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THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

___________________________

Rockingham

No. 2013-554

THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

v.

AMY KATHLEEN MOUSER

Argued: June 4, 2015

Opinion Issued: July 15, 2015

Joseph A. Foster, attorney general (Stephen D. Fuller, assistant attorney 

general, on the brief, and Jason A. Casey, attorney, orally), for the State.

Christopher M. Johnson, chief appellate defender, of Concord, on the 

brief and orally, for the defendant.

DALIANIS, C.J. The defendant, Amy Kathleen Mouser, appeals her 

conviction by jury on one count of possession of a controlled drug (cocaine). 

See RSA 318-B:2, I (2011). On appeal, she argues that the Superior Court 

(Delker, J.) erred by denying her motion to suppress evidence obtained from a 

search of her vehicle. We affirm.

The trial court found the following facts when it denied the defendant’s 

motion to suppress. On June 7, 2012, Joseph Jennings was arrested on drugrelated charges and released on personal recognizance bail to the custody of 
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the defendant. That day, he was also served with a temporary order of 

protection that prohibited him, and third parties acting on his behalf, from 

contacting a certain woman.

Approximately 45 minutes after Jennings was released, the woman 

reported that the defendant was contacting her on Jennings’s behalf, in 

violation of the protective order. Police Officer McGurren went to the woman’s 

residence, where McGurren retrieved drug paraphernalia that the woman said 

belonged to Jennings.

McGurren then went to the defendant’s multi-family residence where it 

was “pitch black outside.” Because there was no available parking in front of 

the residence, McGurren pulled into the driveway, which “wrapped around” the 

back of the building. When she spotted the defendant’s vehicle, she parked her 

cruiser in a way that her headlights illuminated the vehicle’s interior. She saw 

two people making furtive movements in the vehicle’s front seat. McGurren 

shined her spotlight on the vehicle and got out of her cruiser. The defendant 

then emerged from the passenger side of her vehicle and approached 

McGurren. Jennings, who had been in the driver’s seat, also got out of the 

vehicle. The defendant began yelling at McGurren. When McGurren ordered 

the defendant to stay back, she complied and stood approximately 10 feet away 

from the vehicle, although she continued to yell.

McGurren placed Jennings under arrest for violating the protective order. 

As McGurren secured Jennings in her cruiser, the defendant was still yelling. 

Because of the furtive movements she had witnessed earlier, McGurren went to 

the defendant’s vehicle and looked through the driver’s side window where she 

saw what she believed to be drug paraphernalia, including two syringes, on the 

center console. McGurren then arrested the defendant for possession of a 

controlled drug. She secured the defendant in the cruiser of a second officer, 

who had arrived to assist. McGurren then seized the drug paraphernalia from 

the defendant’s vehicle and transported Jennings to the police department. 

The second officer transported the defendant to the police department. At the 

police department, the defendant told McGurren that the syringes belonged to 

Jennings.

Before trial, the defendant moved to suppress the evidence obtained from 

the search of her vehicle. She contended, among other arguments, that the 

warrantless search of her automobile violated the State and Federal 

Constitutions because “it was done without reasonable suspicion and/or 

probable cause, and without her consent” and there was not “a valid exception 

to the warrant requirement” to justify the search. The State objected to this 

argument, contending that the “plain view” exception to the warrant 

requirement justified the search of the vehicle and the seizure of evidence from 

it.
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The trial court ruled in favor of the State, concluding that, because the 

driveway was only semi-private, it was not “deserving of traditional curtilage 

protection.” The court also concluded that the defendant had no reasonable 

expectation of privacy in the contents of her vehicle that were open to 

observation by anybody present in the driveway, and, thus, decided that 

McGurren’s observation of the vehicle’s contents did not constitute an unlawful 

search. Finally, the court concluded that McGurren’s seizure of the evidence 

was lawful pursuant to the “plain view” exception to the warrant requirement.

On appeal, the defendant argues that the trial court erred by: (1) 

determining that the rear parking area was not “deserving of traditional 

curtilage protection”; and (2) implicitly deciding that McGurren needed neither 

a warrant nor an exception to the warrant requirement other than the “plain 

view” exception to search the defendant’s vehicle. When reviewing a trial 

court’s ruling on a motion to suppress, we accept the trial court’s factual 

findings unless they lack support in the record or are clearly erroneous, and we 

review its legal conclusions de novo. State v. Socci, 166 N.H. 464, 468 (2014).

I. Curtilage

We first consider the defendant’s curtilage argument, which she raises 

under both the State and Federal Constitutions. See N.H. CONST. pt. I, art. 

19; U.S. CONST. amend. IV. We address the defendant’s argument first under 

the State Constitution and rely upon federal law only to aid our analysis. See

State v. Ball, 124 N.H. 226, 231-33 (1983).

Part I, Article 19 provides that “[e]very subject hath a right to be secure 

from all unreasonable searches and seizures of his person, his houses, his 

papers, and all his possessions.” The protection of a person’s house extends to 

the home’s “curtilage,” or “the area immediately surrounding a dwelling house.” 

United States v. Dunn, 480 U.S. 294, 300 (1987). “The boundaries and 

contents of the curtilage are not easily described.” State v. Pinkham, 141 N.H. 

188, 190 (1996). “Curtilage questions are fact-sensitive, and courts resolve 

them by examining the nature of the area at issue and then asking whether 

such an area is as deserving of protection from governmental intrusion as the 

house.” Id.

Under the New Hampshire Constitution, we have applied a reasonable 

expectation of privacy test to determine whether an area is within the curtilage,

examining whether the defendant has a subjective expectation of privacy in 

that area and whether that expectation is reasonable. See State v. Smith, 163 

N.H. 169, 172-73 (2012); see also State v. Goss, 150 N.H. 46, 48-49 (2003). In

deciding whether the defendant’s expectation of privacy is reasonable, several 

factors have guided our inquiry, including: the nature of the intrusion, 

whether the police had a lawful right to be where they were, and the character 

of the location searched. Smith, 163 N.H. at 173. We have analyzed the 
4

character of the location searched by referring to the following additional 

factors: the area’s proximity to the dwelling; its inclusion within a general 

enclosure surrounding the dwelling; its use and enjoyment as an adjunct to the 

domestic economy of the family; and whether the defendant owned the place or 

controlled access to it and whether it was freely accessible to others. Id. No 

single factor has been dispositive; “the critical question these factors help to 

answer is whether a particular area claimed to be within the curtilage is 

necessary and convenient and habitually used for family purposes and carrying 

on domestic employment.” Id. (quotation omitted); accord Dunn, 480 U.S. at 

301 (focusing upon whether an area is “so intimately tied to the home itself 

that it should be placed under the home’s ‘umbrella’ of [constitutional]

protection”).

The United States Supreme Court has recently clarified that, under the 

Federal Constitution, a criminal defendant may also challenge a search based 

upon a trespass theory. See Florida v. Jardines, 133 S. Ct. 1409, 1414-15, 

1417 (2013); see also United States v. Jones, 132 S. Ct. 945, 949-52 (2012). 

According to the Court, constitutionally protected areas are those specifically 

listed in the Fourth Amendment to the Federal Constitution: “persons, houses, 

papers, and effects,” U.S. CONST. amend. IV. Jardines, 133 S. Ct. at 1414. 

The trespass theory “has three requirements: a physical intrusion, on an 

enumerated interest (‘persons[,] houses, papers, and effects’), that is not 

supported by an implicit license based on social norms.” 3A C. Wright & S. 

Welling, Federal Practice and Procedure: Criminal § 663 (4th ed. Supp. 2015).

The Court explained that, under the Federal Constitution, if the area into 

which the police intrude is a constitutionally protected area, then the 

defendant need not also show a reasonable expectation of privacy to establish a 

Fourth Amendment violation. See Jardines, 133 S. Ct. at 1417; see also Jones, 

132 S. Ct. at 952 (stating that the “reasonable-expectation-of-privacy test has 

been added to, not substituted for, the common-law trespassory test”); United 

States v. Duenas, 691 F.3d 1070, 1080-81 (9th Cir. 2012) (explaining that in 

Jones, “the Court reaffirmed that the home and its curtilage are sacrosanct” 

and that courts are not required “to apply the reasonable expectation of privacy 

standard in addition to finding that the subject of the search was ‘persons, 

houses, papers, or effects’” (brackets omitted)). We have not yet addressed the 

trespass theory, as articulated by the Court in Jardines and Jones, under the 

State Constitution. See Socci, 166 N.H. at 468-70 (applying trespass theory 

under Federal Constitution).

On appeal, the defendant focuses primarily upon the federal test, arguing 

that “McGurren’s nighttime entry onto the rear curtilage fell outside the 

boundaries of the implied invitation” to members of the public to approach the 

house. See Jardines, 133 S. Ct. at 1414-17. This argument elides over 

whether the area in question – here, the parking lot in the rear of the 

defendant’s multi-family residence – is constitutionally protected. See id. 
5

The Supreme Court examines four factors to determine whether an area 

is included within the curtilage of a house: (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.” Dunn, 480 U.S. at 301. These factors are 

similar to those upon which we rely to determine whether a defendant’s 

expectation of privacy in an area is reasonable. See Smith, 163 N.H. at 173. 

Thus, for the purposes of this appeal, whether the rear parking lot is part of 

the curtilage of the defendant’s residence involves analyzing essentially the 

same factors under both the State and Federal Constitutions. See id.

Here, the trial court found that McGurren had a legitimate reason for 

entering the property because she was there to arrest Jennings. The court also 

found that the defendant’s vehicle was parked “out in the open,” and that the 

parking lot at issue served a multi-family residence rather than a single-family 

home.

The defendant does not challenge these factual findings on appeal. 

Instead, she argues that the trial court was compelled to find that the parking 

area was curtilage because it was “behind the house” and “was not visible from 

the road.” The defendant observes that there was no evidence that “there was 

a door at the rear of this house that visitors commonly used.” Thus, she 

reasons, the parking area was “rear curtilage” that “fell outside the boundaries 

of . . . implied invitation.”

Based upon the trial court’s factual findings, we hold that the parking 

area behind the defendant’s home is not part of the curtilage. There is no 

evidence that the parking lot was bounded or enclosed or used for anything 

other than parking, which is not a “private” activity. See United States v. 

Sparks, 750 F. Supp. 2d 384, 389 (D. Mass. 2010); see also Pinkham, 141 N.H. 

at 191 (concluding that driveway was not entitled to traditional curtilage 

protection in part because portion at issue was not blocked from view by 

fences, shrubberies, or the house itself, driveway was not blocked by a gate, 

and driveway was not posted with “No Trespassing” signs). Moreover, the 

parking area was “available for the shared benefit” of the multi-family 

residence. Sparks, 750 F. Supp. 2d at 389-90; see also United States v. 

Rheault, 561 F.3d 55, 59 (1st Cir. 2009) (explaining that “it is beyond cavil . . . 

that a tenant lacks a reasonable expectation of privacy in the common areas of 

an apartment building” (quotation omitted)). Under these circumstances, we 

conclude that the parking area behind the defendant’s residence is not part of 

the curtilage.

Our conclusion is consistent with the decisions of courts in other 

jurisdictions. See Mack v. City of Abilene, 461 F.3d 547, 554-55 (5th Cir. 

2006) (parking space in apartment complex parking lot is not part of the 
6

curtilage of apartment); United States v. Pyne, 175 F. App’x 639, 641 (4th Cir. 

2006) (concluding that apartment building’s parking garage was not within 

curtilage); United States v. Cruz Pagan, 537 F.2d 554, 558 (1st Cir. 1976) 

(holding that a person has no reasonable expectation of privacy in a common 

parking garage of an apartment building). Because the Federal Constitution 

provides no greater protection than the State Constitution under these 

circumstances, we reach the same result under both constitutions. See Dunn, 

480 U.S. at 301; see also Smith, 163 N.H. at 173.

II. Search of Vehicle

We next consider the defendant’s arguments regarding the search of her 

vehicle. The defendant does not directly challenge the trial court’s conclusion 

that she had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of her vehicle 

that were open to observation by anybody present in the driveway. Nor does 

she challenge the trial court’s determination that the officer’s view of the 

contents of her vehicle did not constitute an unlawful search. Rather, on 

appeal, she contends that the trial court erred “in construing the plain view 

doctrine as giving not merely the authority to seize the items [in her vehicle], 

but also the authority to enter a constitutionally-protected place without a 

warrant or [an] applicable exception to the warrant requirement.”

The State argues that the defendant’s appellate arguments about the 

search of the vehicle are different from those she made in the trial court and, 

therefore, are not preserved for our review. The defendant agrees that she 

never “explicitly point[ed] out the inability of the plain view doctrine to justify 

the police entry of the [vehicle],” but contends that she was not required to do 

so to preserve her appellate arguments. She asserts that the preservation 

doctrine only “prevents this Court from considering issues raised on appeal 

that were not presented in the trial court.” (Quotation and brackets omitted.) 

According to the defendant, the doctrine allows the court to consider any 

argument made on appeal to support a claim even if that “precise argument” 

was not also made in the trial court.

As the defendant rightly observes, “[t]he purpose underlying our 

preservation rule is to afford the trial court an opportunity to correct any error 

it may have made before those issues are presented for appellate review.” State 

v. Town, 163 N.H. 790, 792 (2012). Based upon our review of the record 

submitted on appeal, we disagree with the defendant that the trial court had 

that opportunity.

In the trial court, the defendant’s motion to suppress was general, 

asserting only that the search of her vehicle, without a warrant or an exception 

thereto, violated her State and Federal constitutional rights. At the hearing on 

her motion, the defendant argued the following:
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I think, Judge, in terms of the -- ultimately the -- the search 

of the motor vehicle, I don’t think that you can say that it’s a 

search incident to arrest. I think there’s -- there’s quite a bit of law 

on that, and that once Mr. Jennings was secured in the back of the 

police vehicle there can’t be any search of the -- of the motor 

vehicle. 

I think also, when you’re dealing with a situation where this 

vehicle apparently was -- was parked, there’s no evidence that it 

was running, it was on private property, it was on private property 

where the Defendant resided. There’s no search incident to --

search incident to arrest exception to that that would apply here. 

In terms of plain view, Judge, I think that that’s why I 

mentioned about was the officer there, was the officer validly in a 

place where the officer was allowed to be? 

And I would suggest, Your Honor, that the officer was not, 

generally speaking, as I indicated. But the issue then becomes 

after he’s made the arrest that he -- excuse me. After she made 

the arrest that she went there for, her work is done. 

So not only is there generally a problem for lack of probable 

cause for being there in the first place, but then you have the 

additional issue of where she has to walk 20 feet to a vehicle, and 

does she have the right to be in that place at that time where 

whereupon she sees some items in a motor vehicle? We would say 

that she does not.

As this excerpt from the hearing demonstrates, in the trial court, the defendant 

argued only that McGurren was not lawfully in the parking area from which 

she could observe the contents of the defendant’s vehicle. She did not argue in 

the trial court, as she argues on appeal, that McGurren could not lawfully 

enter the vehicle to seize the evidence without either a warrant or an exception 

to the warrant requirement other than plain view. See Horton v. California, 

496 U.S. 128, 137 (1990) (explaining that for the plain view exception to the 

warrant requirement to apply, a police officer must “be lawfully located in a 

place from which the object can be plainly seen” and “have a lawful right of 

access to the object itself”).

To the extent that the defendant believed that the trial court improperly 

relied upon the plain view exception to the warrant requirement to justify the 

officer’s entry into her vehicle, it was incumbent upon her to move for 

reconsideration. The trial court must have had the opportunity to consider any 

issues asserted by the defendant on appeal; thus, to satisfy this preservation 

requirement, any issues that could not have been presented to the trial court 
8

before its decision must be presented to it in a motion for reconsideration. See

LaMontagne Builders v. Bowman Brook Purchase Group, 150 N.H. 270, 274 

(2003); N.H. Dep’t of Corrections v. Butland, 147 N.H. 676, 679 (2002). The 

record on appeal, however, does not demonstrate that the defendant filed such 

a motion. See Bean v. Red Oak Prop. Mgmt., 151 N.H. 248, 250 (2004).

Although preservation “is a limitation on the parties to an appeal and not 

the reviewing court,” and, thus, we have the discretion to waive the 

preservation requirement, we decline to do so in this case. Camire v. Gunstock 

Area Comm’n, 166 N.H. 374, 377 (2014). As the State asserts, because the 

defendant did not raise her appellate argument in the trial court, “the trial 

court made very few (if any) relevant findings of fact or rulings of law.” We 

agree with the State that the defendant’s appellate argument was “neither 

factually nor legally developed” in the trial court. Thus, we decline to consider 

the argument on appeal.

All issues that the defendant raised in her notice of appeal, but did not

brief, are deemed waived. See State v. Ayer, 154 N.H. 500, 519 (2006).

Affirmed.

HICKS, CONBOY, LYNN, and BASSETT, JJ., concurred.