People v. Juarez

• Decision Date: 17 April 1989
• Docket Number: No. 88SA281,88SA281
• Citation: 770 P.2d 1286
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. David J. JUAREZ, Defendant-Appellee, and Mary Ferencz, Maxine Juarez, David Rodriquez, and Ronald Anselmo Molina a/k/a Ronald Edmundson, Defendants.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

Page 1286

770 P.2d 1286

PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. David J. JUAREZ, Defendant-Appellee and Mary Ferencz, Maxine Juarez, David Rodriquez, and Ronald Anselmo Molina a/k/a Ronald Edmundson, Defendants.

No. 88SA281.

Supreme Court of Colorado En Banc.

April 17, 1989.

Barney Iuppa, Dist. Atty., Robert M. Brown, Chief Deputy Dist. Atty., Colorado Springs, for plaintiff-appellant.

Jeralyn E. Merritt, Denver, for defendant-appellee.

VOLLACK, Justice.

In this interlocutory proceeding, the prosecution appeals the El Paso County District Court order suppressing evidence seized by law enforcement officers during a search of a vehicle owned by one of the defendants in this narcotics case, David Juarez. We reverse the suppression order and remand the case for further proceedings.

I.

In February 1988, the Colorado Springs Police Department began surveillance of a single family residence located at 943 Shrider Road. One of the defendants, Mary Ferencz, had leased this residence for three months under the name Mary Jordan, at the direction of Ronald Edmundson. Ferencz lived at a different address in Colorado Springs. The utilities at the residence were listed under the name of Dean Lopez, although no individual with this name was ever located during the investigation. Another defendant, David Rodriquez, was staying at the Shrider Road residence, allegedly for the purpose of guarding the contraband stored there.

Federal criminal complaints were filed and federal warrants issued against Ronald Edmundson and Maxine Juarez for obstruction of justice charges arising from unrelated criminal activities in Pennsylvania. When the Colorado Springs FBI office learned of the FBI complaints and warrants on March 14, 1988, the FBI agents and local police department began a "joint operation." Two days later, surveillance officers observed a white Ford Bronco being driven from the Shrider Road address. The Bronco was being driven by an adult male and was known to be registered to Edmundson. Because Colorado Springs Police Officer Alvis knew that an FBI fugitive warrant had been issued for the registered owner of the Bronco he stopped the vehicle. The driver identified himself as David Rodriquez but could not produce identification. Rodriquez explained to the officer that he had borrowed the Bronco from Edmundson, who was in Arizona at the time. Officer Alvis followed Rodriguez to the Shrider Road residence in order for Rodriquez to produce his driver's license. Upon discovering that Rodriquez' Arizona driver's license was suspended, Officer Alvis issued a traffic ticket to Rodriquez and left.

Later that afternoon, officers saw Edmundson and Rodriquez leave the Schrider Road address in a gold Mercedes. The Mercedes was stopped and Edmundson and Rodriquez were arrested. Having located Edmundson, the FBI agents and police officers returned to the Shrider Road address to look for Maxine Juarez, the other individual named in the FBI warrant. At approximately 2:00 p.m., they entered the residence with a key obtained from Rodriquez.

Upon entering the house, Colorado Springs Police Officer Berggren observed a bag of marijuana lying on the kitchen counter. The officer found bales of marijuana inside two closets in the garage and inside a Chevrolet Suburban (Suburban) parked in the two-car attached garage. Mary Ferencz was the registered owner of the Suburban. The agents and officers did not find Maxine Juarez in the Shrider Road residence.

The officers left the residence and obtained a search warrant using the information they had obtained by entering the Shrider Road residence to establish probable cause for issuance of the warrant. The officers returned to the Shrider Road residence with the search warrant and conducted a more thorough search of the house and the Suburban, pursuant to the warrant. At this point, there was a blue van parked in the circular driveway outside the house. The officers searched the van, which was registered to Maxine Juarez' husband, David Juarez, and had been purchased by him two days earlier. The van contained almost 1,000 pounds of marijuana. ¹

Later the same day, Maxine Juarez was located and arrested at a local motel. Her motel room was registered in her husband's name for a six-day period beginning March 12, 1988. Mary Ferencz, who had rented the adjoining hotel room, was present in Maxine Juarez' room and was also arrested. A bag of marijuana seen on an item of luggage was seized from the hotel room.

The five defendants ² were each charged by information with three counts: possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, ³ conspiracy to commit distribution of marijuana, ⁴ and special offender status for purposes of sentence enhancement. ⁵

The narrow subject of this appeal is the suppression motion filed by David Juarez. Juarez asked the trial court to suppress the evidence seized from his Chevrolet van, the Suburban, the house, and the garage. The trial court applied the rule "that in order to have standing, a person claiming the standing would have to be able to show some legal or physical relationship to the house or the vehicles in order to gain standing." The trial court found "no evidence showing any connection between the residence and the vehicle other than its presence in the circular driveway." Based on this, the court initially ruled that with regard to both the residence and the vehicles, David Juarez had no standing to challenge the search and seizure. Later in the hearing, however, the court reversed itself in part, holding that because Juarez was the owner of the van, he was entitled to challenge the search and seizure of the evidence seized from his van.

The trial court ruled and the prosecution has conceded that there were no exigent circumstances to justify the warrantless entry into the Shrider Road residence.

The prosecution has asked this court to address three issues arising from the suppression order as it pertains to David Juarez. First, we must decide whether David Juarez had standing to contest the warrantless search of the Shrider Road residence. Second, we decide whether the language in the search warrant directing the officers to search "all vehicles" on the property included the van parked in the driveway. Third, we must determine whether the search warrant affidavit contained probable cause to support a search of the van parked in the driveway.

II. Standing

The fourth amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures is personal and cannot be vicariously asserted. People v. Whisler, 724 P.2d 648, 649 (Colo.1986); People v. Cobb, 690 P.2d 848, 851 (Colo.1984). Before a defendant can challenge the constitutionality of a governmental search, he must establish that he has standing; to have standing, he must have "a legitimate expectation of privacy in the areas searched or the items seized." People v. Naranjo, 686 P.2d 1343, 1345 (Colo.1984); People v. Tufts, 717 P.2d 485, 489 (Colo.1986). The concept of standing "focuses on whether the person seeking to challenge the legality of a search as a basis for suppressing evidence was himself the 'victim' of the search or seizure." Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 132, 99 S.Ct. 421, 424, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978). In ruling on standing, "a court will consider, among other factors, whether an individual has a possessory or proprietary interest in the areas or items which are the subject of the search." Naranjo, 686 P.2d at 1345. The defendant bears the burden of establishing standing to challenge the legality of a search, and the issue "must be resolved in view of the totality of circumstances in a particular case." Tufts, 717 P.2d at 490. Whether an asserted expectation of privacy is "legitimate" depends on objective factors, not on the individual's subjective expectations. Id.

The standing question at issue here is whether David Juarez had standing to challenge the officers' illegal entry into the Shrider Road residence and the observations made by them as a result of the illegal entry. When a suppression motion is filed in a criminal case "on the ground that the evidence was obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, there may be put in issue the question of whether the movant is a proper party to assert the claim of illegality and to seek the remedy of exclusion." 4 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment § 11.3, at 279 (1987) (hereinafter LaFave). The trial court held that the warrantless search of the Shrider Road residence was not constitutionally protected "and the motion with regard to suppression of evidence within that house should be granted with regard to the persons having standing for that suppression order." (Emphasis added). If we conclude that David Juarez has standing to challenge the illegal house entry, then those parts of the affidavit that are based on the officers' observations in the house and garage must be excised from the affidavit before the affidavit is evaluated for probable cause.

The trial court here found, however, that there was "no evidence showing any connection between the residence and the [outside] vehicle other than its presence in the circular driveway." Because Juarez had no expectation of privacy in the Shrider Road residence, he did not have standing to challenge the search warrant.

"A person who is aggrieved by an illegal search and seizure only through the introduction of damaging evidence secured by a search of a third person's premises or property has not had any of his Fourth Amendment rights infringed." Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 134, 99 S.Ct. 421, 425, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978) (emphasis added).

The defendant asks us to conclude that he has standing to challenge the search warrant authorizing a search of the Shrider Road residence. If we decide that he does have standing to challenge the search warrant, then the evidence seized from the residence cannot be used to establish probable cause for search...