Opinion ID: 2091620
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Choosing a New Standing Test

Text: Turning to formulating a new standard, it is appropriate to recognize viable old principles. We begin with the fundamental tenet that constitutional protections are personal. Only an individual who belongs to the class for whose sake the constitutional protection is given can seek to invoke its protection. New York ex rel Hatch v Reardon, supra, p 160. See People v Warner, supra, pp 203-210 (opinion of WILLIAMS, J.); People v Norwood, supra, p 272, and cases cited therein; People v Oaks, supra, p 255; People v Joshua, supra, p 585. See also United States v Salvucci, supra, p 86; Rakas v Illinois, supra, pp 133-134; Brown v United States, supra, p 230; Alderman v United States, supra, p 174; Simmons v United States, supra, p 389; Jones v United States, supra, p 261. In the context of art 1, § 11, this means that the rights guaranteed by that provision can only be asserted at the instance of one whose own protection was infringed by the search and seizure. See Simmons v United States, supra, p 389. To establish standing to seek art 1, § 11-Am IV suppression, a defendant must show that he has a protectable interest under art 1, § 11. This brings us to the critical question. What is the interest protectable under art 1, § 11? The question is appropriately phrased in this manner, because it is clear that standing and the protectable search and seizure interest have been virtually synonymous. When the protectable interest was ownership of a home, standing was based on that ownership interest. When, with Gonzales and Jones, the protectable interest expanded from ownership, then the standing test was likewise expanded. Of course, in Rakas, supra, p 139, the opinion goes so far as to indicate that the concept of standing should be abandoned altogether and that we should use only the protectable interest test. Rakas stated: we think the better analysis forthrightly focuses on the extent of a particular defendant's rights under the Fourth Amendment, rather than on any theoretically separate, but invariably intertwined concept of standing. Later, the Rakas opinion, p 140, talks of dispensing with the rubric of standing. We need not here consider the utility of officially dispensing with the term standing, because this time-honored tool will in all probability remain in the vocabulary and lexicon of lawyers for a long time. It is not an empty label. It is a working concept. So what is the present magnitude and quality of defendant's right to protection under art 1, § 11? The long and short of it is that this Court has firmly enunciated and entrenched the definition of the right against unreasonable search and seizure in the test of reasonable expectation of privacy. As recently as December of 1983, in People v Nash, supra, pp 204-215, we agreed that Fourth Amendment interests were only implicated when the governmental activity infringed on a justifiable, or reasonable, expectation of privacy and that art 1, § 11 did not mandate a different standard. As long ago as April 1975, in People v Beavers, supra, pp 562-566, this Court clearly employed the reasonable expectation of privacy test in defining the scope of art 1, § 11 for purposes of ascertaining whether participant monitoring was within its ambit. In fact we relied on Katz v United States, 389 US 347; 88 S Ct 507; 19 L Ed 2d 576 (1967), in reaching our conclusion. As a consequence, both logic and experience uphold the propriety of making the test for standing the reasonable expectation of privacy test. We now so establish it.