Court Opinion

ID: 9494013
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:26:33.432751+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:10.130327
License: Public Domain

COLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Although I concur in the Court’s decision affirming the judgment of the district court, I write separately to register my disagreement with the Court’s analysis of the admissibility of police testimony relating to an officer’s insertion of a key into the lock on Defendant Jambu’s apartment door. Specifically, I do not agree with the majority’s conclusion in Part VI of its opinion that the officer’s use of the key for identification purposes was not a search.
The majority relies too heavily on our decision in United States v. DeBardeleben, 740 F.2d 440 (6th Cir.1984), where we held that the insertion of a key into the lock of a car door for the purposes of ascertaining the car owner’s identity was not a search. See id. at 445. Our decision in DeBardele-ben merely reflects our long-standing view that, for Fourth Amendment purposes, individuals are entitled to a lesser degree of privacy in their cars than in their homes. See United States v. McClellan, No. 93-4084, 1994 WL 589497, at *4 (6th Cir. Oct.25, 1994) (unpublished) (“The courts have traditionally interpreted the Fourth Amendment to allow law enforcement officers greater leeway when conducting war-rantless searches inside vehicles than they enjoy when searching homes....”). In this instance, the officer’s turning of the key in the lock to Jambu’s apartment door encroaches on the “zone of privacy” held most sacrosanct under the Fourth Amendment. See Smith v. Stone, No. 99-3208, 2000 WL 687672, at *4 (6th Cir. May 19, 2000) (unpublished) (“[T]he Fourth Amendment protects an individual’s privacy in many different settings, but ‘[i]n none is the zone of privacy more clearly defined than when bounded by the unambiguous dimensions of an individual’s home.’ ”) (quoting Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 589, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980)).
*462I would adopt the reasoning set forth by the Seventh Circuit in United States v. Concepcion, 942 F.2d 1170 (7th Cir.1991), where, on facts very similar to those presented here, the court held that the insertion and turning of a key in the defendant’s apartment door lock to determine whether the key fit constituted a search for Fourth Amendment purposes. See id. at 1172. The court went on to conclude, however, that such search did not violate the Fourth Amendment because the defendant’s privacy interest in the keyhole was minimal. See id. at 1173. The same is true here. The Fourth Amendment’s historic protection of the privacy of the home suggests that, on different facts, the same investigative technique at issue here might require a showing of probable cause or a warrant; on these facts, however, Jambu’s privacy interest in his door lock was so minimal that the officer’s conduct cannot be said to have been unreasonable, and thus did not violate the Fourth Amendment. I write separately, therefore, because I believe that the Court need not reach as broad a holding as it does.