Court Opinion

ID: 9618642
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:14:49.740213+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:31:57.453538
License: Public Domain

ROVNER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
I join all but section 11(A) of the court’s opinion, in which the court sustains Officer Lutz’s warrantless entry into the duplex on the ground that Mr. Villegas had no legitimate expectation of privacy in the duplex’s common hallway. Ante at 767-69. Although the court’s analysis on that point is consistent with prior holdings of this circuit and certain of our sister circuits, I respectfully decline to join it for two reasons.
First, it is unnecessary for us to decide whether Mr. Villegas had a cognizable expectation of privacy in the duplex hallway. As we proceed to hold in section 11(B) of today’s decision, even if Officer Lutz violated Mr. Villegas’s Fourth Amendment rights by entering the hallway without a warrant, that violation would not compel the suppression of the statements that Mr. Villegas subsequently made as to his identity. The probable cause that Officer Lutz had to arrest Mr. Villegas supported his post-arrest detention even if it did not support the officer’s warrantless entry into the duplex to make the arrest. Consequently, the statements that Mr. Villegas made while in custody were not subject to the exclusionary rule. Ante at 770-71.
Second, I find the line of cases categorically rejecting any Fourth Amendment protection for the hallways and other common areas of multi-unit residential buildings, see ante at 768, to be conceptually problematic. Essentially, these cases reason that because the resident of a multi-unit building does not have exclusive access to and control over a common hallway, but rather shares that hallway with other building residents and their guests, he can have no reasonable expectation of privacy in the hallway. United States v. Concepcion, 942 F.2d 1170, 1172 (7th Cir.1991); see also United States v. Miravalles, 280 F.3d 1328, 1331-32 (11th Cir.2002) (collecting and summarizing cases). But the relevant question, it seems to me, is not whether the hallway is accessible to *772other residents and their invitees, but whether the hallway is accessible to the public at large. When the common hallway of a multi-unit building is secured, as Mr. Villegas alleges that his duplex’s entry hall typically was, a resident of that building reasonably may expect that a nonresident — including a police officer — can lawfully enter the building only with the permission of himself or another resident. That expectation is comparable to the expectation of privacy held by people who live together in a single home. We do not say that cohabiting adults have no reasonable expectation of privacy in their shared residence although both have access to some if not all of the premises and either one may admit others; rather, we recognize that each has a cognizable privacy interest for Fourth Amendment purposes and that a police officer normally cannot enter without the consent of at least one resident. See Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U.S. 103, 126 S.Ct. 1515, 164 L.Ed.2d 208 (2006); United States v. Matlock, 415 U.S. 164, 94 S.Ct. 988, 39 L.Ed.2d 242 (1974). I discern no reason why the same principle ought not to hold vis-a-vis the secured common areas of a multi-unit residential building. See United States v. Dillard, 438 F.3d 675, 683 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 127 S.Ct. 291, 166 L.Ed.2d 222 (2006) (“Tenants have a reasonable expectation of privacy in locked common areas because a ‘tenant expects other tenants and invited guests to enter in the common areas of the building, but he does not expect trespassers.’ ”) (quoting United States v. Carriger, 541 F.2d 545, 551 (6th Cir.1976)); United States v. Holland, 755 F.2d 253, 259 (2d Cir.1985) (Newman, J., dissenting); Sean M. Lewis, Note, The Fourth Amendment In The Hallway: Do Tenants Have A Constitutionally Protected Privacy Interest In The Locked Common Areas Of Their Apartment Buildings?, 101 Mich. L.Rev. 273 (2002). Otherwise, by declaring that residents have absolutely no expectation of privacy in such areas, we are necessarily saying that the police are free to enter these areas without the consent of any resident of the building and once there walk drug-sniffing dogs up and down hallways, eavesdrop outside of individual unit doorways, and so forth. I believe that such intrusions defy the reasonable expectations of those who live in buildings with secured common areas.
A more plausible (and narrow) ground for saying that the warrantless entry in this case did not intrude upon a cognizable privacy interest might be that the hallway happened to be unlocked when Officer Lutz stepped inside. Although I would hesitate to say that Mr. Villegas and the other residents of the duplex necessarily forfeited any subjective expectation of privacy in the common hallway when they (whether inadvertently or intentionally) left the outer doors open and the inner screen doors unlocked, a police officer confronting an unlocked screen door might think that the common hallway was open to the public and, therefore, open to him as well. See Dillard, 438 F.3d at 682 (“By not locking the duplex’s doors, Dillard did nothing to indicate to the officers that they were not welcome in the common areas.”); United States v. Mendoza, 281 F.3d 712, 715 (8th Cir.2002) (“In the instant case, Mendoza did nothing that would lead the officers to believe he had a protectable interest in the common area of his duplex. He made no efforts to secure the outer door.”); see also Miravalles, 280 F.3d at 1333.
In any event, because we do not need to reach the issue, I believe it would have been more prudent to leave it for another case in which we do.