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 The Honorable Linda R. Reade, United States District Judge for the Northern

District of Iowa, presiding. 

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

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No. 04-2020

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United States of America, *

*

Plaintiff-Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* Northern District of Iowa.

Lonnie Maurice Hill, *

*

Defendant-Appellant. *

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Submitted: October 19, 2004

Filed: January 11, 2005

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Before COLLOTON, LAY, GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.

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LAY, Circuit Judge.

Lonnie Maurice Hill appeals the district court’s1

 denial of his motion to

suppress evidence. We affirm the district court.

At approximately 1:00 A.M., a store clerk working at the HandiMart

convenience store in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, phoned police to report suspicious activity

in the store. The store was located in a known area of prostitution and, after

observing a woman and a man enter the store’s small restroom, the clerk suspected
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the two were using the restroom as a place for unlawful sexual activity. The singleperson restroom, available for use by either men or women, was equipped with one

stool and one urinal, but lacked any privacy partitions. 

Police officers arrived within four minutes of the call. After conferring with

the clerk, the officers knocked on the restroom door, but did not identify themselves

as police officers. They received no response. One of the officers then rapped on the

door with the end of his flashlight. He heard a jingle like a belt buckle, but otherwise

no response. After knocking the second time, the officer used a Leatherman toolkit

to unlock the door, but he did not open it. At this point, one of the occupants

relocked the door. The officer warned the occupants that he would open the door if

they did not come out. The officer then unlocked the door again with the Leatherman

kit. This time the female pushed the door open just enough to allow her exit.

Thereafter Hill began to exit. However, upon seeing the officer, he turned around and

re-entered the restroom. Hill was partially undressed. His pants were unbuttoned,

unzipped, and loosely held by the belt. Hill then set something metallic down.

Hearing the sound, the officer poked his head into the bathroom through the ajar door

and saw a small bag of marijuana and two clear baggies of cocaine on top of a metal

wastepaper basket next to the toilet. While leaving the restroom, Hill dropped a tshirt and a jacket on the floor. Hill was placed under arrest. A metal scale was found

in the same shirt Hill left on the floor.

Subsequent to being indicted by a grand jury for possession with intent to

distribute 22.62 grams of crack cocaine, for distributing .33 grams of crack cocaine,

and for distributing .31 grams of crack cocaine within 1,000 feet of a school, Hill

filed a motion to suppress the evidence. The district court, adopting the Report and

Recommendation of the magistrate judge, found no Fourth Amendment violation and

that Hill had voluntarily abandoned his property in the restroom. Pursuant to the

conditional guilty plea, Hill was sentenced to 120 months imprisonment. Hill now
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appeals denial of his motion to suppress arguing the evidence was seized in violation

of his Fourth Amendment rights. Finding no violation of Hill’s Fourth Amendment

rights, we affirm the district court. 

The Fourth Amendment protects people and not places. See Katz v. United

States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967). However, “the extent to which the Fourth

Amendment protects people may depend upon where those people are.” Minnesota

v. Carter, 525 U.S. 83, 88 (1998). In the present case, it was not a single person

using the single toilet restroom but two persons of opposite gender and, under the

circumstances, we hold that they had a diminished expectation of privacy which had

expired by the time the officers had arrived. To invoke the protection of the Fourth

Amendment, one must establish a legitimate expectation of privacy in the invaded

place. Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 143 (1978). 

We have held that a person using a public restroom enjoys a reasonable

expectation of privacy in being shielded from view by the privacy partitions in the

restroom. United States v. White, 890 F.2d 1012, 1015 (8th Cir. 1989). However, we

have never held that this expectation lasts indefinitely. In fact, we have held that an

occupant of a public restroom, even after locking the door, waived his right to privacy

by failing to reassert it after repeated requests to enter. See United States v. Esparza,

162 F.3d 978, 980 (8th Cir. 1998). Additionally, “a[n] expectation of privacy in

commercial premises . . . is different from, and indeed less than, a similar expectation

in an individual’s home.” New York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691, 700 (1987). These

cases recognize that regardless of one’s subjective expectation of privacy in a public

restroom, society’s recognition of that expectation of privacy is limited by the

physical design of the restroom, the location of the restroom, and the probability that

one will be asked to surrender use of the restroom to others. 

In the present case, the restroom was designed for use by one person, it was

located in a convenience store, and available for use by customers and guests of the
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Of course, each factual circumstance should be evaluated on its own. Clearly,

our conclusion regarding Hill and his companion may stand on different footing than

say a child and a parent or where one person because of a disability or some other

medical reason may need assistance.

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store. Hill and his female companion occupied the restroom in a manner for which

it was not designed, and remained there after being asked to leave. Under these

circumstances, we hold that whatever reasonable expectation of privacy Hill and his

companion had expired by the time the officers arrived. Any search that may have

occurred did not violate Hill’s Fourth Amendment rights.2

 

There is no question, based upon what the store clerk pointed out to the

officers, there was an entry by the man and woman into the small convenience store

restroom. The store was located in an area that was known to have a high prostitution

rate. Furthermore, although the door was locked, the police could reasonably believe

the store clerk had authority to consent to the search of the common room. See

United States v. Brokaw, 985 F.2d 951, 953 (8th Cir. 1993). 

In Esparza, 162 F.3d 978, the owner of the apartment building gave his consent

to an invasion of a small common room which was a restroom and it was locked only

on the inside with a latch. Under the circumstances, when Hill did not respond to

multiple knocks on the door by the officers when requesting entry to the restroom, the

officers could reasonably believe that the store clerk had authority to consent to a

search of the common room. 

Because there was no reasonable expectation of privacy when the officers

arrived, the unlocking of the door by a toolkit was not a violation of the Fourth

Amendment nor may it be said that on further knocking of the door the exit by the

woman occupant in the restroom was in any sense coercive. In view of the fact that

Hill and his female companion did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy, we
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hold that there was no violation of the Fourth Amendment under the circumstances.

We thus affirm the district court.

AFFIRMED.

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