Opinion ID: 154170
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Defendants' Standing To Challenge the Searches

Text: 38 Whether a defendant has standing to challenge a search is a legal question subject to de novo review. United States v. Eylicio-Montoya, 70 F.3d 1158, 1161 (10th Cir. 1995). The district court concluded that the defendants lacked standing to challenge directly the searches of the vehicles. Defendants do not contest that conclusion on appeal. In any event, we agree with the district court. A defendant has standing to challenge a search only if he or she has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the area being searched. Id. at 1162. In Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 148-49 (1978), the Supreme Court held that a passenger who asserts neither a possessory nor a property interest in a vehicle would not have a legitimate expectation of privacy in the vehicle protected by the Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, we have held that a defendant in sole possession and control of a car rented by a third party has no standing to challenge a search or seizure of the car. United States v. Jones, 44 F.3d 860, 871 (10th Cir. 1995). Defendants here have not demonstrated that they had a legitimate possessory or ownership interest in the rented cars; accordingly, they lack standing to challenge the searches of the vehicles. 39 Defendants do, however, have standing to challenge their detention. We distinguish passenger standing to directly challenge a vehicle search from passenger standing to seek suppression of evidence discovered in a vehicle as the fruit of an unlawful stop, detention, or arrest. Eylicio-Montoya, 70 F.3d at 1162. If the physical evidence found in the vehicles was the fruit of the defendants' unlawful detention, it must be suppressed. Id. at 1162-64; United States v. Miller, 84 F.3d 1244, 1250 (10th Cir. 1996). This requires a two part inquiry: first, whether the defendants were unlawfully detained, and second, whether the discovered evidence was the fruit of that unlawful detention. Miller, 84 F.3d at 1250. Only if both of those questions are answered in the affirmative will the physical evidence found in the vehicles be suppressed.