Court Opinion

ID: 9493304
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:04:26.874073+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:46.310532
License: Public Domain

GOULD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent because, in this case with nationwide importance to law enforcement, the majority inexplicably disregards controlling precedent of the United States Supreme Court. First and foremost, this case is clearly, fairly and inescapably controlled by Minnesota v. Carter, 525 U.S. 83, 119 S.Ct. 469, 142 L.Ed.2d 373 (1998). In that case, the United States Supreme Court held that the subjects of warrantless surveillance had no reasonable expectation of privacy in an apartment rented by another person where (a) they were in the apartment only for a short period of time, (b) they were there solely to conduct a commercial transaction (to divide a quantity of cocaine into bags), and (c) they had no previous connection or relationship with the lessee. See id. at 90, 119 S.Ct. 469. Here, the very same factors are present: The surveillance of defendants took place in a hotel room rented by law enforcement agents on behalf of government informants. Defendants were present in the room for only two hours. They were there solely to conduct a “commercial” transaction (a cocaine purchase). And they had no previous connection or personal relationship with the FBI agents and King County Police who had rented the room, nor is there any suggestion that defendants had a substantial personal relationship with the informants. The Supreme Court’s holding and rationale in Minnesota v. Carter compel the correct conclusion that defendants had no reasonable expectation of privacy.
This conclusion is only reinforced by the fact that defendants were in a room rented and controlled by government agents for use by informants. It was within the informants’ room that defendants were seeking to participate in an illegal drug transaction and ultimately brandished them firearms, albeit at a time when the informants had left the room. See United States v. White, 401 U.S. 745, 749, 91 S.Ct. 1122, 28 L.Ed.2d 453 (1971) (“no protection to a wrongdoer’s misplaced belief that a person to whom he voluntarily confides his wrongdoing will not reveal it.”) (plurality opinion; citation and internal quotation omitted); Hoffa v. United States, 385 U.S. 293, 314, 87 S.Ct. 408, 17 L.Ed.2d 374 (1966) (“The risk of being overheard by an eavesdropper or betrayed by an informer *607or deceived as to the identity of one with whom one deals is probably inherent in the conditions of human society.”) (quoting Lopez v. United States, 373 U.S. 427, 465, 83 S.Ct. 1381, 10 L.Ed.2d 462 (1963) (Brennan, J., dissenting)); United States v. Little, 753 F.2d 1420, 1435 (9th Cir.1984) (Fourth Amendment does not protect wrongdoer’s “misplaced confidences”). Where the room rented by others and used by defendants for a transient illegal purpose was indeed rented by government agents for use by informants, it is even more clear that defendants had neither a legitimate nor a reasonable expectation of privacy because Minnesota v. Carter applies with more force when combined with the informant cases.
Those who would hatch illicit plots to traffic in drugs while brandishing firepower should rent their own rooms.