People v. Rodriguez

• Decision Date: 17 February 1987
• Parties: , 505 N.E.2d 586 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Gabriel RODRIGUEZ, Appellant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 75

513 N.Y.S.2d 75

69 N.Y.2d 159, 505 N.E.2d 586

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Gabriel RODRIGUEZ, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Feb. 17, 1987.

Lawrence Marks, Philip L. Weinstein and Meira Rosenberg, New York City, for appellant.

Mario Merola, Dist. Atty. (Elisa F. Spatola and Peter D. Coddington, New York City, of counsel), for respondent.

OPINION OF THE COURT

BELLACOSA, Judge.

We conclude that defendant has no reasonable or constitutionally recognizable expectation of privacy and, therefore, no standing to seek suppression of evidence seized in an initially warrantless search. The judgment of conviction for one count of criminal possession of drugs in the second degree was rendered upon defendant's guilty plea after denial of the suppression motion. We affirm the order of the Appellate Division, 107 A.D.2d 1093, 485 N.Y.S.2d 671, unanimously upholding that conviction.

Defendant was alone in a Bronx apartment, not his own, to which he had gone to purchase drugs. He was sleeping on a sofa bed when he was discovered and arrested. The only other connection he had with this apartment was that he had allegedly stayed over several times before. Indeed, a woman arrested elsewhere earlier in the day for driving without a license and possession of a weapon had informed police that defendant had committed serious felony assaults upon her in the apartment and that there were drugs and guns there. She then brought the police there and let them in with her key. Defendant had previously tried to leave the apartment with a stereo, also not his, but failed because the door had been locked in such a way as to prevent exit from within. When the police entered the apartment, they rousted the defendant from the sofa bed and, noticing a bulge under the bed sheet, discovered a plastic bag containing white powder. The white powder, later determined to be narcotics, was seized and the defendant was arrested shortly after 8:00 P.M. After the arrest, all waited in the apartment while a search warrant was secured, pursuant to which the police discovered narcotics, narcotics paraphernalia and 18 rounds of ammunition in addition to the previously plainly viewed bullets and hypodermic needles scattered around the apartment.

The invocation of the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures (N.Y. Const., art. I, § 12; U.S. Const. 4th and 14th Amends.) and its exclusionary enforcement (Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 34 S.Ct. 341, 58 L.Ed. 652; Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081), require personal standing to challenge the government's action (Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165, 89 S.Ct. 961, 22 L.Ed.2d 176; Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 99 S.Ct. 421, 58 L.Ed.2d 387; United States v. Salvucci, 448 U.S. 83, 100 S.Ct. 2547, 65 L.Ed.2d 619; People v. Ponder, 54 N.Y.2d 160, 445 N.Y.S.2d 57, 429 N.E.2d 735).

The focal point of the constitutionally protected interest for purposes of the threshold standing requirement has evolved over many years. Early cases defined the scope of the protection in terms of property interests. The culmination occurred in 1981 when we held that the search and seizure entitlement under our own State Constitution was sufficient if accorded only to those with standing and that there was no reason to apply a more generous standing rule than was allowed under the Federal constitutional standard (People v. Ponder, 54 N.Y.2d 160, 445 N.Y.S.2d 57, 429 N.E.2d 735, supra; compare, People v. Class, 63 N.Y.2d 491, 483 N.Y.S.2d 181, 472 N.E.2d 1009).

Historically, in order to challenge the legality of a search a defendant had to show some possessory or proprietary interest in the property seized or the area searched (Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 48 S.Ct. 564, 72 L.Ed. 944). In Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697, the Supreme Court expressed the nature of the interests protected by the Fourth Amendment in terms of privacy: "it is entirely proper to require of one who seeks to challenge the legality of a search * * * that he * * * establish, that he himself was the victim of an invasion of privacy" (id., at p. 261, 80 S.Ct. at 731). The court then announced that anyone "legitimately on [the] premises" had automatic standing to challenge the legality of the search (id., at p. 267, 80 S.Ct. at 734; see also, Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576; Mancusi v. DeForte, 392 U.S. 364, 88 S.Ct. 2120, 20 L.Ed.2d 1154).

Finally, in Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 99 S.Ct. 421, supra, the court refined this analysis into the legitimate expectation of privacy as the initial inquiry used to determine whether a defendant was entitled to claim protection under the exclusionary rule. In so doing the court significantly curtailed application of the "legitimately on [the] premises" test set forth in Jones. "[W]e believe that the phrase 'legitimately on [the] premises' coined in Jones creates too broad a gauge for measurement of Fourth Amendment rights * * * [T]he holding in Jones can best be explained by the fact that Jones had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the premises he was using" (id., at pp. 142-143, 99 S.Ct. at 429-430).

Most importantly, the Rakas court began to define the boundaries of what may constitute a "legitimate" privacy interest. In considering whether the defendant may claim a privacy interest, a court must determine whether a claim of privacy "is reasonable in light of all the surrounding circumstances" (id., at p. 152, 99 S.Ct. at 435 [Powell, J., concurring] ). Among the factors to be considered are whether the individual took precautions to maintain privacy, the manner in which the individual used the premises and whether the individual had the right to exclude others from the premises. The common-law evolution of this doctrine is illustrated by the fact that the old property interest notion is not discarded but rather retained and built upon as one of the factors to be examined in erecting standing. Thus, the extent and nature of an individual's property interest in a particular place or thing may be considered as one indicator of "society's explicit recognition of a person's authority to act as [one] wishes in certain areas" (id., at p. 153, 99 S.Ct. at 435).

A showing of a possessory or proprietary interest in the item seized by itself, however, is not the determinative factor on the issue of standing (Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98, 100 S.Ct. 2556, 65 L.Ed.2d 633). The number of times a person stays in a particular place, the length and nature of the stay, the indicia of connectedness and privacy, like change of clothes or sharing expenses or household burdens, are all factors which may alone or in combination with other factors support a reasonable expectation of privacy which is protected by the Fourth Amendment (see, People v. Farinaro, 101 A.D.2d 891, 476 N.Y.S.2d 356 [2d Dept.]; People v. Lewis, 94 A.D.2d 44, 462 N.Y.S.2d 884 [1st Dept.]; People v. Van Buren, 87 A.D.2d 900, 449 N.Y.S.2d 366 [3d Dept.] ). The burden of demonstrating the factors and their reasonableness to support the legal conclusion is on the defendant (Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 149, 99 S.Ct. 421, 433, supra; People v. Ponder, 54 N.Y.2d 160, 166, 445 N.Y.S.2d 57, 429 N.E.2d 735, supra).

The principle that these rights are personal and may not be vicariously asserted (Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 88 S.Ct. 967, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247) is understandable in view of the underlying purpose of the...