Opinion ID: 396604
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Abandonment and Reasonable Expectation of Privacy

Text: At the suppression hearing the appellees failed to establish their legitimate expectation of privacy in the luggage searched, relying instead on the automatic standing rule of Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697 (1968). After that hearing and the district court's initial ruling, the Supreme Court held in United States v. Salvucci, 448 U.S. 83, 100 S.Ct. 2547, 65 L.Ed.2d 619 (1980), that defendants charged with crimes of possession, like all other defendants, may assert the exclusionary rule only if their own Fourth Amendment rights have been violated. These appellees, who were without the guidance of Salvucci, should have an opportunity to try to establish their reasonable expectation of privacy in the luggage searched. If successful in this regard, they will have demonstrated their right to challenge the search to which they object, 2 unless their denials of ownership of the luggage were sufficiently clear to establish abandonment. 3 If a person has voluntarily abandoned property, he has no standing to complain of its search or seizure ... The issue of abandonment is a factual one.... It is primarily a question of intent, and intent may be inferred from words, acts, and other objective facts. Abandonment here is not meant in the strict property-right sense, but rests instead on whether the person so relinquished his interest in the property that he no longer retained a reasonable expectation of privacy in it at the time of the search. United States v. Jackson, 544 F.2d 407, 409 (9th Cir. 1976). Accord, U. S. v. Kendall, 655 F.2d 199, at 201 (9th Cir. 1981); objective, not subjective test governs determination of intent (or lack thereof) to abandon. Since the district court failed to make findings as to whether the appellees demonstrated a reasonable expectation of privacy in the luggage, and if so, whether their words and acts constituted an abandonment of that privacy interest, we remand for such determinations. 4 Assuming, for purposes of analysis, that the appellees are able to establish their privacy interest in the luggage, and that the district court finds their denials of ownership constituted an abandonment, the question of whether they may challenge the search is not yet resolved. Admissibility of the evidence of abandonment turns upon the legality of their detention. Denials of ownership may be considered as evidence of abandonment of a privacy interest only if they occur during a lawful detention. Any denials which occur during an illegal investigatory stop, or after a lawful detention becomes unlawful (for example, as is alleged here, after it develops into an arrest without probable cause) are tainted and cannot be considered. United States v. Jackson, supra, 544 F.2d at 410.