Okay, I figure the masses here are up to this task. I can’t really find anything on point. I’m afraid I know the answer, but nothing really sticks out.
Let’s say that Cecil Adams owns a three bedroom home. I decide to rent one of the back bedrooms from Cecil for a few hundred bucks per month. Unbeknownst to me, Cecil is a cocaine dealer.
Executing an otherwise valid warrant specifying Cecil and his entire home as the object of the search for cocaine and related records, the police bust down the door and storm into my bedroom. My cell phone is on the dresser.
I am handcuffed, Terry frisked, and escorted outside. All legal under Michigan v. Summers.
A few minutes later the cops come outside and ask me if that is my cell phone on the dresser. I say “Yes.”
The cops look on the cell phone and find evidence that I have stolen a car, unrelated to the current drug bust. I am arrested.
Query:
Was the search warrant valid as applied since my name wasn’t on it?
Was the warrant valid for the confiscation of my phone, even after the officer knew it was mine?
Would it make a difference if I knew that Cecil was selling cocaine?
Would it make a difference if my text messages related to Cecil (and I) both selling cocaine?
Would it matter if the police knew I was renting the bedroom from Cecil?
IOW, does a renter like me in this situation have a 4th amendment interest separate and apart from any probable cause that might cause the homeowner to have a warrant issued against him?
Everything I have found deals with roommates and consent searches. My hypo is not a consent search, but with a warrant.
Don’t assume everything has an answer. I’m sure you could find similar cases reported, but this apmay be an area where both sides have decent arguments. Gerpnerally, however. 1) your name doesn’t have to be on the ear rent, if valid for entire house. 2). Not sure. I see arguments both ways. 3) no. 4)no. They either had a right to look at your phone or they didn’t. They can’t create justification based on what they found. 5). Don’t think so
In Peoria IL a man using the twitter handle @peoriamayor was sending out tweets portraying the mayor as a “foul-mouthed politician with a penchant for liquor, drugs and prostitutes.”
The mayor had the police locate the responsible party, raid his house, and charge him with impersonating a public official. Unfortunately for his roommate, they found some illegal drugs belonging to the roommate while they were there.
I guess it depends on the jurisdiction, but Warrants don’t necessarily specify a person.
For instance, a Warrant may specify a particular part of a self storage depot where the owner may be unknown or even a false identity used by a person who rented that specific part of the storage area.
I’m pretty sure the search warrant is valid for the structure as a whole, not for a certain person’s stuff, so they’re in their legal right to confiscate your cell phone, SO LONG AS they had a good reason to look in your room (the sugar bowl maxim).
However, I’m not so sure that the evidence that you stole the car would necessarily be admissible in a court case- it seems like an extension of the same concept to me; the warrant specifically grants law enforcement power to search for specific things- in this case, drug dealing stuff. Finding that you’d stolen a car would be outside of the scope of the warrant, and probably not admissible in court.
That probably would not stop them from arresting you, but it would mean that you’d be off the hook for the theft.
But say that they claimed that they were looking for drug related texts on my phone and happened upon the car theft conversation. Must they ignore it? I don’t think that’s correct.
I was exploring the idea that as a renter, I had an independent right to privacy of the back bedroom (which is exclusively mine under our oral lease). If I have a right to exclude Cecil from that bedroom, then the warrant shouldn’t have specified my room, no?
IOW, what if the warrant specified that the police could search the entire block under the theory that Cecil may have stashed drugs in one of the homes? Wouldn’t the neighbors have a right to suppress anything found in their homes?
Both 1 and 2 are okay. 3, 4, and 5 don’t matter. And it depends on how the police came upon the knowledge that you stole a car to determine how to treat that scenario.
Different districts disagree on the extent to which cell phones can be searched for records, so it also depends on what federal district you are in.
I don’t think a general warrant for all homes on a certain city block would be either granted, or valid if granted.
I think you’re skipping over the most important part of the analysis when you say in the OP
The entire thing depends on whether and why the warrant is good. The warrant either should or shouldn’t have specified your room, depending on whether probable cause exists for the search. If the warrant was good for a search of Cecil’s entire house, then they could and should have searched your room and everything in it, because probable cause existed for that search. And if (somehow) there was probable cause to search an entire city block’s worth of buildings, then same deal.
But all of this depends on the specific facts available at the time the warrant is being sworn out. If we assume the warrant is good, the analysis is over. If we assume those facts don’t exist, the warrant’s no good, and the analysis is still over.
The cops now need a warrant to search the contents of the cell phone itself. But beyond that, the warrant would be good for your “part” of the house unless the cops had reason to believe it was a separate residence.
@ Jimmy Chitwood - This isn’t necessarily true. The warrant can be granted and the search executed based on the valid warrant, then later the facts arise that cast doubt on whether the warrant should have been initially granted. At the time of the search the warrant was valid. Later it was not. How do you treat the results of the search?
Evidence that is obtained through a valid warrant can be inadmissible if it’s later determined the warrant to be defective. I read a temporal element in your statement, “If we assume the warrant is good, the analysis is over.” My assumption was that you meant at the time of the search, but that was my own inference.
Do you have a case cite for that proposition? You are saying that if the cops didn’t know about my subletting (which they probably wouldn’t) then they don’t have to get a separate warrant. If a citizen wants to have 4th amendment protection in his home must he register any oral leases with the police? Is there even a way to do that?
Further, the cell phone case deals with a search incident to arrest which is not applicable here. Let’s assume that this warrant deals with any “cellular telephones found in the home.” Remember, the cop asked if it was my phone and I told him yes. Did that question put him on notice that he needed an additional warrant? Or since it was found in the house, he’s good?
You don’t have to register your oral lease, but if officers are unaware that there are “separate residences” in a single house (or that an apartment building floor is two separate apartments) then they have a good faith exception (provided the warrant is otherwise valid).
You didn’t mention in your hypothetical (I hope it’s a hypothetical) whether you told the police you are a renter with a separate, personal expectation of privacy. But I imagine that would be the controlling question.
Well, your warrant doesn’t specify that the contents of any cellphone can be searched. If Riley v. CA means anything, it seems to be that a warrant is required to search a phone. If the police find phones during a search, there’s no reason they can’t obtain a supplemental warrant to search them.