Court Opinion

ID: 9467255
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:43:00.108819+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:15.148108
License: Public Domain

*221TATE, Circuit Judge, concurring:
I am reluctant to hold, as the majority does, that the defendants did not have a legitimate expectation of privacy in the residence searched and, therefore, lacked standing to assert that evidence was seized as the result of an unconstitutional search. I concur, however, because the evidence was seized as the result of a valid search.
Rakas does seem to hold, as the majority states, that, to raise Fourth Amendment grounds contesting the validity of a search an accused must assert a property or a possessory interest in the property searched or at least a legitimate expectation of privacy with regard thereto. A majority of the Supreme Court extended this ruling, last term, to prevent even an accused charged with criminal possession of the evidence thereby seized from claiming the protection of the Fourth Amendment in the absence of a legitimate expectation of privacy in the area searched. United States v. Salvucci,-U.S.-, 100 S.Ct. 2547, 65 L.Ed.2d 619 (1980).
I do not, however, read these decisions as stating that the defendants must formally take the stand at a suppression hearing in order formally to claim a possessory interest in the contraband that they are charged with criminally possessing, or in the premises that they are charged with occupying as a stash house (warehouse for drugs) as part of a criminal conspiracy. It seems to me self-evident that persons such as the defendants who occupy a residence for (at the least) six weeks, as the government’s evidence shows, have a legitimate expectation of privacy in those premises-that the government cannot, without violating the Fourth Amendment, arbitrarily search those premises, without probable cause and either a warrant or exigent circumstances. The protection of individuals under the American constitution against unreasonable and warrantless searches and seizures of the premises they occupy does not desert them if they do not own or have a leasehold interest in the property, and I do not believe that Rakas (passenger in someone else’s automobile), Salvucci (apartment of the mother of one of the defendants), or Rawlings v. Kentucky,-U.S.-, 100 S.Ct. 2556, 65 L.Ed.2d 633 (1980) (purse of companion) intended to erode the constitutional protection of traditional American privacy rights in premises actually occupied by defendants, as in the ease now before us.
Rakas and its progeny intended to deprive a criminally accused of standing to attack the unconstitutionality of a search and seizure only when he himself was not the possessor or owner of the property searched. Here, the defendants had certainly possessed (occupied)' the premises for several weeks. They thus had standing to contest an unconstitutional search. They were not bystanders, visitors, or absentees from the scene, without ownership or possessory interest in the property search-such as those in Rakas et al., who were therefore held to lack standing.
I am reinforced in this view by the Court’s summary of the applicable principles in United States v. Payner, - U.S. - —,---, 100 S.Ct. 2439, 2444, 65 L.Ed.2d 468 (1980) (holding the accused had no standing to contest search of a third person’s briefcase):
This Court discussed the doctrine of “standing to invoke the [Fourth Amendment] exclusionary rule” in some detail last Term. Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 138, 99 S.Ct. 421, 427-428, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978). We reaffirmed the established rule that a court may not exclude evidence under the Fourth Amendment unless it finds that an unlawful search or seizure violated the defendant’s own constitutional rights. Id., at 133-140, 99 S.Ct., at 425-429. See, e. g., Brown v. United States, 411 U.S. 223, 229-230, 93 S.Ct. 1565, 1569-70, 36 L.Ed.2d 208 (1973); Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165, 171-172, 89 S.Ct. 961, 965, 22 L.Ed.2d 176 (1969); Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 389, 88 S.Ct. 967, 973, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968). And the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights are violated only when the challenged conduct invaded his legitimate expectation of privacy rather than that of a third *222party. Rakas v. Illinois, supra, 439 U.S., at 143, 99 S.Ct., at 430; id., at 149-152, 99 S.Ct., at 433-435 (POWELL, J., concurring); Combs v. United States, 408 U.S. 224, 227, 92 S.Ct. 2284, 2286, 33 L.Ed.2d 308 (1972); Mancusi v. DeForte, 392 U.S. 364, 368, 88 S.Ct. 2120, 2123, 20 L.Ed.2d 1154 (1968).
I concur, rather than dissent, however, because I do not find reversible merit presented by the sole attack made by the defendants upon the validity of the search of the residence: that the affidavit was insufficient under Aguilar-Spinelli standards.1

. As to the evidence seized from the van, pretermitting the Rakas issue, it was obtained as a result of the plain view exception to the warrant requirement.