Fourth Amendment

Courts continue to get property law wrong when trying to apply it to the Fourth Amendment

/ Fourth Amendment, Personal Property, Trespass

As happened in the Supreme Court cases of Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U.S. 103 (2006) and United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012), the Sixth Circuit has used property law concepts to interpret the Fourth Amendment while misunderstanding what the property laws in force. US v. Jones held that the fourth amendment was violated when police put a tracking device on a car because that would have been a trespass to chattels. Most states, however, do not recognize a trespass to personal property unless it is damaged or commandeered. In an extension of Jones,the Sixth Circuit found a violation of car owners’ property rights (and a violation of the fourth amendment) when parking attendants drew chalk lines on car tires to keep track of how long they had been there for the purpose of parking laws. Taylor v. City of Saginaw, 922 F.3d 328 (6th Cir. 2019). Chalk lines wash off …

Courts continue to get property law wrong when trying to apply it to the Fourth Amendment Read More »

Can an owner or inhabitant of real property give police the right to search property when a co-owner or coinhabitant objects?

/ Concurrent or Common Ownership, Estates and Future Interests, Fourth Amendment, Leaseholds, Marital Property, Trespass

The Appeals Court of Massachusetts held that the police could search a closed suitcase in a common closet of a bedroom when given permission to do so by the defendant’s coinhabitant. Commonwealth v. Hernandez,93 Mass. App. Ct. 172, 2018 Mass. App. LEXIS 48 (Mass. App. Ct. 2018). This ruling was based on traditional rules of property law that give tenants in common rights of access to the property they both own. The court noted that any coinhabitant had the right to consent to a search of her home, her bedroom, and her closet because these were areas where both inhabitants shared joint access or control. The Supreme Court reached the opposite conclusion in the case of Georgia v. Randolph,547 U.S. 103 (2006) when it held that the police could not enter property owned by a married couple when one (but not the other) objected to entry. The Massachusetts case is consistent with …

Can an owner or inhabitant of real property give police the right to search property when a co-owner or coinhabitant objects? Read More »

Expectation of privacy voids government search of car in driveway without a warrant but not if parked in shared lot

/ Fourth Amendment, Trespass

The Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment precludes search of a car parked in the driveway to a home without a warrant in Collins v. Virginia,138 S. Ct. 1663 (U.S. 2018), while a number of other courts have held that there is no such expectation of privacy for cars parked in shared lots. United States v. Jones,2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 16409, 2018 WL 3028685 (2d Cir. 2018); State v. Dumstrey,2016 WI 3, 873 N.W.2d 502 (Wis. 2016).

Scroll to Top