Tilghman v. State
| Decision Date | 23 June 2021 |
| Docket Number | NO. PD-0676-19,PD-0676-19 |
| Citation | 624 S.W.3d 801 |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
| Parties | Michael Joseph TILGHMAN, Appellant v. The STATE of Texas |
Michael McCarthy, for State.
Paul M. Evans, for Appellant.
After hotel management smelled marijuana smoke coming from a guest room, a hotel employee knocked on the door in an attempt to evict the guests. After this attempt was unsuccessful, a manager later requested police assistance with evicting the guests. In assisting with the eviction, police entered the hotel room and witnessed drugs in plain view. Police then arrested the occupants of the room, conducted a search of the room incident to arrest, and seized the drugs. Was there a Fourth Amendment violation such that the drug evidence was subject to suppression? The short answer is no, because once the hotel took affirmative steps to evict the occupants of the room, those occupants no longer had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the room. We reverse the judgment of the court of appeals which held that the trial court erred in failing to grant Appellant's motion to suppress.
Appellant Michael Joseph Tilghman and two other men rented Room 123 at the San Marcos Fairfield Marriott Hotel. When the hotel's day manager walked by Appellant's room, he smelled marijuana smoke. The hotel had a no-smoking policy as well as a policy prohibiting illegal activity on hotel grounds. Therefore, the day manager instructed an employee to evict the occupants. The employee knocked on the door of Room 123, but there was no response. A "gentleman" told the employee that "they were gone."
When night manager Joshua Chapman arrived for his shift at around 10:30 p.m., he was apprised of the situation. Chapman also received a call from the day manager instructing him to evict the occupants of Room 123. Before attempting any eviction, Chapman first walked by the room and smelled the marijuana smoke himself. This satisfied him that an eviction was appropriate. But, given the fact that there were multiple men in the room and knowing that drugs were involved, Chapman called the police for assistance with the eviction.
San Marcos Police Officers Daniel Duckworth and Austin Smith responded to Chapman's request for assistance with the eviction. Upon their arrival, Chapman informed them of the situation involving marijuana smoke, the fact that the hotel had tried to evict the men earlier but that no one responded to the employee's knocking, and that he needed their help in evicting the men from Room 123. As soon as another officer arrived as backup, Chapman led the officers to the room. Officer Smith knocked on the door multiple times. Receiving no answer, on the third attempt, Officer Smith announced himself as a police officer. While there was still no response, officers could hear whispering from inside the room. Officer Duckworth told Chapman that the police officers "did not have the right to enter the room, but [Chapman] did." Chapman then used his key to unlock the door and Officer Duckworth opened it.
Upon opening the door but while standing outside the room, Officer Duckworth saw two men standing in the hallway of Room 123 and heard the toilet flushing in the bathroom. He asked if there was anyone else in the room. One of the men visible to Officer Duckworth indicated that there was another man in the bathroom, at which point the man in the bathroom popped his head out and was holding a razor as though he had been shaving. But, Officer Duckworth noted that there was no water or shaving cream on his face. Based on Officer Duckworth's training and experience as a police officer, the delay in answering the door, the sound of a toilet flushing, and the man's explanation that he had been shaving despite having a dry face all led him to believe there was a possibility that drug evidence was being destroyed. As he testified at the suppression hearing,
Despite his concern over evidence being destroyed, Officer Duckworth remained outside the room and informed the men that "they were no longer welcome at the hotel and that the management was requesting that they gather their belongings and leave." He also informed the men that police had been knocking on the door and no one responded. The men stated that they were playing guitar and did not hear any knocking. Officer Duckworth testified that there were no guitar sounds coming from the room—only whispering.
After Officer Duckworth notified the men that the hotel was evicting them, he stepped into the room. As he crossed the threshold of the room, one of the room's occupants invited the officers in. Officer Duckworth testified that the officers needed to enter the room out of concern for officer safety "because typically with narcotics comes firearms and weapons." He also was concerned about destruction of evidence, but his primary purpose was to ensure officer safety during the eviction.
After instructing the men to collect their belongings, the officers1 initially stood in different parts of the room watching the men gather their things. But after observing narcotics in plain view, including marijuana and methamphetamine, the officers arrested Appellant and his co-defendants. Appellant was subsequently charged with possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver in an amount more than 4 but less than 200 grams.2 Appellant and one of the co-defendants filed motions to suppress the evidence obtained inside the hotel room.
After hearing the testimony of Officer Duckworth and night manager Chapman,3 the trial court denied Appellant's motion to suppress. The court made findings of fact and conclusions of law stating that: (1) the defendant had a diminished expectation of privacy in the room based on his eviction by hotel staff for hotel policy violations; (2) Chapman had a right to enter the room to facilitate the eviction, and Officer Duckworth also had a right to enter to assist Chapman in the eviction; (3) the contraband was found in plain view and allowed officers to lawfully arrest Appellant and his co-defendants; (4) narcotics discovered in the hotel room's trash can were found pursuant to a lawful search incident to arrest; (5) even if Appellant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the hotel room, the officers had probable cause to believe a crime was being committed in the room based on the information relayed by hotel staff and that exigent circumstances existed to justify the warrantless entry; and (6) even if exigent circumstances did not exist to justify the entry, Appellant's co-defendant consented to Officer Duckworth's entry.4 After the motion to suppress was denied, Appellant pled guilty and was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment.
In reversing the trial court's denial of Appellant's motion to suppress, the court of appeals held that, without advanced notice of eviction, Appellant maintained a reasonable expectation of privacy in the hotel room and there were no exigent circumstances which justified the police officers’ entry. Tilghman v. State , 576 S.W.3d 449, 462, 465 (Tex. App.—Austin 2019). It further held that the co-defendant's consent to entry was not voluntary. Id. at 467. In reaching its conclusion that Appellant maintained an expectation of privacy in the room at the time of the officers’ entry, the court of appeals placed great emphasis on the following facts elicited at the motion to suppress hearing: (1) each hotel room contains a binder which includes Marriott's no-smoking policy; (2) the no-smoking policy provides that violators will be assessed a "fee" but says nothing about possible eviction; (3) Chapman testified that Marriott has a policy that prohibits illegal activity and requires violators to leave the premises, but Chapman was unaware of any rental agreement that describes that policy for guests; and (4) Chapman did not believe that any notice of eviction had been slid under the door of Room 123. The court also relied on the Supreme Court's decision in Stoner v. California , in which the Court held that a hotel guest has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his hotel room and that a hotel clerk may not consent to a search of the occupant's room at law enforcement's request. Id. at 459, 462 (citing 376 U.S. 483, 84 S.Ct. 889, 11 L.Ed.2d 856 (1964) ). The court of appeals ultimately determined that because Appellant had no notice that he could be evicted under the no-smoking or illegal activity policies and had no advanced notice of the eviction before police arrived, he was not lawfully evicted and retained his expectation of privacy in the hotel room at the time police entered. Id. at 461-62. Therefore, the court held that the warrantless entry by law enforcement violated Appellant's Fourth Amendment rights. Id. at 462.
Justice Kelly dissented. She concluded that police did not enter Appellant's room to search it as was the case in Stoner , but instead entered to assist the hotel with an eviction. Tilghman , 576 S.W.3d at 469 (Kelly, J., dissenting). She further noted that "Texas law does not require that a hotel guest be notified in advance that he could be evicted for committing illegal activity on hotel property," and that both parties agreed that at the time officers entered the hotel room, the hotel had the right to evict Appellant. Id. at 469, 471. In Justice Kelly's view, because the hotel had the right to evict Appellant for using drugs on the premises in violation of hotel policy, it was lawful for hotel staff to call the police to effectuate the eviction, including allowing police to enter Appellant's room. Id. at 470–71 (citing Voelkel v. State , 717 S.W.2d 314 (Tex. Crim. App. 1986) ). She also...
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King v. State
...to evict a guest, control of the hotel room reverts to the hotel, and the guest loses his reasonable expectation of privacy therein." 624 S.W.3d 801, 810 (Tex. Crim. App. 2021).Another example is seen in Granados , 85 S.W.3d at 226. There, the Court of Criminal Appeals held that an apartmen......
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...been extended to hotel guests in their rooms. Stoner v. California, 376 U.S. 483, 490, 84 S.Ct. 889, 893, 11 L.Ed.2d 856 (1964); Tilghman, 624 S.W.3d at 807; Moberg State, 810 S.W.2d 190, 194 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991). As such, hotel staff may not consent to a law enforcement search of an occu......
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...guest, control of the hotel room reverts to the hotel, and the guest loses his reasonable expectation of privacy therein." 624 S.W.3d 801, 810 (Tex. Crim. App. 2021). example is seen in Granados, 85 S.W.3d at 226. There, the Court of Criminal Appeals held that an apartment tenant's "indefin......
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