Opinion ID: 3064902
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Young’s Expectation of Privacy

Text: [1] “The Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures is not limited to one’s home, but also extends to such places as hotel or motel rooms.” United States v. Cormier, 220 F.3d 1103, 1108-09 (9th Cir. 2000). In order to benefit from Fourth Amendment protections, an individual must “demonstrate a subjective expectation that his activities would be private, and he must show that his expectation was ‘one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable.’ ” United States Nerber, 222 F.3d 597, 599 (9th Cir. 2000) (quoting Bond v. United States, 529 U.S. 334, 338 (2000)). [2] Part of what a person purchases when he leases a hotel room is privacy for one’s person and one’s things. See United States v. Dorais, 241 F.3d 1124, 1128 (9th Cir. 2001). Like a lessee of an apartment, a hotel guest does not lose his reasonable expectation of privacy in his hotel room just because he is detained or arrested by a police officer outside of his apartment, or in Young’s case, his hotel room. See Stoner v. California, 376 U.S. 483, 486-91 & n.4 (1964). A landlord sometimes calls the police with suspicions or accusations against his tenants. The landlord’s call to the police on a tenant does not destroy the tenant’s right to his tenancy. The same is true here. Being arrested is different from being evicted, and being arrested does not automatically destroy that person’s reasonable expectation of privacy in his home. See id.; United States v. Bautista, 362 F.3d 584, 590 (9th Cir. 2004) (holding that “unless [a hotel guest’s] occupancy ha[s] been lawfully terminated when the police conducted their search, [the guest] retain[s] a reasonable expectation of privacy in the room”). UNITED STATES v. YOUNG 8743 [3] In Bautista, this court explained that whether a hotel guest retains a reasonable expectation of privacy in his room turns on “whether or not management had justifiably terminated [the patron’s] control of the room through private acts of dominion.” 362 F.3d at 590; see also Dorais, 241 F.3d at 1127-28 (holding that a hotel guest did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy after staff had taken “affirmative steps” to evict him). Kevin Bautista had fraudulently procured a motel room using a stolen credit card. Bautista, 362 F.3d at 586-87. The motel did not know that Bautista had used a stolen credit card to make the reservation. Id. A few days later, after the motel manager was informed of the fraud, she called the police to help her “find out what was going on with Mr. Bautista and the credit card.” Id. at 587. The manager told the police that if Bautista could not explain the credit card situation to the manager’s satisfaction, she was prepared to have the police evict him, unless he could make other payment arrangements. Id. The manager gave the officer Bautista’s room key, which the officer used to enter the room. Id. We held that at the time of the police entry into the room, Bautista was still the lawful occupant of the room, and was therefore entitled to a reasonable expectation of privacy, and that the search violated the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 589-90. “The manager did not ask the police to evict Bautista and the police did not suggest doing so,” and under this court’s precedent, “unless [a hotel guest’s] occupancy ha[s] been lawfully terminated when the police conducted their search, [the guest] retain[s] a reasonable expectation of privacy in the room.” Id. Until the hotel manager “asked the police to evict Bautista, he was still a lawful occupant who retained a legitimate expectation of privacy in the room.” Id. at 590. Accordingly, we held that the warrantless search was illegal and vacated the conviction. Id. at 593. [4] The circumstances in this case parallel Bautista. The district court correctly found that Young maintained a reasonable (although fraudulent) expectation of privacy in his hotel 8744 UNITED STATES v. YOUNG room and the luggage he left in the hotel room, because hotel staff had not evicted him from the room. The hotel had not taken any affirmative act that was a clear and unambiguous sign of eviction. Upon returning to his room and seeing that his key did not work, Young might reasonably have believed his key to be defective or demagnetized, rather than suspecting that he had been evicted from the room. Numerous other facts militate against a factual finding that Young had been evicted from his room, including: • Young was never told by any member of the Hil- ton security staff that he had been evicted. • Young’s belongings were never removed from his room and placed into storage. • There was no evidence that Young had been removed from the registered guest list at the hotel at the time of the search. • Hilton security staff did not contact the police after first discovering the firearm, but instead chose to contact police only after Young returned to his room and found that he had been temporar- ily locked out. • At the time of the warrantless search and seizure, both Hilton security staff and Officer Koniaris appeared to consider Young to still be in posses- sion of the room. The security staff repeatedly referred to Room 13575 as “Young’s room,” and Officer Koniaris told Hicks that his supervisor said that he “could not enter Young’s room to search it.” The Government does not dispute the district court’s conclusion that Hilton security should be considered state actors for the purposes of the second search of Room 13575. UNITED STATES v. YOUNG 8745 The Government argues that the district court did not accord adequate weight to a particular sentence in the Marweg Declaration. The relevant sentence states: “It is the policy of the Hilton that guests suspected of committing a crime in the hotel should be evicted from the hotel.” Marweg Dec. ¶ 16. However, no such statement exists in the written policies submitted by the Hilton. A policy that something ought to be done does not establish that it was done, and a hotel’s confidential policy or manager’s suspicions, not disclosed to the defendant, cannot destroy an otherwise reasonable expectation of privacy. Rakas, 439 U.S. at 143-44 & n.12. One portion of Hilton’s policy, titled “Suspected unlawful activity,” does state that “[i]f the circumstances surrounding a found or observed weapon suggests the potential for unlawful activity, the local police are to be informed by the Director of Safety and Security or the General Manager.” But no evidence in the record, including the submitted declarations, indicates that the district court clearly erred in concluding that the hotel was not implementing this portion of the policy. Indeed, if the “suspected unlawful activity” was the cause for the call to the police, the police would have been called immediately after the first search by the Hilton security staff while Young was out of the room, instead of after he unexpectedly returned to the room.1 Despite the unwritten policy, nothing in the record suggests that Hilton security had concluded that Young had committed a crime. The staff knew only that Young had accidentally been given a key to another guest’s room (Room 13572), and Marweg’s declaration states that the lock interrogation report showed that an unidentified keycard was used to enter that room at 3:30 p.m. — a full 15 minutes before Young was mis- 1 The other portion of the relevant written policy indicates only that once a weapon is found in a guest’s room, the room is to be placed on electronic lockout and a note is to be left for the guest to call Security upon his return. 8746 UNITED STATES v. YOUNG takenly given the key. While Marweg states in his declaration that he believed the time clock on Room 13572’s lock to be 20 minutes behind, neither Hicks nor Carr — the two security staff members on duty at the time — indicate in their declarations that they were aware of or considered these facts about the lock interrogation report when they decided to conduct their search of Young’s room. [5] Furthermore, Marweg’s declaration states that in his experience, guests who steal from the hotel rarely return, and that was his expectation with Young — but Young behaved contrary to this expectation by returning that same night to his room, suggesting that Marweg was now less likely to believe Young was a thief. This evidence does not support a conclusion by Hilton security staff that Young had committed room theft or provide grounds to evict Young from his room. Young’s return to his room and attempt to enter it are evidence Young still believed he was a guest at the hotel, a reasonable belief given that the hotel had not actually evicted him or told him that he was evicted. The Government’s contention that the Ninth Circuit’s earlier decision in United States v. Cunag, 386 F.3d 888 (9th Cir. 2004), controls this case also falls short. In Cunag, Peter Cunag sought to suppress stolen mail seized by police officers from his fraudulently procured hotel room. Id. at 889. At the time of check-in, Cunag provided materials that allegedly authorized his use of another individual’s credit card. Id. at 890. Upon inspection, hotel staff realized the materials were likely to be forgeries, and contacted the DMV and the credit card’s issuing bank, which confirmed Cunag’s fraud. Id. The hotel manager then locked Cunag out of the room and immediately contacted the police to file a crime report. Id. Three police officers arrived at the scene, and accompanied the manager to Cunag’s room at the manager’s request. The manager knocked several times, and after Cunag opened the door, the manager informed him that he needed to discuss the bill with him. Id. One of the officers smelled a “strong odor of smoke UNITED STATES v. YOUNG 8747 coming from the room” and was concerned that there might be a fire, so he stepped forward to enter the room. Id. Cunag responded by trying to close the door, but the officer persisted, pushed forward, and removed Cunag and the other inhabitants from the room. Id. The officers subsequently discovered the stolen mail and observed a burner on the room’s stove, and evidence that the occupants had been burning tissue. Id. In denying the motion to suppress, the district court considered all the submitted declarations and made findings of fact regarding Cunag’s credibility. Id. at 892-93. The court found that Cunag’s testimony was “farfetched at best,” and that he could not have had any reasonable expectation of privacy in the room because he obtained the room through outrageous “misstatements, lies, fraud, forgery.” Id. at 893. In affirming, this court held that the district court’s finding that Cunag obtained the room through fraud was fully supported by the evidence in the record, as was the finding that Cunag could not have had a subjective belief that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the room. Id. at 895. The court concluded that the hotel took “justifiable affirmative steps” to repossess the room by “[l]ocking out Cunag . . . in conjunction with registering a crime report with the police certainly satisfies the Dorais test.” Id. Accordingly, the court held that “Cunag never lawfully occupied the hotel room, the hotel reclaimed it before the entry took place, and he had no protected Fourth Amendment protection in it at the time of the incriminating search.” Id. at 896. [6] Unlike Bautista, Cunag is inapplicable to the facts presented here. Cunag involved a defendant who had been conclusively evicted from his hotel room after hotel management confirmed that the room had been procured through credit card fraud. The lockout was done with the clear intention of permanently removing Cunag from the room, as demonstrated by the simultaneous filing of the crime report with the police. 8748 UNITED STATES v. YOUNG Here, Young was placed on electronic lockout only as a temporary measure, in accordance with the hotel’s weapons policy, and hotel management was unaware of the possibility that Young had procured the room through fraud. The district court correctly took note of Hilton’s security policy, which states that when a room has been e-keyed and the guest returns, “he or she is to be advised that the room will not be cleaned or serviced while the weapon is left in the room unattended,” and then offered a “secured location on company hotel property, if available, for the storage of such weapon until the time of his or her departure.” The policy says nothing about evicting a guest whose room is found to contain a weapon. [7] The Government itself acknowledges that the hotel security staff could have taken affirmative acts of dispossession against defendant, including removing Young’s backpack from the room and leaving a note on his door that he had been evicted from the room. After reviewing the written policy and declarations, the district court did not clearly err in holding that the Hilton security guards intended to secure the room for safety purposes, not to evict Young, and therefore correctly discredited Marweg’s single statement to the contrary. In other words, the intent apparent to Young critically distinguishes Cunag from the circumstances before us now. Had the Hilton hotel staff genuinely intended to evict Young from the premises, it would have had to be readily apparent, as demonstrated through removal of Young’s belongings from the room, a note left on the door informing Young he had been evicted, the hotel staff telling Young he was evicted, or some combination of the above. None of those events occurred. Nothing in the record suggests that even if the hotel staff had discovered Young’s credit card fraud, they would have taken affirmative steps to immediately evict Young from the room, as the staff in Cunag did. Instead, it is entirely possible that hotel staff would have followed the course of action chosen by the hotel staff in Bautista, where the manager did UNITED STATES v. YOUNG 8749 not call the police to file a report but instead waited to speak to Bautista to see about alternative forms of payment. [8] Furthermore, Cunag’s fraudulent use of the credit card was front and center in that case. The district court held a suppression hearing and heard testimony from officers and from Cunag himself before making the factual finding that Cunag was “totally not deserving of any belief or credibility.” Cunag, 386 F.3d at 895. This court agreed that Cunag did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the hotel room after reviewing the district court’s factual findings and noting that the hotel, its manager, and agents “took justifiable affirmative steps to repossess room 320 and to assert dominion and control over it when they discovered and confirmed that Cunag had procured occupancy by criminal fraud and deceit.” Id. Here, the district court acknowledged the possibility of fraud, but correctly distinguished Young’s situation from that in Cunag by noting that hotel management was completely unaware of such a possibility and that, as a result, the alleged fraud did not destroy Young’s expectation of privacy in the room, just as it did not in Bautista. The Sixth Circuit’s decision in United States v. Allen, 106 F.3d 695 (6th Cir. 1997) also fails to support this appeal. Allen involved the search of a hotel room that took place after defendant’s rental period had expired because of his failure to pay the room rate, and after the motel manager took possession of the room upon discovering that defendant was keeping contraband in the room. 106 F.3d at 699. The Sixth Circuit held that the hotel’s repossession of the room extinguished Allen’s privacy interest in it, and that the manager’s actions were proper, “both because he was not allowed to store illegal drugs on the premises and because his pre-paid rental period had elapsed.” Id. Neither of those circumstances exist in the case here. At the time of the search, Young’s rental period had not elapsed, and the hotel staff had not evicted Young from his room. His privacy interest in the room therefore remained intact. 8750 UNITED STATES v. YOUNG [9] We therefore conclude that Young maintained a reasonable expectation of privacy because he had not been evicted, as required under the Dorais test, from the hotel room at the time of the warrantless search. B. United States v. Jacobsen and the Search of Young’s Hotel Room The Government argues, for the first time on appeal, that United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109 (1984) should be extended to permit the search of Young’s backpack stored in his hotel room. [10] Jacobsen involved a Federal Express package that was initially opened and searched by private employees, and after the employees notified authorities that the package contained contraband, authorities then searched and seized the package. 466 U.S. at 121-22. In reversing the Eighth Circuit, the Supreme Court held that “the package could no longer support any expectation of privacy,” and that “[s]uch containers may be seized, at least temporarily, without a warrant.” Id. at 121. The Court based its decision in part on the fact that “the tube and plastic bags contained contraband and little else,” and accordingly, the “warrantless search was reasonable, for it is well-settled that it is constitutionally reasonable for law enforcement officials to seize ‘effects’ that cannot support a justifiable expectation of privacy without a warrant, based on probable cause to believe they contain contraband.” Id. at 121-22. [11] This language suggests a very restricted application of the holding in Jacobsen, and there are no facts presented here that persuade us to expand Jacobsen’s decision to warrantless searches of private residences. The Sixth Circuit in Allen specifically rejected this line of argument: Unlike the package in Jacobsen, however, which “contained nothing but contraband,” Allen’s motel UNITED STATES v. YOUNG 8751 room was a temporary abode containing personal possessions. Allen had a legitimate and significant privacy interest in the contents of his motel room, and this privacy interest was not breached in its entirety merely because the motel management viewed some of those contents. Jacobsen, which measured the scope of a private search of a mail package, the entire contents of which were obvious, is distinguishable on its facts . . . . Allen, 106 F.3d at 699; see also United States v. Paige, 136 F.3d 1012, 1021 n.11 (5th Cir. 1998) (holding that applying Jacobsen to searches of private residences “would make the government the undeserving recipient of considerable private information of a home’s contents strictly through the application of an inflexible rule”). [12] We agree with the Sixth Circuit’s reasoning in Allen. It is a crime to possess cocaine, and the package in Jacobsen contained “nothing but contraband.” 466 U.S. at 120 n.17. This case is distinguishable from Jacobsen because neither the hotel room nor the backpack contained only contraband. It is not a crime in most circumstances for a non-felon to possess a gun, and the hotel did not know at the time of its private search that Young was a felon. The hotel could not have been “virtually certain,” as the postal workers were in Jacobsen, that the gun was contraband, and the closed backpack supported a reasonable expectation of privacy. Stoner, 376 U.S. at 490; Nerber, 222 F.3d at 600; see also United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 822-23 & n.30-31 (1982). Until a hotel guest’s lease of the room expires or he checks out, the room is like a home. United States v. Jeffers, 342 U.S. 48, 51-52 (1951). A guest has a legitimate and significant privacy interest in the room’s contents, and does not lose his expectation of privacy against unlawful government intrusions into his closed briefcase or the contents of his computer hard drive when hotel staff sees the briefcase, laptop, or other belongings while cleaning the room or changing a light bulb. See id. 8752 UNITED STATES v. YOUNG Closed packages or containers, such as Young’s backpack, “are in the general class of effects in which the public at large has a legitimate expectation of privacy,” making warrantless searches of them “presumptively unreasonable.” Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 114-15. Even in circumstances (none of which were present here) where government agents may lawfully seize a package to prevent loss or destruction of suspected contraband, “the Fourth Amendment requires that they obtain a warrant before examining the contents of such a package.” Id.; Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 14 n.14 (1948) (“Belief, however well founded, that an article sought is concealed in a dwelling house, furnishes no justification for a search of that place without a warrant. And such searches are held unlawful notwithstanding facts unquestionably showing probable cause.”). C. Inevitable Discovery Exception to the Exclusionary Rule The Government’s final argument is that the district court incorrectly applied the exclusionary rule in suppressing the fruits of Officer Koniaris’s search because the court failed to consider the viability of the inevitable discovery exception in this case. This doctrine also forms the basis of the dissent. [13] The inevitable discovery doctrine was first recognized by the Supreme Court in Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431 (1984). It states that if, “by following routine procedures, the police would inevitably have uncovered the evidence,” then the evidence will not be suppressed despite any constitutional violation. United States v. Ramirez-Sandoval, 872 F.2d 1392, 1399 (9th Cir. 1989). [14] Inevitable discovery does not govern in this case. The government has not shown by a preponderance of the evidence, see id. at 1396, that Young would never have been allowed back into his room. The Hilton weapons policy proUNITED STATES v. YOUNG 8753 vides for staff members to carry out the following steps to be taken after a weapon is discovered in a guest’s room: Immediately leave the guest room, lock the guest room door and notify Security . . . Security shall E- key the guest room without disturbing the weapon and leave a note on the door for the guest to call Security upon returning to the room . . . . When the guest returns, he/she is to be informed that company policy prohibits possession of weapons on company and/or hotel property and offered a secured location on company or hotel property, if available, for the storage of such weapon until the time of his/her departure. Hilton Hotels Corp., Standard Practice Instructions, Part