COURT FINDS STANDING TO REJECT SEARCH IN COMMON AREA OF MULTI-RESIDENT HOUSE

Law enforcement officers got an arrest warrant for Jeanine Daley in Brockton, Massachusetts. An informant told them that she recently saw Daley at 63 Menlo Street, a known sober residence and that Daley was hanging out there. The residence was a three story single family house with a number of non-related individuals living in it. Though the warrant had another address on it two officers went to the address where they confronted Jeffrey Cicerano, who’s name was on the lease. When Cicerano denied them entry they threatened to kick down the door. Cicerano opened the door to talk to the officers. The officers rushed past him into the residence. They ordered Cicerano to gather the residents of the house together so that the officers could question them. While Cicerano was gathering everyone together the officers saw James Werra, one of the residents in a room adjoining the foyer. They saw a pocket knife clip attached to one of Werra’s pockets. They removed the knife and pat searched Werra, finding a gun. They arrested him. He challenged the arrest on the basis that the officers neither had probable cause to search him and that their entry into the residence was illegal.

Werra rented the third story from Cicerano but when there was too much partying on the third floor he slept on a couch in the living room. Together with his brother he had moved furniture into the living room.

The government claimed that Werra did not have standing to challenge a search which occurred in the Foyer since he rented the third floor. The question before the First Circuit Court of Appeals was whether the residence was similar to a single family house where each resident has standing since they share the entire house or a multi-resident apartment house where residents have limited standing based upon the area they rent.

The test is that individuals only have standing to challenge searches of areas where they have an expectation of privacy in the area and it is an expectation that society finds acceptable.

The appellate court upheld Werra’s expectation of privacy. First it found no cases where an expectation of privacy was denied to the residents of a single family house. Second, it found that Werra had access to most of the residence including the living room where he would sleep on the couch. The court noted that instead of each individual paying rent to the owner, Cicerano rented the house and some of his friends lived there and helped pay the rent. Overall the court found that the residents acted more like a family than like apartment dwellers. They share space and often used community spaces together as a group. Therefore it found that Werra had the ability to exclude non residents from the building and that society recognized his privacy right in the building.

The Court had little trouble finding the search to be illegal. While there might be some question as to whether the officers had probable cause to believe that Daley lived at the residence it found that they had no evidence that she was at the residence at the time they entered the residence without consent. Since Werra had a privacy interest in the entire house including the foyer and since the search was illegal it reversed the trial court’s denial of his motion to suppress and found him not guilty.