Opinion ID: 2156106
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Defendant's Reasonable Expectation of Privacy in the Garage

Text: When we review a trial court's decision on a motion to suppress evidence seized after a police search, deference is given to the [historical factual] findings of the trial justice, and those findings shall not be disturbed unless they are clearly erroneous. State v. Briggs, 756 A.2d 731, 741 (R.I.2000) (quoting State v. Ortiz, 609 A.2d 921, 925 (R.I.1992)). To contest such a seizure of evidence as unlawful, however, the defendant must have enjoyed a reasonable expectation of privacy in the premises or property that was the subject of the search. See Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 143, 99 S.Ct. 421, 430, 58 L.Ed.2d 387, 401 (1978); State v. Wright, 558 A.2d 946, 948 (R.I.1989). And Verrecchia bore the burden of proving that his alleged expectation of privacy was one that society would be willing to recognize as objectively reasonable. See California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35, 39, 108 S.Ct. 1625, 1628, 100 L.Ed.2d 30, 36 (1988); Briggs, 756 A.2d at 741. To determine whether a person's asserted privacy expectation was objectively reasonable, we have examined, among other factors, whether the suspect possessed or owned the area searched or the property seized; his or her prior use of the area searched or the property seized; the person's ability to control or exclude others' use of the property; and the person's legitimate presence in the area searched. See Briggs, 756 A.2d at 741; State v. Pena Lora, 746 A.2d 113, 118-19 (R.I.2000) (holding that commercial occupancy of an automobile for a brief period was insufficient to establish a reasonable expectation of privacy); Wright, 558 A.2d at 949; see also United States v. Aguirre, 839 F.2d 854, 856 (1st Cir. 1988); United States v. Lochan, 674 F.2d 960, 965 (1st Cir.1982). Applying these factors to the present case, we look first to whether Verrecchia was in legitimatepossession of the garage. The owner of the premises testified that he had rented it to Verrecchia under an oral agreement whereby Verrecchia paid $200 per month rent in either cash or services. According to both Verrecchia and the garage owner, Verrecchia was the exclusive lessee. Thus, when the lease began in 1992 (four years before the police searched the garage in 1996), one of the owners had provided Verrecchia with the only known set of keys to the garage. This owner kept no set of keys for himself or for any other party to use. In fact, during the entire rental period (1992-96), the owner had entered the garage only once, at Verrecchia's request, to inspect water damage. And the owner had gained access to the garage on this single occasion only after Verrecchia had opened the side door to the garage with his key. Therefore, based upon this evidence, we agree with the trial justice that Verrecchia was the legal tenant of the garage and that he enjoyed a valid possessory interest in it. [3] Although the trial justice determined that Verrecchia controlled access to the garage through its side door, he also found that the evidence was silent with respect to Verrecchia's ability to control access to the garage through its large front doors. This lack of evidence with respect to the potential for garage access through these front doors  according to the trial justice  caused him to infer that the garage owners had the ability, not only to enter into the premises [through the front doors] but also had an ability to control or exclude others from entering into that building. This inference, the trial justice concluded, left him in doubt whether Verrecchia truly possessed the ability to exclude others from entering through the front doors. Therefore, he believed, it undermined Verrecchia's contention that hehad subjectively manifested a reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to the garage. Indeed, because Verrecchia failed to present evidence that would have rendered such an inference less plausible, the trial justice found that Verrecchia had failed to satisfy his burden of proving a reasonable expectation of privacy in the garage. Therefore, he concluded, Verrecchia could not contest the police search of the garage and the seizure of guns and other property that they found therein. [4] For the reasons explained below, we respectfully disagree with this conclusion. As a general rule, [a]n unauthorized entry or intrusion by a landlord on the tenant's premises constitutes a trespass to the same extent as an entry or intrusion by a stranger. 49 Am.Jur.2d Landlord and Tenant, § 485 at 402 (1995). [5] Thus, as a commercial tenant in good standing (the record does not indicate that Verrecchia had violated any of his lease arrangements), Verrecchia enjoyed a possessory interest in the garage during the life of his tenancy that gave him the right to maintain an ejectment or trespass action against the landlord for any unauthorized entry upon the leased premises. Indeed, even if he had failed to pay rent when it was due, none of the owners or landlords could enter upon or repossess the premises by utilizing self-help to do so. See G.L.1956 § 34-18.1-15 (prohibiting landlord from utilizing self-help to repossess leased premises). Therefore, even assuming that any of the owners had retained keys to the front doors of the garage (no evidence, however, suggested thiswas so), Verrecchia still would have had the ability to exclude these owners from the leased premises and from using the garage during his tenancy. If any one or more of them had attempted an unlawful entry, Verrecchia would have been entitled to obtain equitable relief to enjoin such activity or to oust them from the premises as trespassers. Thus, Verrecchia's valid possessory interest and legal right to exclude the owners and lessors (or anybody else) from his leased premises, we hold, gave rise to an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the leased garage. Moreover, after the trial justice denied Verrecchia's motion to suppress, a garage owner testified that no one possessed any keys to the front doors because no such keys existed. And the uncontested testimony of this owner further undermined any conclusion that Verrecchia lacked the ability to control or exclude the owners or others from using the garage. The owner swore that he had entered the garage only once between 1992 and 1994, and then only at the request of and with the consent of Verrecchia. And his lone entry was not a clandestine and unauthorized intrusion, but rather an invited entrance through the side door after Verrecchia had let him in with his key. The mere fact that Verrecchia apparently provided duplicate garage keys to four other persons of his choosing and then allowed them to have access to the premises also did not detract from his legitimate expectation of privacy in the garage vis-à-vis all others, including the police. Even though Verrecchia may have shared consensual access to the garage with certain other persons, he at no time became joint tenants with them. Thus, he remained in control as the sole tenant of the garage, and he retained the power to terminate the key holders' consensual access to the garage at any time. [6] [A]n individual need not maintain absolute personal control (exclusive use) over an area to support hisexpectation of privacy  as long as that individual retains some ability to control or exclude others from using the area. United States v. Horowitz, 806 F.2d 1222, 1226 (4th Cir. 1986); see also Mancusi v. DeForte, 392 U.S. 364, 369, 88 S.Ct. 2120, 2124, 20 L.Ed.2d 1154, 1159-60 (1968) (holding that exclusive access to an office or to documents contained with an office is not a prerequisite to invoking Fourth Amendment protection). We have also allowed a defendant to challenge the search of a car, though he did not own or exclusively control the car but merely possessed it temporarily with permission from its owner. Compare State v. Milette, 702 A.2d 1165, 1166-67 (R.I.1997) (holding that defendant possessed a legitimate expectation of privacy in a vehicle he drove regularly that was owned by his father, who had provided him with his own set of keys, and who had given him permission to use it whenever he needed to do so) with Pena Lora, 746 A.2d at 118-19 (holding that defendant's operation of a motor vehicle with the owner's permission for a commercial purpose during a brief period failed to establish a reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to packages on the back floor of the vehicle). Therefore, we conclude, Verrecchia satisfied his burden of proving that he possessed an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the garage and that the trial justice erred in precluding him from challenging the search and seizure of these premises. Consequently, we remand this case to the Superior Court for a hearing on Verrecchia's motion to suppress so that the court can determine whether the police violated any of Verrecchia's constitutional rights by searching his garage and by seizing certain property found therein as evidence of his criminal acts.