FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

GERALD THOMAS SCHRAM,

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 17-30055

D.C. No.

1:14-cr-00457-

MC-1

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Oregon

Michael J. McShane, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted July 11, 2018

Portland, Oregon

Filed August 21, 2018

Before: Kim McLane Wardlaw and John B. Owens, 

Circuit Judges, and Joan H. Lefkow,* District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Owens

 * The Honorable Joan H. Lefkow, United States District Judge for 

the Northern District of Illinois, sitting by designation.
2 UNITED STATES V. SCHRAM

SUMMARY**

Criminal Law

Affirming the district court’s denial of a suppression 

motion, the panel held that a person who is prohibited from 

entering a residence by a court’s no-contact order lacks a 

legitimate expectation of privacy in that residence and may 

not challenge its search on Fourth Amendment grounds.

The panel reversed the defendant’s conviction in a 

concurrently filed memorandum disposition.

COUNSEL

Brian C. Butler (argued), Assistant Federal Public Defender; 

Lisa Ma Research and Writing Attorney; Office of the 

Federal Public Defender, Medford, Oregon; for DefendantAppellant.

Amy E. Potter (argued), Assistant United States Attorney; 

Kelly A. Zusman, Appellate Chief; Billy J. Williams, United 

States Attorney; United States Attorney’s Office, Eugene, 

Oregon; for Plaintiff-Appellee.

 ** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It 

has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
UNITED STATES V. SCHRAM 3

OPINION

OWENS, Circuit Judge:

Defendant-Appellant Gerald Schram appeals from the 

denial of his suppression motion. The district court held that 

Schram could not challenge the search of a residence that a 

no-contact court order barred him from entering. We have 

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.1

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

On September 24, 2014, detectives from the Medford 

Police Department were called to investigate the robbery of 

a local U.S. Bank branch.2 After interviewing eyewitnesses 

and further police work, the detectives had probable cause to 

believe that Schram was responsible. A records check 

showed, among other things, that there was a no-contact 

order prohibiting Schram from contacting his girlfriend, 

Zona Satterfield.

The detectives began their search for Schram at 

Satterfield’s residence, as it was the only address the 

detectives had that was associated with him. Without a 

warrant (and, for the purposes of this appeal, we assume 

without Satterfield’s consent), the detectives entered the 

residence, found Schram inside, and arrested him. They then 

obtained a search warrant and searched Satterfield’s home.

 1 In a concurrently filed memorandum disposition, we reverse 

Schram’s conviction for one count of Hobbs Act robbery in violation of 

18 U.S.C. § 1951.

2 We rely primarily on the district court’s factual findings, which 

neither party contests.
4 UNITED STATES V. SCHRAM

Schram was later indicted for bank robbery in violation 

of 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a), and he moved to suppress the 

evidence obtained in the search. The district court denied 

the suppression motion, concluding that Schram could not 

“object to the entry into [Satterfield’s] house” because “[h]e 

has no expectation of privacy in a residence that he is legally 

barred from entering.” Schram pled guilty, conditioned on 

his right to appeal the denial of his suppression motion.

This timely appeal followed.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review a district court’s denial of a suppression 

motion de novo and its factual findings for clear error. See 

United States v. Cunag, 386 F.3d 888, 893 (9th Cir. 2004).

III. DISCUSSION

“[S]earches conducted outside the judicial process, 

without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se

unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment—subject only to 

a few specifically established and well-delineated 

exceptions.” Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332, 338 (2009) 

(quoting Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357 (1967)). 

But “[w]hether a warrant is required is a separate question 

from the one [we] address[] here, which is whether the 

person claiming a constitutional violation ‘has had his own 

Fourth Amendment rights infringed by the search and 

seizure which he seeks to challenge.’” Byrd v. United States, 

138 S. Ct. 1518, 1526 (2018) (quoting Rakas v. Illinois, 

439 U.S. 128, 133 (1978)). A person may not claim his 

Fourth Amendment rights have been violated if that person 

lacks “a ‘legitimate expectation of privacy in the premises’ 

searched.” Id. (quoting Rakas, 439 U.S. at 143).
UNITED STATES V. SCHRAM 5

Here, we must decide whether a person who is prohibited 

from entering a residence by a court’s no-contact order still 

may have a legitimate expectation of privacy that would 

entitle him to Fourth Amendment protection in that 

residence. Supreme Court case law, our case law, and the 

law of other circuits make clear that the answer is no.

An individual has a “legitimate expectation of privacy” 

if: (1) the individual demonstrates a subjective expectation 

of privacy in the place being searched, and (2) this subjective 

expectation is one “that society accepts as objectively 

reasonable.” California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35, 39 

(1988); see also United States v. Struckman, 603 F.3d 731, 

746–47 (9th Cir. 2010). In Rakas, the Supreme Court 

clarified that a privacy interest is not reasonable when one’s 

presence in a place is “wrongful.” 439 U.S. at 143 n.12. 

(citation omitted). By way of example, the Court explained, 

“[a] burglar plying his trade in a summer cabin during the 

off season may have a thoroughly justified subjective 

expectation of privacy [in the cabin],” but lacks a legitimate 

expectation of privacy because “his expectation is not ‘one 

that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable.’” Id. 

(quoting Katz, 389 U.S. at 361 (Harlan, J., concurring)).

Similarly, we have concluded that a defendant may not 

invoke the Fourth Amendment to challenge a search of land 

upon which he trespasses, calling this argument “frivolous.” 

United States v. Hernandez-Gonzalez, 608 F.2d 1240, 1246 

(9th Cir. 1979); see also Struckman, 603 F.3d at 747 (“Thus, 

had [the defendant] been an actual trespasser, he would not 

be able to claim the protections of the Fourth Amendment 

with regard to his arrest in the backyard.”). We have also

held that once a hotel takes affirmative steps to repossess a 

room that a patron procured “by criminal fraud and deceit,” 

the patron lacks a legitimate expectation of privacy in the 
6 UNITED STATES V. SCHRAM

room and so “does not enjoy the protection afforded by the 

Fourth Amendment.” Cunag, 386 F.3d at 893–95.

Applying parallel reasoning, the Second Circuit has held 

that an escaped inmate may not claim a legitimate 

expectation of privacy in his automobile because the escapee 

is “no more than a trespasser on society.” United States v. 

Roy, 734 F.2d 108, 110–12 (2d Cir. 1984); see also United 

States v. Sanchez, 635 F.2d 47, 64 (2d Cir. 1980) (“[A] mere 

trespasser has no Fourth Amendment protection in premises 

he occupies wrongfully.”). Likewise, the First Circuit has 

concluded that squatters lack a legitimate expectation of 

privacy to challenge on Fourth Amendment grounds their 

eviction from government land. Amezquita v. HernandezColon, 518 F.2d 8, 11–12 (1st Cir. 1975) (noting that the 

plaintiffs “knew they had no colorable claim to occupy the 

land” and that the commonwealth had twice asked them to 

depart voluntarily). And in holding that a defendant who 

fails to pay rent for a private residence may not challenge a 

search of that property, the Seventh Circuit clearly 

articulated the principle motivating this line of cases: 

“individuals who occupy a piece of property unlawfully have 

no claim under the Fourth Amendment.” United States v. 

Curlin, 638 F.3d 562, 565–66 (7th Cir. 2011) (collecting 

cases).

The Third Circuit addressed the question directly before 

us and relied on these cases to conclude that, “like a 

trespasser, a squatter, or any individual who occup[ies] a 

piece of property unlawfully,” an individual whose presence 

in a home is barred by a court no-contact order lacks “any 

expectation of privacy” in such place “that society is 

prepared to recognize as reasonable.” United States v. 

Cortez-Dutrieville, 743 F.3d 881, 884–85 (3rd Cir. 2014) 

(alteration in original) (footnotes and citations omitted). In 
UNITED STATES V. SCHRAM 7

so holding, the Third Circuit rejected the defendant’s 

contention that the no-contact order was vitiated by the 

consent of the person whom the order barred the defendant 

from contacting. Id. at 884.

Like the defendant in Cortez-Dutrieville, Schram argues 

that Satterfield’s consent to his presence overrode the terms 

of the no-contact order. He relies on United States v. GamezOrduño, 235 F.3d 453 (9th Cir. 2000), to argue that a 

property owner’s invitation grants an individual a legitimate 

expectation of privacy on a premises, even if the individual 

is there for illegal purposes. This principle sweeps far 

broader than the holding of Gamez-Orduño. In that case, we 

held that narcotics smugglers had a legitimate expectation of 

privacy as overnight guests in a home. Id. at 458–59. But 

the narcotics smugglers’ criminal conduct was not the act of 

being on the premises in question: their criminal conduct 

was narcotics smuggling. Thus while a defendant does not 

lose his Fourth Amendment rights simply by engaging in 

illegal acts, a defendant still may lack Fourth Amendment 

rights to challenge the search of a residence when the law 

prevents him from being there in the first place. See United 

States v. Vega, 221 F.3d 789, 797 (5th Cir. 2000) (“[T]he 

burglar’s expectation of privacy loses its legitimacy not 

because of the wrongfulness of his activity, but because of 

the wrongfulness of his presence in the place where he 

purports to have an expectation of privacy.”), abrogated on 

other grounds, as recognized by United States v. Aguirre, 

664 F.3d 606, 611 n.13 (5th Cir. 2011).

Schram also argues that the Supreme Court’s recent 

holding in Byrd cautions against drawing a per se rule in this 

case. In Byrd, the Court held that a defendant who had not 

signed a rental car agreement may still have a legitimate 

privacy expectation in the rental car to challenge its search. 
8 UNITED STATES V. SCHRAM

138 S. Ct. at 1529–30. But in so holding, the Court explicitly 

left intact its conclusion from Rakas that a “car thief would 

not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a stolen car,” 

“[n]o matter the degree of possession and control.” Id. at 

1529 (citing Rakas, 439 U.S. at 141 n.9). To explain the 

difference between the defendant in Byrd and a car thief, the 

Court likened a car thief to Rakas’s hypothetical “burglar 

plying his trade in a summer cabin during the off season,” 

thus reaffirming Rakas’s teaching that, like a defendant who 

may not challenge a search of stolen property, a defendant 

whose presence on a premises violates the law may not 

“object to the legality of [the premises’] search.” Id.

(quoting Rakas, 439 U.S. at 141 n.9).

Like a burglar, trespasser, or squatter, an individual 

violating a court no-contact order is on property that the law 

prevents him from entering. We therefore hold that such an 

individual lacks a legitimate expectation of privacy in that 

place and may not challenge its search on Fourth 

Amendment grounds. In doing so, we join not only the Third 

Circuit, but every other court that has considered the matter.3

AFFIRMED.

 3 See, e.g., Cortez-Dutrieville, 743 F.3d at 884–85; Washington v. 

St. Albans Police Dep’t, 30 F. Supp. 2d 455, 457–58 (D. Vt. 1998); 

Commonwealth v. Morrison, 710 N.E.2d 584, 586 (Mass. 1999); State v. 

Stephenson, 760 N.W.2d 22, 26–27 (Minn. Ct. App. 2009); see also 

United States v. Bey, 825 F.3d 75, 79 (1st Cir. 2016) (noting that 

“[s]everal other courts have specifically held that a defendant cannot 

claim a reasonable expectation of privacy to the interior of a home where 

the defendant’s very presence is unlawful due to a restraining order,” but 

declining to reach the issue).