Opinion ID: 3201827
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Analysis of the Fourth Amendment Search

Text: The Fourth Amendment provides: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated … .” The text of the Fourth Amendment “indicates with some precision the places and things encompassed by its protections: persons, houses, papers, and effects.” Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. —, 133 S. Ct. 1409, 1414 (2013) (citation and quotation marks omitted); see also United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. —, 132 S. Ct. 945, 950 (2012) (Fourth Amendment expresses “a particular concern for government trespass upon the areas (‘persons, houses, papers, and effects’) it enumerates”). Applying the Fourth Amendment to various common spaces in apartment buildings has been a source of considerable controversy. In cases decided before Jardines, we held that warrantless police intrusions into shared spaces in apartment buildings much like the basement here did not violate the 6 No. 14-3785 Fourth Amendment rights of tenants. United States v. Villegas, 495 F.3d 761, 767–68 (7th Cir. 2007) (internal duplex hallway); United States v. Concepcion, 942 F.2d 1170, 1172 (7th Cir. 1991) (shared entrance to apartment building); cf. United States v. Boden, 854 F.2d 983, 990 (7th Cir. 1988) (common area of rental storage unit facility). More recently, based on the intervening Supreme Court decision in Jardines, we have held that bringing a police dog to sniff for drugs outside an apartment door amounts to a search of the apartment interior that requires a warrant. United States v. Whitaker, — F.3d —, Nos. 14-3290, 143506, 2016 WL 1426484, at  (7th Cir. April 12, 2016). Sweeney does not challenge any factual findings by the district court, so we accept them, but we review the district court’s legal conclusions de novo. See United States v. Richards, 741 F.3d 843, 847 (7th Cir. 2014), citing United States v. Huddleston, 593 F.3d 596, 600 (7th Cir. 2010). We focus our attention on Jardines, where the majority and concurring opinions reflect two principal approaches to the Fourth Amendment’s protection. Each casts light on the warrantless search of the apartment building basement here. We address first the approach focused on the common law of property and whether the police committed a trespass when conducting the search. See Jardines, 133 S. Ct. at 1413–18 (trespass to property); Jones, 132 S. Ct. at 949–54 (trespass to chattel). We then turn to the second approach, focused on whether the person challenging the search had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the location that was searched. See Jardines, 133 S. Ct. at 1418–20 (Kagan, J., concurring); Jones, 132 S. Ct. at 957–64 (Alito, J., concurring in the judgment). No. 14-3785 7
In recent years, the Supreme Court has revived a “property-based approach” to identify unconstitutional searches. Jones, 132 S. Ct. at 950; see also id. at 949 (“The text of the Fourth Amendment reflects its close connection to property … .”). Under this approach, where the government has “physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information,” its intrusion is a search subject to the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 949. In Jones, police officers trespassed upon an “effect”—a car—by attaching a GPS tracker to its chassis. In Jardines, officers trespassed upon a “house”—a home’s porch—by conducting a dog-sniff at the front door. To establish a Fourth Amendment violation under this approach, there must be some trespass upon one of the protected properties enumerated by the Constitution’s text. This in turn requires courts to consider the scope of trespass at common law. Jones, 132 S. Ct. at 949 (Fourth Amendment case law historically “tied to common-law trespass”). Neither Jones nor the common law provides sharp boundaries for the meaning of trespass for our purposes. See Orin S. Kerr, The Curious History of Fourth Amendment Searches, 2012 Sup. Ct. Rev. 67, 90–91 (2012) (“The term ‘trespass’ could be understood as embracing a wide range of ideas.”); see also Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 31–32 (collecting cases that analyze meaning of trespass in Fourth Amendment context). The Restatement approach to trespass is a good starting point. See Laurent Sacharoff, Constitutional Trespass, 81 Tenn. L. Rev. 877, 891 (2014) (endorsing Restatement (Second) of Torts as best authority for discerning meaning of trespass for Jones inquiry). 8 No. 14-3785 Under the relevant Restatement definition, trespass means that one “enters land in the possession of the other.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 158 (Am. Law Inst. 1965); see also Jones, 132 S. Ct. at 949, quoting Entick v. Carrington, 95 Eng. Rep. 807, 817 (C.P. 1765), for the proposition that “no man can set his foot upon his neighbour’s close without his leave; if he does he is a trespasser, though he does no damage at all … .” Possession means “occupancy of land with intent to control it.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 157. And occupancy means to “manifest a claim of exclusive control of the land.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 157 cmt. a. Put together, then, to prove a claim of trespass, one must have possession of the property in question and the ability to exclude others from entrance onto or interference with that property. Sweeney cannot show any trespass on his property. He did not have any form of exclusive control over the basement. The basement was a common space, used by a number of residents. His lease gave him no exclusive property interest in any part of the area. It did not even give him the right to store items there. Nor could Sweeney have excluded someone from the basement. Suppose Sweeney had discovered a non-resident taking shelter in the basement who refused to leave. He could call his landlord for aid, but Sweeney himself could not sue the intruder for civil trespass on his property. See State v. Dumstrey, 859 N.W.2d 138, 144 (Wis. App. 2014), aff’d, 873 N.W.2d 502 (Wis. 2016), quoting State v. Nguyen, 841 N.W.2d 676, 681 (N.D. 2013), for the proposition that tenant has no right to exclude “technical trespassers in the common hallways” of apartment building. No. 14-3785 9 Rather, as Judge Adelman explained, any such trespass would be a trespass against the building owner, not against any individual tenants. See, e.g., Aberdeen Apartments v. Cary Campbell Realty Alliance, Inc., 820 N.E.2d 158, 166 (Ind. App. 2005) (collecting cases holding that landlord can sue for trespass to common areas of multi-unit dwellings); Commonwealth v. Thomas, 267 N.E.2d 489, 491 (Mass. 1971) (collecting cases and affirming denial of motion to suppress under very similar circumstances); Motchan v. STL Cablevision, Inc., 796 S.W.2d 896, 900 (Mo. App. 1990) (concluding that “a landlord, who retains control of common areas in a multi-tenant building, also retains possession of those areas so as to support an action for trespass to the common areas”). Only the building owner or landlord could bring suit, so only the owner or landlord could have objected to Officer Gasser’s warrantless search of the crawl space under the stairs. Accordingly, even if Officer Gasser committed a trespass, it was not Sweeney’s right under long-established tort law to exclude him. But whether or not there was a trespass, Sweeney also faces a separate obstacle: he cannot establish that police set foot onto an area for which the Fourth Amendment affords Sweeney protection. Not all trespasses by law enforcement are violations of the Fourth Amendment. See Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 183–84 (1984). For instance, under the “open fields” doctrine an officer may search for evidence on private land not within close proximity to a home on the property. Jardines, 133 S. Ct. at 1414, citing Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57 (1924); Andree v. Ashland County, 818 F.2d 1306, 1315 (7th Cir. 1987). To violate the Fourth Amendment, the trespass must occur on a 10 No. 14-3785 “constitutionally protected area”—that is, one explicitly enumerated in the text of the Fourth Amendment. Jardines, 133 S. Ct. at 1414, quoting United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276, 286 (1983) (Brennan, J., concurring). This includes the home, which extends to the “curtilage” of the home as well. Id. The basement was not recognizable as curtilage of Sweeney’s apartment. See United States v. Redmon, 138 F.3d 1109, 1128 (7th Cir. 1998) (en banc) (Evans, J., concurring) (“In a multi-unit apartment building there may in fact be no curtilage except perhaps in a separate area—like a basement storage locker—subject to one’s exclusive control.”). Other courts have held, often categorically so, that common basements of multi-unit buildings or closely related spaces are not part of the individual units’ curtilage. United States v. Brooks, 645 F.3d 971, 975–76 (8th Cir. 2011) (staircase leading to shared basement space in apartment building); United States v. King, 227 F.3d 732, 753 (6th Cir. 2000) (basement of a two-family dwelling); United States v. Cruz Pagan, 537 F.2d 554, 558 (1st Cir. 1976) (common basement garage of condominium building); Thomas, 267 N.E.2d at 491 (basement of three-story, six-unit apartment building, containing common space with laundry facilities); see also Carol A. Chase, Cops, Canines, and Curtilage: What Jardines Teaches and What It Leaves Unanswered, 52 Houston L. Rev. 1289, 1303 (2015) (“Generally speaking, appellate courts that have considered whether common areas in a multi-family dwelling are part of the curtilage of a dwelling have been reluctant to recognize curtilage protection for those areas.”). It is not necessary to decide categorically here that the basement of a multi-unit residential building is or is not always the curtilage of individual units. It is enough to say that No. 14-3785 11 it was not in this case. Curtilage is a common-law concept often defined in abstract terms. See Jardines, 133 S. Ct. at 1414– 15 (curtilage includes all of the “branches and appurtenants” of the home), quoting 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 223, 225 (1769); id. at 1415 (curtilage is that part of the property “intimately linked to the home, both physically and psychologically”), quoting California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207, 213 (1986); United States v. French, 291 F.3d 945, 951 (7th Cir. 2002) (curtilage is the “area outside the home itself but so close to and intimately connected with the home and the activities that normally go on there that it can reasonably be considered part of the home”), quoting Siebert v. Severino, 256 F.3d 648, 653–54 (7th Cir. 2001). At bottom, the underlying test is practical. If the Fourth Amendment shields the “right of a man to retreat into his own home” free from intrusion, then it must also protect against an officer “stand[ing] in a home’s porch or side garden” like a bold snooper looking for evidence or peering through the windows. Jardines, 133 S. Ct. at 1414. In most cases it is easy to say what the curtilage is. See Jardines, 133 S. Ct. at 1415. A porch, a small fenced-in yard, a gated walkway along the side of a house—all are obviously part of the curtilage. This common-sense understanding saves courts, police officers, and citizens from needing to apply nebulous, ad hoc, case-by-case standards with great uncertainty. Oliver, 466 U.S. at 181–82; United States v. Redmon, 138 F.3d 1109, 1138 (7th Cir. 1998) (en banc) (Rovner, J., dissenting). When we encounter novel questions about the scope of curtilage, we take into account the four Dunn factors: “(1) the proximity of the area in question to the home; (2) whether the area is included in an enclosure surrounding the home; (3) 12 No. 14-3785 how the owner uses the area; and (4) the measures taken to protect the area from observation.” Bleavins v. Bartels, 422 F.3d 445, 451 (7th Cir. 2005), citing United States v. Dunn, 480 U.S. 294, 301 (1987). In this case these factors show that the search here did not occur in any curtilage of Sweeney’s apartment. First, proximity: the basement was remote from the second-floor apartment, and Sweeney did not have a private basement storage space that was searched. There was no concern that officers might be able to prevent Sweeney from his right to “retreat into his own home” or that they could otherwise “observe his repose from just outside the front window.” Jardines, 133 S. Ct. at 1414. Second, an enclosure surrounding the home: Sweeney argues that the basement was within the “enclosure” of the apartment building’s walls, accessible only from within the individual apartments or by a locked rear door. Under Dunn, though, the question is not whether the area at issue was within the walls of the building, but whether it was enclosed and intimate to Sweeney’s apartment itself. It was not. Third, the nature of the use: Sweeney had no particular use of the basement that tied it to his own apartment. It served primarily as a shared laundry facility and location for utilities for all tenants. Sweeney did not use it for activities “intimately linked” to his home. Fourth, measures taken to protect the basement from observation by the public: This factor is a little more favorable to Sweeney. On one hand, as a basement space within a locked apartment building, it was unlikely to be seen by a member of the general public. On the other hand, there was no door to No. 14-3785 13 the basement itself once one was inside the back of the building, and tenants often allowed outsiders into the basement to do laundry. There is no evidence that Sweeney himself took affirmative steps to protect the basement area from observation. See State v. Dumstrey, 873 N.W.2d 502, 514 (Wis. 2016) (noting, in context of apartment parking garage, the curtilage inquiry “is not whether the [area] is generally shielded from the public at large,” but rather whether the person “has taken steps to shield the [area] from the view of passersby within the [area]”). While this last factor gives Sweeney a little ground for argument, when all factors are taken together, the basement was not within the curtilage of Sweeney’s apartment. The trespass or property-right theory for Fourth Amendment protection did not give Sweeney any rights in the basement crawl space. 2. The Fourth Amendment and Expectations of Privacy Neither party contends that Sweeney had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the basement of the apartment building, but we address the issue briefly in light of our recent decision in United States v. Whitaker, — F.3d —, Nos. 14-3290, 143506, 2016 WL 1426484 (7th Cir. April 12, 2016). As the district court noted, there is generally no reasonable expectation of privacy in shared and common areas in multiple-dwelling residential buildings. Harney v. City of Chicago, 702 F.3d 916, 925 (7th Cir. 2012) (walkway adjacent to condominium building but behind gate), citing, for instance, United States v. Villegas, 495 F.3d 761, 767–68 (7th Cir. 2007) (internal duplex hallway); see also United States v. Dillard, 438 F.3d 675, 683 (6th Cir. 2006) (collecting cases from circuit courts establishing lack of reasonable expectation of privacy in common areas of apartment buildings). 14 No. 14-3785 Here, where the basement space was “shared by all of the tenants” of the apartment building, see Harney, 702 F.3d at 925, there was no individualized storage space and no door or locked entry to the basement itself, it was not objectively reasonable that the space would be assumed private. This is true even though the exterior door of the building was locked to exclude persons who are not tenants of the building; the critical factor is that multiple tenants could enter and use the space. Id. This reasoning does not mean that law enforcement can freely use common spaces in apartment buildings to intrude into the privacy of apartment interiors. In Whitaker, police officers brought a drug-sniffing dog into an apartment hallway and had the dog sniff a particular apartment door. We held that the dog-sniff at the entrance was a search of the apartment itself and subject to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement, just as the use of other sense-enhancing technology would be. Whitaker, — F.3d at —, 2016 WL 1426484, at  (comparing dog-sniff to use of heat-sensing device, binoculars, or stethoscope to look into or listen to interior). Officer Gasser’s search of the basement crawl space in this case posed no similar danger of intrusion into the protected privacy of an apartment interior. Accordingly, the district court correctly denied the motion to suppress the firearm.