Opinion ID: 2091620
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: reasonable expectation of privacy test

Text: Since neither constitution nor public policy requires or commends the automatic standing test, the next obvious question is what test should this Court adopt for search and seizure standing. In the past we have employed various tests to determine whether a defendant has standing. We now find that the development of jurisprudence has made these tests obsolete. We therefore adopt a new test, the reasonable expectation of privacy test.
Historically, the earlier Michigan standing cases used a possessory test. People v Norwood, supra, p 272 (rights in the premises); People v Oaks, supra, p 255 (merely a tenant of a stall in [another's] garage  not defendant's home insufficient); People v Bartoletta, 248 Mich 499, 501; 227 NW 763 (1929) ([w]hether the officers were in and at the saloon in violation of the constitutional right of its proprietor to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures is no concern of defendant driving a car full of beer to a saloon); People v Azukauckas, 241 Mich 182, 184; 216 NW 408 (1927) ([t]he protection accorded homes may well be left to the householder to assert and we can see no reason for letting the `guests' raise the question of immunity); People v Anscomb, 234 Mich 203, 206; 208 NW 45 (1926) (difficult to see how this defendant could complain of an act unlawfully committed in the search of another's home). All these cases arose during the era of Prohibition and demonstrate two things. First, standing is related to ownership. Second, standing is a personal right that cannot be exercised vicariously. These cases parallel the contemporary federal case law to a considerable extent. See Jones v United States, supra, pp 265-267. However, it is a parallel development rather than a following of precedent, because the Michigan cases were decided at a time when the states were free to fashion their own rules as to the exclusion of evidence. Mapp v Ohio, 367 US 643; 81 S Ct 1684; 6 L Ed 2d 1081 (1961); Wolf v Colorado, 338 US 25; 69 S Ct 1359; 93 L Ed 1782 (1949). See also 78 ALR2d 246, 250-251. The next significant and only other search and seizure standing case is People v Gonzales, 356 Mich 247; 97 NW2d 16 (1959). In Gonzales an automobile was stopped by two police officers after they observed that a headlamp was not burning. The driver was taken back to the scout car by one of the officers for purposes of issuing a citation. Meanwhile, the second officer ordered the passengers, one of them the defendant, out of the car so he `could check it.' People v Gonzales, supra, p 251. He then saw the butt of a pistol sticking out from under the front seat and picked it up. The defendant admitted ownership of the gun, and a search of his person uncovered a .38 caliber cartridge. On the merits, the Court held that under these facts the police had no right to search the car in which defendant was riding. With reference to defendant's standing to attack the constitutionality of the search and seizure, and without citation of authority, this Court stated: Further, we believe that on the facts in this case defendant had the right to raise the constitutional objection. There is no showing of any waiver of the objection by anyone. And though defendant apparently had only the status of a passenger, when the first requirement of the search (and a material one to its outcome) was that defendant remove himself from the seat in the automobile where he had a right to be, we regard the search as directly affecting him. People v Gonzales, supra, p 257. It is clear from its language that this Court was particularly impressed with defendant's right to be in the car. See People v Sims, 23 Mich App 194, 198-200; 178 NW2d 667 (1970), aff'd 385 Mich 621; 189 NW2d 41 (1971). [16] Gonzales preceded the federal Jones case by a year, but its holding was similar to that of Jones in rejecting the refusal to grant standing to guests and invitees. Jones, supra, p 265. Thus, Gonzales, without expatiating on the subject, moved away from the narrow ownership test for standing of the previous cases. Jones, however, did speak more fully to what Gonzales had in fact indicated. Jones spoke as follows: We are persuaded    that it is unnecessary and ill-advised to import into the law surrounding the constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures subtle distinctions, developed and refined by the common law in evolving the body of private property law which, more than almost any other branch of law, has been shaped by distinctions whose validity is largely historical. Even in the area from which they derive, due consideration has led to the discarding of these distinctions in the homeland of the common law. See Occupiers' Liability Act, 1957, 5 and 6 Eliz 2, c 31, carrying out Law Reform Committee, Third Report, Cmd 9305. Distinctions such as those between `lessee,' `licensee,' `invitee' and `guest,' often only of gossamer strength, ought not to be determinative in fashioning procedures ultimately referable to constitutional safeguards. Jones v United States, supra, pp 266-267. See Rakas v Illinois, supra, p 143; People v Sims, supra, pp 198-200.
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.