Section 6.15 Expectation of Privacy Doctrine

• Library: DWI 2014

A person’s legitimate expectation of privacy in the place searched or things seized invokes the protection of the Fourth Amendment. State v. Brown,382 S.W.3d 147, 157–58 (Mo. App. W.D. 2012). The determination of whether a defendant has a legitimate expectation of privacy involves a two-prong test.

1. First, a person must have demonstrated a subjective expectation of privacy.

2. Second, the expectation must be one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable.

By law, legitimization of expectations of privacy must have a source outside of the Fourth Amendment, either by reference to concepts of real or personal property law or to understandings that are recognized and permitted by society. Id.; see also Katz v. United States,389 U.S. 347 (1967).

In Brown,382 S.W.3d 147, a mother rented a car for her daughter to drive back and forth to work. The daughter, in turn, gave the defendant permission to borrow the vehicle. The car was found apparently abandoned in a parking lot at the scene of a shooting. The police investigating the shooting observed that the vehicle had a gun in it. No one came forward to claim the vehicle at the parking lot so the officers seized it and had it towed. On the same day the car was towed, the daughter of the woman who had rented the car went to the police station asking about the car and attempting to retrieve it. Id. at 153.

The police informed her of her Miranda (Miranda v. Ariz., 384 U.S. 436 (1966)) rights and questioned her about the vehicle. She informed them that her mother rented it for her use and that she loaned it to the defendant on the night of the shooting. Brown, 382 S.W.3d at 154.She informed the officers that in the early morning hours following the shooting, the defendant contacted her and told her that there had been a shooting and that he had to leave the car at the scene to...