Opinion ID: 3054405
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Rawia

Text: [6] Rawia did not share her parents’ expectation of privacy in the home and, thus, is not entitled to challenge the legality of the search. In determining whether Rawia had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the home, we must look at the totality of circumstances. See Rawlings, 448 U.S. at 104. Although Rawia had free access and a key to the house, she did not own the house and did not live there at the time of the search. She claimed that she stored items in Mohammad’s safe, but we have never held that storage alone confers a Fourth Amendment interest in the area searched. See, e.g., United States v. Davis, 932 F.2d 752, 757 (9th Cir. 1991) (holding that a party had a Fourth Amendment interest because he both stored items in a safe and paid part of the rent for the apartment in which the safe was kept). Moreover, even if the jury believed she had a claim to any of the money, mere ownership of the item seized does not entitle its owner to challenge the search of the area in which it was found. See Salvucci, 448 U.S. at 92. In light of the totality of circumstances, Rawia has not met her burden in establishing a legitimate expectation of privacy. UNITED STATES v. EL FARRA 973 (2) Other Issues A. Applicability of Crawford v. Washington [7] The district court did not err in admitting statements Mohammad made to the police during and after the search of the house. According to appellants, the testimony was barred by the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. In Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 68-69 (2004), the Supreme Court held that the Confrontation Clause prohibits the introduction of “testimonial” out-of-court statements4 by witnesses whom the accused had no opportunity to confront. Although some constitutional protections apply to civil forfeiture proceedings, the Supreme Court long ago established in United States v. Zucker, 161 U.S. 475, 481 (1896), that the Confrontation Clause does not, and there has been no indication since Crawford that the Court will revisit its holding in Zucker. B. Spoliation [8] The district court did not abuse its discretion by denying appellants’ motion to dismiss. Appellants moved to dismiss on the basis of spoliation. Their argument was that the series years on the bills seized by the Narcotics Unit would have tended to show that they belonged to Basel, who claimed to have earned them long ago, and not Mohammad, who would have earned them more recently. According to appellants, the Government had deprived them of the ability to prove that the currency was old by depositing it in a bank, thereby despoiling evidence essential to their claims. 4 Testimonial statements include those made during police interrogations. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 52, 68. 974 UNITED STATES v. EL FARRA Under its inherent power to control litigation, a district court may levy sanctions, including dismissal of the action, for spoliation of evidence. Leon v. IDX Sys. Corp., 464 F.3d 951, 958 (9th Cir. 2006) (citing Anheuser-Busch, Inc. v. Natural Beverage Distribs., 69 F.3d 337, 348 (9th Cir. 1995)). However, sanctions may issue only when a party had some notice that the evidence was potentially relevant. See Leon, 464 F.3d at 959; United States v. Kitsap Physicians Serv., 314 F.3d 995, 1001 (9th Cir. 2002); see also Akiona v. United States, 938 F.2d 158, 161 (9th Cir. 1991). A party does not engage in spoliation when, without notice of the evidence’s potential relevance, it destroys the evidence according to its policy or in the normal course of its business. See Kitsap Physicians, 314 F.3d at 1001-02 (affirming the district court’s finding of no spoliation when potentially relevant documents were destroyed in the defendants’ normal course of business). [9] Appellants contend that they gave the Government notice of the relevance of the bills when Basel told the police at the time of the search that the bills belonged to him and that he had earned them long ago. This, however, was not adequate notice. It is unreasonable to expect that, from these statements, the police were meant to divine that evidence of the series years, which indicate a bill’s age, should somehow be preserved. At no subsequent point until the motion was filed in September 2006, nearly a year after the complaint and a year and a half after the search, was there a request for the preservation of the bills. Considering the currency’s marginal relevance and appellants’ inadequate notice, the district court did not err in denying appellants’ motion to dismiss.