Opinion ID: 545151
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Defendant's Expectation of Privacy in Pick-up

Text: 12 Soule insists that the investigatory stop of the pick-up truck was unconstitutional because it was initiated without reasonable suspicion and lasted longer than any stop ever countenanced by the courts. Nevertheless, under the recognized rule that the proponent of a motion to suppress must establish not only the unlawfulness of the challenged governmental action, but that it intruded upon some legitimate expectation of privacy of the proponent, see, e.g., Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98, 104-05, 100 S.Ct. 2556, 2561-62, 65 L.Ed.2d 633 (1980); Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 131 n. 1, 99 S.Ct. 421, 424 n. 1, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978), we must note at the outset the utter absence of any evidence, inference or suggestion that the Terry stop, see Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), infringed any legitimate expectation of privacy on the part of the defendant. 4 13 Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. at 131 n. 1, 99 S.Ct. at 424 n. 1, makes clear beyond question that [t]he proponent of a motion to suppress has the burden of establishing that his own Fourth Amendment rights were violated by the challenged search or seizure. 5 Rakas reaffirmed the rule in Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165, 174, 89 S.Ct. 961, 967, 22 L.Ed.2d 176 (1969): Fourth Amendment rights are personal rights which ... may not be vicariously asserted. 439 U.S. at 133-34, 99 S.Ct. at 425. The Rakas defendants had urged adoption of the so-called target theory of standing, on the strength of the language, taken out of context from Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697 (1960), that any one against whom the search was directed should be accorded standing, id. at 261, 80 S.Ct. at 731. Rakas rejected the target theory, Rakas, 439 U.S. at 132-38, 99 S.Ct. at 424-28, and it did much more. 14 Rakas discarded the Jones formula for standing as well, which turned on whether the defendant was legitimately on the premises, Jones, 362 U.S. at 267, 80 S.Ct. at 734, because the Court concluded that the Jones formula did not answer the question whether the search violated a defendant's 'reasonable expectation of freedom from governmental intrusion,'  Rakas, 439 U.S. at 147, n. 14, 99 S.Ct. at 432, n. 14 (quoting Mancusi v. DeForte, 392 U.S. 364, 368, 88 S.Ct. 2120, 2123, 20 L.Ed.2d 1154 (1968)). Finally, Rakas reformulated the standing inquiry as a matter of substantive fourth amendment law. 15 [T]he question is whether the challenged search and seizure violated the Fourth Amendment rights of a criminal defendant who seeks to exclude the evidence obtained during it. That inquiry in turn requires a determination of whether the disputed search and seizure has infringed an interest of the defendant which the Fourth Amendment was designed to protect. We are under no illusion that by dispensing with the rubric of standing used in Jones [362 U.S. 257, 80 S.Ct. 725] we have rendered any simpler the determination of whether the proponent of a motion to suppress is entitled to contest the legality of a search and seizure. But by frankly recognizing that this aspect of the analysis belongs more properly under the heading of substantive Fourth Amendment doctrine than under the heading of standing, we think the decision of this issue will rest on sounder logical footing. 16 439 U.S. at 140, 99 S.Ct. at 429. 17 The analytic significance of the Rakas reformulation was clarified in Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98, 100 S.Ct. 2556, 65 L.Ed.2d 633 (1980), where the Court refused to permit suppression of illegal drugs which the owner had placed in a friend's purse, on the ground that the owner had not demonstrated a reasonable expectation of privacy in the purse. 18 Prior to Rakas, petitioner might have been given 'standing' in such a case to challenge a 'search' that netted those drugs but probably would have lost his claim on the merits. After Rakas, the two inquiries merge into one: whether governmental officials violated any legitimate expectation of privacy held by petitioner. Id. at 106, 100 S.Ct. at 2562. 6 19 The Supreme Court concluded in Rakas that whether the investigatory stop and search of the getaway vehicle violated any right of its owner-driver was a matter of no moment because mere legitimate presence on the part of the defendant passengers was insufficient to demonstrate that their fourth amendment rights had been violated. Rakas, 439 U.S. at 148-150, 99 S.Ct. at 433-434. Since Soule was nowhere near the pick-up truck at the time it was stopped, detained and searched, id. at 148, 99 S.Ct. at 433 (legitimate presence relevant, but not controlling), and there is no evidence that Soule had any proprietary or possessory interest either in the vehicle, see id., or its contents, see id., or any right to exclude others from the vehicle, see id. at 143 n. 12, 99 S.Ct. at 430 n. 12, it would be difficult to posit a clearer failure to demonstrate any legitimate expectation of privacy on the part of the defendant, either in the pick-up or its contents. 7 20