Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-402_h315.pdf
Page Number: 95

24 

CARPENTER v. UNITED STATES 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

B 
In  the  days  when  this  Court  followed  an  exclusively
property-based  approach  to  the  Fourth  Amendment,  the
distinction  between  an  individual’s  Fourth  Amendment 
rights  and  those  of  a  third  party  was  clear  cut.    We  first 
asked  whether  the  object  of  the  search—say,  a  house, 
papers,  or  effects—belonged  to  the  defendant,  and,  if  it
did, whether the Government had committed a “trespass”
in  acquiring  the  evidence  at  issue.  Jones,  565  U. S.,  at 
411, n. 8. 

When  the  Court  held  in  Katz  that  “property  rights  are
not  the  sole  measure  of  Fourth  Amendment  violations,” 
Soldal v.  Cook County, 506 U. S.  56, 64 (1992), the sharp 
boundary  between  personal  and  third-party  rights  was 
tested.  Under  Katz,  a  party  may  invoke  the  Fourth
Amendment whenever law enforcement officers violate the 
party’s “justifiable” or “reasonable” expectation of privacy.
See  389  U. S.,  at  353;  see  also  id.,  at  361  (Harlan,  J.,
concurring)  (applying  the  Fourth  Amendment  where  “a
person [has] exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of 
privacy”  and  where  that  “expectation  [is]  one  that  society 
is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable’ ”).  Thus freed from 
the limitations imposed by property law, parties began to 
argue that they had a reasonable expectation of privacy in
items  owned  by  others.  After  all,  if  a  trusted  third  party 
took  care  not  to  disclose  information  about  the  person  in
question, that person might well have a reasonable expec-
tation that the information would not be revealed. 

Efforts  to  claim  Fourth  Amendment  protection  against 
searches of the papers and effects of others came to a head
in  Miller,  425  U. S.  435,  where  the  defendant  sought  the 
suppression  of  two  banks’  microfilm  copies  of  his  checks, 
deposit  slips,  and  other  records.  The  defendant  did  not 
claim that he owned these documents, but he nonetheless 
argued  that  “analysis  of  ownership,  property  rights  and 
possessory  interests  in  the  determination  of  Fourth