Opinion ID: 345119
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Standing to Challenge the Ship Bottom Search.

Text: 54 The appellants next contend that their fourth amendment rights were violated by the admission of evidence obtained in the search of Chandler's room in the Drifting Sands Motel in Ship Bottom, New Jersey. After the indictment had been filed in this case, fourteen other defendants who were charged with related crimes filed motions to suppress certain evidence obtained in the Ship Bottom search and the search of Marianne Cook's house. 16 Although the trial court suppressed the contraband seized at the Drifting Sands Motel in New Jersey as to some defendants, the court denied appellants' motion to suppress on the ground that the appellants lacked standing to challenge the asserted illegality of both searches. Although the appellants were not on the premises of the New Jersey motel when the seizure was made, they urge two grounds upon which their standing is based. First, they contend that they had a possessory interest in the contraband at the time of the search. Second, they contend that they are entitled to constructive standing based on the self-contradiction of the prosecutor's position with respect to the evidence seized. In support of their first argument, the appellants note that the twenty-eight kilos of cocaine and several thousand pounds of marijuana were shipped to Cravero and Chandler around June 23, 1974. Since agent Short had testified that Gomez and Ramirez had not been paid by Cravero and Chandler for these drugs as of the end of July, 1974, the appellants contend that they still retained a proprietary interest in the drugs at the time that they were seized. They admit that some payment had been made by Cravero and Chandler to the defendants, but that the amount was insufficient to extinguish their proprietary interest. 55 The Government contends that the appellants had no reasonable expectation of privacy in room 201 of the Drifting Sands Motel in New Jersey. Relying on Brown v. United States, 411 U.S. 223, 93 S.Ct. 1565, 36 L.Ed.2d 208 (1973), the Government contends that the appellants lacked the requisite dominion and control over the cocaine. This court, in United States v. Hunt, 505 F.2d 931 (5th Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 421 U.S. 975, 95 S.Ct. 1974, 44 L.Ed.2d 466 (1975), further explicated the rule of standing as announced in Brown. The court noted that fourth amendment rights are personal and may not be asserted, for example, by one business partner with respect to a search of another partner solely on the basis of the partnership relation. The court held that: 56 (c)o-defendants and co-conspirators may not assert the Fourth Amendment rights of their alleged partners in crime solely on the basis of their interpersonal association, because Fourth Amendment rights are personal ones. (citation omitted). Since co-defendants and co-conspirators can often make out some semblance of a property right in the sorts of things that might be searched and seized from their cohorts, (Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165, (89 S.Ct. 961, 22 L.Ed.2d 176) (1969)) demonstrates once again the primacy of privacy in the modern Fourth Amendment schema. (sic) United States v. Hunt, 505 F.2d 931, 939 (5th Cir. 1974). 57 The defendants in the Hunt case, like the appellants here, were not present at the time of the search in question. They attempted to show a possessory interest in the seized materials by alleging that they held legal title to them. 58 After finding that their claim was a very tenuous one, the court stated as follows: 59 (w)hatever title defendants may possess in disputed evidence, we cannot help but reflect that this discussion of . . . legal title has taken us very far from the substance of Fourth Amendment rights. As we have indicated above, the constitutional right of protection against unreasonable searches and seizures attaches only when an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy is shattered by illegal Government intrusion. Whatever minimal possessory interest defendants may have in the seized equipment, we have been unable to discern the slightest privacy interest that defendants could reasonably assert in objects which they have never seen and of whose particular existence they were unaware until the disputed search and seizure. 505 F.2d 940-41. 60 Although the appellants, unlike the defendants in Hunt, had seen and were aware of the seized evidence, it is equally difficult to discern what privacy interest of the appellants was violated by the Government's search. 61 The appellants next contend that they are entitled to constructive standing based on prosecutorial self contradiction. This theory derives from Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697 (1960), wherein the Supreme Court noted the difficulty encountered when a defendant is charged with a crime involving possession of evidence which the defendant alleges was illegally seized. In such a case, the defendant is required to allege possession in order to have the requisite standing to challenge the search. By admitting possession, however, the defendant has admitted an essential element of the crime which he is challenging in the case in chief. Although the appellants in this case were charged with conspiracy to knowingly and intentionally import into the United States from a place outside thereof, and to possess with intent to distribute, divers quantities of cocaine, the Government contends that they were not charged with an offense which included as an essential element possession of the contraband at the time of the contested seizure. Following Jones, the Supreme Court in Brown v. United States, 411 U.S. 223, 93 S.Ct. 1565, 36 L.Ed.2d 208 (1973), held that, at least when prosecutorial self-contradiction is not a factor: 62 there is no standing to contest a search and seizure where . . . the defendants: (a) were not on the premises at the time of the contested search and seizure; (b) alleged no proprietary or possessory interest in the premises; and (c) were not charged with an offense that includes, as an essential element of the offense charged, possession of the seized evidence at the time of the contested search and seizure. 411 U.S. at 229, 93 S.Ct. at 1569. 63 Since the offense charged in this case does not include as an element of the crime possession of the seized item at the time of seizure, we believe that the question of constructive standing is foreclosed. Moreover, this case is controlled by yet another decision in which the Supreme Court held that a prosecutor may not use against a defendant at trial any testimony given by that defendant at a pretrial hearing to establish standing to move to suppress evidence. Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 88 S.Ct. 967, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968). As noted in Brown, Simmons has removed the danger of coerced self-incrimination. We simply see no reason to afford 'automatic' standing where as here, (there was no) risk to a defendant of either self-incrimination or prosecutorial self-contradiction. It is apparent, therefore, that the appellants were adequately protected by the safeguards announced in Simmons. Although they alleged a possessory interest for purposes of standing, their allegation of such possessory interest was not later used against them. They simply failed to demonstrate that the possessory interest in fact existed; as a result, they are not entitled to so-called constructive standing. 64