Opinion ID: 771497
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Fourth Amendment Protection Of Overnight Guests

Text: 14 The Fourth Amendment provides that [t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . . . U.S. Const. amend. IV. Because the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places, see Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967), a person claiming a Fourth Amendment violation must, as an initial matter, demonstrate a legitimate expectation of privacy in the place searched or the thing seized. Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 143 (1978). A person's expectation of privacy is deemed legitimate if it is one that society is prepared to recognize as`reasonable.'  Katz, 389 U.S. at 361 (Harlan, J., concurring); see also Rakas, 439 U.S. at 143-44 (concluding that an expectation is reasonable if it derives from a source outside of the Fourth Amendment, either by reference to concepts of real or personal property law or to understandings that are recognized and permitted by society). 7 15 Whether or not he can show indices of residency (such as keys to the premises or the ability to come and go and admit or exclude others), an overnight guest in another's home has a reasonable expectation of privacy for purposes of Fourth Amendment standing. Minnesota v. Olson , 495 U.S. 91, 96, 98 (1990); id. at 96 n.4 (We need go no further than to conclude, as we do, that Olson's status as an overnight guest is alone enough to show that he had an expectation of privacy in the home that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable.) (emphasis added). As the Court in Olson explained: 16 To hold that an overnight guest has a legitimate expectation of privacy in his host's home merely recognizes the everyday expectations of privacy that we all share. Staying overnight in another's home is a longstanding social custom that serves functions recognized as valuable by society. . . . [W]e think that society recognizes that a houseguest has a legitimate expectation of privacy in his host's home. 17 From the overnight guest's perspective, he seeks shelter in another's home precisely because it pro vides him with privacy, a place where he and his possessions will not be disturbed by anyone but his host and those his host allows inside. 18 Id. at 98-99. 19 An individual whose presence on another's premises is purely commercial in nature, on the other hand, has no legitimate expectation of privacy in that location. See United States v. Carter, 525 U.S. 83, 90 (1998). In Carter , the Court held that two drug dealers did not have a legitimate expectation of privacy in an apartment, already set up for drug manufacturing, that the defendants occupied only for two-and-one-half hours and only for the purpose of packaging drugs for resale, and for the use of which they paid the lessee an eighth of an ounce of cocaine. Id. at 86, 91. Because they were present solely for a business transaction, id. at 90, the defendants in that case had no legitimate expectation of privacy. The Court contrasted their situation with that of the defendant in Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 259 (1960), who had slept [in the apartment] `maybe a night,'  and who did have a legitimate expectation of privacy. 525 U.S. at 89-90; see also id. at 90 (Thus an overnight guest in a home may claim the protection of the Fourth Amendment, but one who is merely present with the consent of the householder may not.). 8 The Carter Court concluded that the purely commercial nature of the transaction engaged in here, the relatively short period of time on the premises, and the lack of any previous connection between [the defendants] and the householder,  made the defendants' situation more akin to that of someone who was merely legitimately on the premises than that of an overnight guest. Id. at 93. 20