area in 

question is so intimately tied to the home itself that it should 

be placed under the home’s ‘umbrella’ of Fourth Amendment 

protection.” Id. at 374 (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Applying these factors, we find that the common hallway of the 

hotel was not within any curtilage of the hotel room.
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Legall further argues that the dog sniff infringed on 

his legitimate expectation of privacy. He asserts that police 

violated his right to privacy when they used a trained drugdetecting dog to ascertain the contents of his room. See Kyllo 

v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 40 (2001) (holding that use of a 

device not in general-public use, such as thermal imaging, by 

the Government to explore aspects of home not previously 

knowable without physical entry surveillance is a search).

We conclude that the officer here did not infringe 

upon a reasonable expectation of privacy. “The use of a welltrained narcotics-detection dog — one that ‘does not expose 

noncontraband items that otherwise would remain hidden from 

public view — during a lawful traffic stop, generally does not 

implicate legitimate privacy interests.” Illinois v. Caballes, 

543 U.S. 405, 409 (2005) (internal quotation marks and citation 

omitted). Moreover, “[t]he legitimate expectation that 

information about perfectly lawful activity will remain private 

is categorically distinguishable from [a person’s] hopes or 

expectations concerning the nondetection of contraband.” Id. at 

410. Because the drug-detecting dog disclosed only the presence 

of illegal narcotics, we find that the dog-sniff did not violate

Legall’s legitimate expectation of privacy.

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment. 

We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal 
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contentions are adequately presented in the material before this 

court and argument will not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED