Standing to Suppress Evidence
RAKAS v. ILLINOIS, Supreme Court of the United States (1978), 439 U.S. 128, 99 S.Ct. 421
FACTS:
Rakas and another were convicted of armed robbery of persons working in a clothing store. A police description of the getaway automobile alerted other officers to the fact of the robbery and escape of the felons. After the automobile carrying Rakas had been stopped, the subsequent search of the car revealed a box of shells and a sawed-off rifle.
The trial court refused to consider the motion to suppress the evidence seized from the car on the ground that Rakas was merely a guest passenger in the automobile of a friend and lacked legal standing to contest the constitutionality of the search. The basis for the conclusion that Rakas had asserted no Fourth Amendment expectation of privacy concerned his lack of declared ownership or possession of the car, rifle, or shells.
The evidence was admitted against Rakas and he and his fellow felon were convicted. The Appellate Court of Illinois affirmed the conviction. The Illinois Supreme Court refused to hear the case and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.
PROCEDURAL QUESTION:
Where an automobile search has been conducted and no person within the auto made any claim to ownership of the auto or the incriminating evidence within, does such a person have standing under the Fourth Amendment to contest the legality of the search?
HELD: No.
RATIONALE:
Mr. Justice REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.
* * *II
Petitioners first urge us to relax or broaden the rule of standing enunciated in Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697 (1960), so that any criminal defendant at whom a search was "directed" would have standing to contest the legality of that search and object to the admission at trial of evidence obtained as a result of the search. Alternatively petitioners argue that they have standing to object to the search under Jones because they were "legitimately on [the] premises at the time of the search.
The concept of standing discussed in Jones 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 and seizure. Id., at 261, 80 S.Ct., at 731.
* * *
As we stated in Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165, 174, 89 S.Ct. 961, 966, 22 L.Ed.2d 176 (1969), "Fourth Amendment rights are personal rights which, like some other constitutional rights, may not be vicariously asserted."
(Citations omitted.) 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. Alderman, supra, 394 U.S., at 174, 89 S.Ct., at 966. And since the exclusionary rule is an attempt to effectuate the guarantee of the Fourth Amendment, United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 347, 94 S.Ct. 613, 619, 38 L.Ed.2d 561 (1974), it is proper to permit only defendants whose Fourth Amendment rights have been violate to benefit from the rule's protections. [Citation omitted.]
* * *
In support of their target theory, petitioners rely on the following quotation from Jones:
"In order to qualify as a `person aggrieved by an unlawful search and seizure' one must have been a victim of a search or seizure, one against whom the search was directed, as distinguished from one who claims prejudice only through the use of evidence gathered as a consequence of a search or seizure directed at someone else." 362 U.S., at 261, 80 S.Ct., at 731 (emphasis added).
They also rely on Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U.S. 543, 548, n. 11, 88 S.Ct. 1788, 1791, 20 L.Ed.2d 797 (1968), and United States v. Jeffers, 342 U.S. 48, 72 S.Ct. 93, 96 L.Ed. 59 (1951).
* * *
In Jones the Court set forth two alternative holdings: It established a rule of "automatic" standing to contest an allegedly illegal search where the same possession needed to establish standing is an essential element of the offense charged; and second it stated that "anyone legitimately on premises where a search occurs may challenge its legality by way of a motion to suppress." 362 U.S., at 264, 267, 80 S.Ct., at 732, 734. (Citations omitted.) Had the Court intended to adopt the target theory now put forth by petitioners, neither of the above two holdings would have been necessary since Jones was the "target" of the police search in that case. Nor does United States v. Jeffers, supra, or Bumper v. North Carolina, supra, support the target theory. Standing in Jeffers was based on the property seized. (Citations omitted.) Similarly, in Bumper, the defendant had a substantial possessory interest in both the house searched and the rifle seized. 391 U.S., at 548 n.11, 88 S.Ct., at 1791.
In Alderman v. United States, Mr. Justice Fortas, in a concurring and dissenting opinion, argued that the Court should "include within the category of those who may object to the introduction of illegal evidence `one against whom the search was directed.'" 394 U.S., at 206-209, 89 S.Ct., at 985.
* * *
The Court's opinion in Alderman counseled against such an extension of the exclusionary rule:
"The deterrent values of preventing the incrimination of those who rights the police have violated have been considered sufficient to justify the suppression of probative evidence even though the case against the defendant is weakened or destroyed. We adhere to that judgment. But we are not convinced that the additional benefits of extending the exclusionary rule to other defendants would justify further encroachment upon the public interest in prosecuting those accused or crime and having them acquitted or convicted on the basis of all the evidence which exposes the truth." Id., at 174-175, 89 S.Ct., at 967.
Each time the exclusionary rule is applied it exacts a substantial social cost for the vindication of Fourth Amendment rights. Relevant and reliable evidence is kept from the trier of fact and the search for truth at trial is deflected. See United States v. Ceccoline, 435 U.S. 268, 275, 93 S.Ct. 1054, 1059, 55 L.Ed.2d 268 (1978); Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 489-490, 96 S.Ct. 3037, 3050, 49 L.Ed.2d 1067 (1976); United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S., at 348-352, 94 S.Ct., at 620-622. Since our cases generally have held that one whose Fourth Amendment rights are violated may successfully suppress evidence obtained in the course of an illegal search and seizure, misgivings as to the benefit of enlarging the class of persons who may invoke that rule are properly considered when deciding whether to expand standing to assert Fourth Amendment violations.
* * *
We can think of no decided cases of this Court that would have come out differently had we concluded, as we do now, that the type of standing requirement discussed in Jones and reaffirmed today is more properly subsumed under substantive Fourth Amendment doctrine. Rigorous application of the principle that the rights secured by this Amendment are personal, in place of a notion of "standing," will produce no additional situations in which evidence must be excluded. The inquiry under either approach is the same. But we think the better analysis forthrightly focuses on the extent of a particular defendant's rights under the Fourth Amendment, rather than of any theoretically separate, but invariably intertwined concept of standing....
It should be emphasized that nothing we say here casts the least doubt on cases which recognize that, as a general proposition, the issue of standing involves two inquiries: first, whether the proponent of a particular legal right has alleged "injury in fact," and, second, whether the proponent is asserting his own legal rights and interests rather than basing his claim for relief upon the rights of third parties. (Citations omitted.) But this Court's long history of insistence that Fourth Amendment rights are personal in nature has already answered many of these traditional standing inquiries, and we think that definition of those right is more properly placed within the purview of substantive Fourth Amendment law than within that of standing. (Citations omitted.)
Analyzed in these terms, the question is whether the challenged search or seizure violated the Fourth Amendment rights of a criminal defendant who seeks to exclude the evidence obtained during it. That inquiry in turn requires a determination of whether the disputed search and seizure has infringed an interest of the defendant which the Fourth Amendment was designed to protect.
* * * C
Here, petitioners who were passengers occupying a car which they neither owned nor leased, seek to analogize their position to that of the defendant in Jones v. United States. In Jones, petitioner was present at the time of the search of an apartment which was owned by a friend. The friend had given Jones permission to use the apartment and a key to it, with which Jones had admitted himself on the day of the search. He had a suit and shirt at the apartment and had slept there "maybe the night," but his home was elsewhere. At the time of the search, Jones was the only occupant of the apartment because the lessee was away for a period of several days. 362 U.S., at 259, 80 S.Ct., at 730. Under these circumstances, this Court stated that while one wrongfully on the premises could not move to suppress evidence obtained as a result of searching them, "anyone legitimately on premises where a search occurs may challenge its legality." Id., at 267, 80 S.Ct., at 734. Petitioners argue that their occupancy of the automobile in question was comparable to that of Jones in the apartment and that they therefore have standing to contest the legality of the search - or as we have rephrased the inquiry, that they, like Jones, had their Fourth Amendment rights violated by the search.
We do not question the conclusion in Jones that the defendant in that case suffered a violation of his personal Fourth Amendment rights if the search in question was unlawful. Nonetheless, we believe that the phrase "legitimately on premises" coined in Jones creates too broad a gauge for measurement of Fourth Amendment rights. For example, applied literally, this statement would permit a casual visitor who has never seen, or been permitted to visit, the basement of another's house to object to a search of the basement if the visitor happened to be in the kitchen of the house at the time of the search. Likewise, a casual visitor who walks into a house one minute before a search of the house commences and leave one minute after the search ends would be able to contest the legality of the search. The first visitor would have absolutely no interest or legitimate expectation of privacy in the basement, the second would have none in the house, and it advances no purpose served by the Fourth Amendment to permit either of them to object to the lawfulness of the search.
We think that Jones on its facts merely stands for the unremarkable proposition that a person can have a legally sufficient interest in a place other than his own home so that the Fourth Amendment protects him from unreasonable governmental intrusion into the place. See 362 U.S., at 263, 265, 80 S.Ct., at 732, 733.
* * *D
Judged by the forgoing analysis, petitioners' claims must fail. They asserted neither a property nor a possessory interest in the automobile, nor an interest in the property seized. And as we have previously indicated, the fact that they were "legitimately on [the] premises" in the sense that they were in the car with the permission of its owner is not determinative of whether they had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the particular areas of the automobile searched. It is unnecessary for us to decide here whether the same expectation of privacy are warranted in a car as would be justified in a dwelling place in analogous circumstances. We have numerous occasions pointed out that cars are not to be treated identically with house or apartment for Fourth Amendment purposes. (Citations omitted.) But here petitioners' claim is one which would fail even in an analogous situation in a dwelling place, since they made no showing that they had any legitimate expectation of privacy in the glove compartment or area under the seat of the car in which they were merely passengers. Like the trunk of an automobile, these are areas in which a passenger qua passenger simply would not normally have a legitimate expectation of privacy. Supra, at 430.
The Illinois courts were therefore correct in concluding that it was unnecessary to decide whether the search of the car might have violated the rights secured to someone else by the Fourth and Fourth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Since it did not violate any rights of these petitioners, their judgment of conviction is affirmed.
Notes
1. In Rakas, the majority opinion attempted to cast doubt on the continued validity of the "automatic standing" rule of Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257 (1960). Jones essentially held that anyone who had been charged with a crime which required proof of possession of evidence seized had standing to contest the search. In United States v. Salvucci, 448 U.S. 83 (1980), the Court took the position, foreshadowed in Rakas, that Jones and its "automatic standing" rule should be overruled. The Salvucci Court stressed that the replacement for the old "automatic standing" rule was the "legitimate expectation of privacy" test. No bar exists for a state court to continue to follow the Jones rule of "automatic standing" as a matter of state criminal procedure.
2. The Rakas Court noted that the issue of standing to suppress evidence unconstitutionally seized requires a two step analysis. The first requires that the proponent of the particular right must actually allege an injury to his rights and the second demands the proponent show that he or she is asserting personal legal rights and interests rather than basing the claim for relief on the rights of third parties. In other words, the question is whether the challenged search or seizure violated the rights of the criminal defendant who seeks to suppress the evidence.
Standing to Suppress Requires a Personal Fourth Amendment Violation
UNITED STATES v. SALVUCCI, Supreme Court of the United States (1980),448 U.S. 83 100 S.Ct. 2547
FACTS:
Defendant Salvucci and a co-defendant were indicted for unlawfully possessing stolen mail. The police executed a search warrant on an apartment which had been rented by the co-defendant's mother. This search revealed checks which had been stolen from the mail.
Salvucci filed a motion to suppress the evidence obtained from the apartment. The United States District Court granted the motion on the basis of the automatic standing rule of Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257 (1960). The Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling granting the motion. The court felt that the strength of Jones had eroded, but was not willing to rule otherwise absent some clear indication from the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
PROCEDURAL QUESTION:
In order to claim the right to exclude evidence under the Fourth Amendment, must a defendant prove that personal Fourth Amendment rights have been violated?
HELD: Yes.
RATIONALE:
Mr. Justice REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.
* * *II
As early as 1907, this Court took the position that remedies for violations of constitutional rights would only be afforded to a person who "belongs to the class for whose sake the constitutional protection is given." Hatch v. Reardon, 204 U.S. 152, 160, 27 S.Ct. 188, 190, 51 L.Ed. 415. The exclusionary rule is one form of remedy afforded for Fourth Amendment violations, and the Court in Jones v. United States held that the Hatch v. Reardon principle properly limited its availability. The Court reasoned that ordinarily "it is entirely proper to require of one who seeks to challenge the legality of a search as the basis for suppressing relevant evidence that he... establish, that he himself was the victim of an invasion of privacy." 362 U.S., at 261, 80 S.Ct., at 731.
* * *
Even though the Court in Jones recognized that the exclusionary rule should only be available to protect defendants who have been the victims of an illegal search or seizure, the Court thought it necessary to establish an exception. In cases where possession of the seized evidence as an essential element of the
offense charged, the Court held that the defendant was not obligated to establish that his own Fourth Amendment rights have been violated, but only that the search and seizure of the evidence was unconstitutional. Upon such a showing, the exclusionary rule would be available to prevent the admission of the evidence against the defendant.
The Court found that the prosecution of such possessory offenses presented a "special problem" which necessitated the departure from the then-settled principles of Fourth Amendment "standing." Two circumstances were found to require this exception. First, the Court found that in order to establish standing at a hearing on a motion to suppress, the defendant would often be "forced to allege facts the proof of which would tend, if indeed not be sufficient, to convict him," since several Courts of Appeals had "pinioned a defendant within this dilemma" by holding that evidence adduced at the motion to suppress could be used against the defendant at trial. 362 U.S., at 262, 80 S.Ct., at 731. The Court declined to embrace any rule which would require a defendant to assert his Fourth Amendment claims only at the risk of providing the prosecution with self-incriminating statements admissible at trial. ...
The Court also commented that this rule would be beneficial for a second reason. ... The Court reasoned that the Government ought not to be allowed to assert that the defendant possessed the goods for purposes of criminal liability, while simultaneously asserting that he did not possess them for the purposes of claiming the protection of the Fourth Amendment.
* * *
In the 20 years which have lapsed since the Court's decision in Jones, the two reasons which led the Court to the rule of automatic standing have likewise been affected by time. This Court has held that testimony given by a defendant in support of a motion to suppress cannot be admitted as evidence of his guilt at trial. Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 88 S.Ct. 967, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968). Developments in the principles of Fourth Amendment standing, as well, clarify that a prosecutor may, with legal consistency and legitimacy, assert that a defendant charged with possession of a seized item did not have privacy interest violated in the course of the search and seizure.
* * *B
The simple answer is that the decisions of this Court, especially our most recent decision in Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 99 S.Ct. 421, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978), clearly established that a prosecutor may simultaneously maintain that a defendant criminally possessed the seized good, but was not subject to a Fourth Amendment deprivation, without legal contradiction. To conclude that a prosecutor engaged in self-contradiction in Jones, the Court necessarily relied on the unexamined assumption that a defendant's possession of a seized good sufficient to establish criminal culpability was also sufficient to establish Fourth Amendment "standing." This assumption, however, even if correct at the time, is no longer so.
The person in legal possession of a good seized during an illegal search has not necessarily been subject to a Fourth Amendment deprivation. As we hold today in Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98, 100 S.Ct. 3556, 65 L.Ed.2d 633, legal possession of a seized good is not a proxy for determining whether the owner had a Fourth Amendment interest, for it does not invariably represent the protected Fourth Amendment interest. ...
While property ownership is clearly a factor to be considered in determining whether an individual's Fourth Amendment rights have been violated, see Rakas, supra, at 144, n. 12, 99 S.Ct., at 431, property rights are neither the beginning nor the end of this Court's inquiry. In Rakas, this Court held that an illegal search only violates the rights of those who have "a legitimate expectation of privacy in the invaded place." 439 U.S., at 140, 99 S.Ct., at 430.
* * *
We are convinced that the automatic standing rule of Jones has outlived its usefulness in this Court's Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. The doctrine now serves only to afford a windfall to defendants whose Fourth Amendment rights have not been violated. ...
This action comes to us as a challenge to a pretrial decision suppressing evidence. The respondents relied on automatic standing and did not attempt to establish that they had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the areas of Zackular's mother's home where the goods were seized. We therefore think it appropriate to remand so that respondents will have an opportunity to demonstrate, if they can, that their own Fourth Amendment rights were violated. See Combs v. United States, 408 U.S. 224, 92 S.Ct. 2284, 33 L.Ed.2d 308 91972).
Reversed and remanded.
Mr. Justice MARSHALL, with whom Mr. Justice BRENNAN joins, dissenting.
Today the Court overrules the "automatic standing" rule of Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697 (1960), because it concludes that the rationale underpinning the rule has been "eroded," ante, at 2251. I do not share that view.
A defendant charged with a possessory offense who moves to suppress the items he is charged with possessing must now establish at the suppression hearing that the police conduct of which he complains violated his personal Fourth Amendment rights. In many cases, a defendant will be able to make the required the showing only be taking the stand and testifying about his interest in the place searched and the evidence seized; the need for the defendant's won testimony may, in fact, be more likely to arise in possession cases than in cases involving other types of offenses. The holding in Jones was premised, in part, on the unfairness of "pinion[ing] a defendant within th[e] dilemma," 362 U.S., at 262, 80 S.Ct., at 731, of being able to assert his Fourth Amendment claim only be relinquishing his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. The Court finds that his dilemma no longer exists because Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 88 S.Ct. 967, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968), held that testimony given by a defendant in support of a motion to suppress "may not thereafter be admitted against him at trial on the issue of guilt unless he makes no objection." Id., at 394, 88 S.Ct., at 976.
I cannot agree that Simmons provides complete protection against the "self-incrimination dilemma," Brown v. United States, 411 U.S. 223, 228, 93 S.Ct. 1565, 1568, 36 L.Ed.2d 208 (1973). Respondents contend that the testimony given at the suppression hearing might be held admissible for impeachment purposes and, while acknowledging , such a question is not before us in this case, the majority broadly hints that this is so. (Citations omitted.) The use of the testimony for impeachment purposes would subject a defendant to precisely the same dilemma, unless he was prepared to relinquish his constitutional right to testify in his own defense, and would thereby create a strong deterrent to asserting Fourth Amendment claims. One of the purposes of Jones and Simmons was to remove such obstacles. See Simmons, supra, at 392-394, 88 S.Ct., at 975-976. Moreover, the opportunity for cross-examination at the suppression hearing may enable the prosecutor to elicit incriminating information beyond that offered on direct examination to establish the requisite Fourth Amendment interest. Even if such information could not be introduced at the subsequent trial, it might be helpful to the prosecution in developing its case or deciding its trial strategy. The furnishing of such a tactical advantage to the prosecution should not be the price of asserting a Fourth Amendment claim. Simmons, therefore, does not eliminate the possibility that a defendant will be deterred from presenting a Fourth Amendment claim because of "the risk that the words which he utters may later be used to incriminate him." Simmons, supra, at 393, 88 S.Ct., at 976. Accordingly, I conclude that this part of the reasoning in Jones remains viable.
Notes
1. The Rakas Court called into serious question the Jones rule of automatic standing as applied to possessory offenses. The rule of automatic standing had been predicated on the risk that a defendant might incriminate himself by admitting possession of an illegal substance or article at a motion to suppress hearing and the inconsistent position of the government when it maintained that a person had not sufficient possession of an object to have a Fourth Amendment expectation of privacy but still had sufficient possession for purposes of criminal liability. According to the Salvucci Court, the decision in Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377 (1968), removed the fear of a defendant of having to admit possession to establish standing to suppress and having that evidence used against him at trial in the event that the motion to suppress failed. Simmons precluded the use of evidence from the motion to suppress hearing being used to prove guilt of the charged offense.
2. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had developed a "coconspirator exception" to the rule of standing regarding who may challenge the constitutionality of a search and seizure. However, the Supreme Court reversed, holding that only those persons with a personal Fourth Amendment expectation of privacy possess standing to pursue a motion to suppress. In United States v. Padilla, U.S. , 61 LW 4458 (1993), the Court held that persons who are involved in a conspiracy to transport and distribute cocaine do not have any special expectation of privacy in the search of an automobile being used to transport illegal drugs. Those individuals who asserted a Fourth Amendment violation were neither physically present nor immediate control of the automobile being searched. Therefore, no special standing could be acquired by virtue of being a co-conspirator in cocaine distribution solely because of their managerial standing in the enterprise. The Court quoted a passage from United States v. Alderman, 34 U.S. 165, 171-172 (1969), in which it stated:
"The established principle is that suppression of the product of a Fourth Amendment violation can be successfully urged only by those whose rights were violated by the search itself, not by those who are aggrieved solely by the introduction of damaging evidence. Co-conspirators and codefendants have been accorded no special standing."
Merely because some individuals could have and did order others to preform illegal acts involving the use of automobiles, such control is not sufficient to produce Fourth Amendment standing to suppress evidence obtained from the vehicle.
3. The ability of a defendant to assert standing to suppress may have been enhanced by the Court's decision in Soldal v. Cook County, U.S. , 61 LW 4019 (1993), where the police, in conjunction with a trailer park manager, illegally towed Soldal's complete home away from its moorings. The lower courts held that no Fourth Amendment privacy interests were at stake since transgressions of pure property interests are not covered by the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court disagreed, holding that prior Fourth Amendment cases clearly and unmistakably hold that the Amendment applies to property as well as privacy. In the future, criminal litigants may be able to assert standing to suppress by claiming a property interest in a seized object without asserting or demonstrating an expectation of privacy in the seized property. Admitting, in a motion to suppress evidence, that property belongs to a defendant generally cannot be used against the defendant at trial under Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377 (1968), Cited in Salvucci, above.
Expectation of Privacy when a Guest on Premises
MINNESOTA v. OLSON, Supreme Court of the United States (1990), 495 U.S. 91, 110 S.Ct. 1684
FACTS:
Following a robbery and murder, police stopped an automobile thought to contain the two suspects. Police captured one of their quarry, while the other subject escaped. Evidence within the automobile indicated that the other felon might be a Rob or Roger Olson at a particular address. Initially, Olson could not be located, but an informant told police that Olson had admitted to her that he had been the driver in the robbery. The informant also gave information that Olson had been staying in a duplex with the informant, but that Olson officially lived elsewhere.
Police surrounded the duplex when Olson was believed to be within the structure. Without seeking permission to enter and with weapons drawn, officers discovered Olson in a closet. Following his arrest, he made incriminating statements.
The trial court refused to suppress Olson's statements as the fruit of an unlawful seizure and he was convicted of murder, robbery, and assault. The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed the convictions on the ground that Olson had a sufficient interest in the home to challenge the legality of the warrantless arrest. The Supreme Court of the United States granted the State's petition for certiorari.
PROCEDURAL QUESTION:
Where police make a warrantless, nonconsensual entry into a home where a person is an overnight guest, does such conduct violate the arrestee's expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment?
HELD: Yes.
JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
The police in this case made a warrantless, nonconsensual entry into a house where Olson was an overnight guest and arrested him. The issue is whether the arrest violated Olson's Fourth Amendment rights. We hold that it did.
I
The Hennepin County trial court held a hearing and denied respondent's motion to suppress his statement. App. 3-13. The statement was admitted into evidence at Olson's trial, and he was convicted on one count of first degree murder, three counts of armed robbery, and three counts of second degree assault. On appeal, the Minnesota Supreme Court reversed. 436 N.W. 2d 92 (1989). The court ruled that the respondent had a sufficient interest in the Bergstrom home to challenge the legality of his warrantless arrest there, that the arrest was illegal because there were no exigent circumstances to justify a warrantless entry, and that respondent's statement was tainted by that illegality and should have been suppressed. Because the admission of the statement was not harmless beyond reasonable doubt, the court reversed Olson's conviction and remanded for a new trial.
We granted the State's petition for certiorari, 493 U.S. --- (1989), and now affirm.
II
It was held in Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573 (1980), that a suspect should not be arrested in his house without an arrest warrant, even though there is probable cause to arrest him. The purpose of the decision was not to protect the person of the suspect but to protect his home from entry in the absence of a magistrate's finding of probable cause. In this case, the court below held that Olson's warrantless arrest was illegal because he had a sufficient connection with the premises to be treated like a householder. The State challenges that conclusion.
Since the decision in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967), it has been the law that "capacity to claim the protection of the Fourth Amendment depends . . . upon whether the person who claims the protection of the Amendment has a legitimate expectation of privacy in the invaded place." Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 143 (1978). A subjective expectation of privacy is legitimate if it is "'one that society is prepared to recognize as "reasonable,"'" id., at 143-144, n. 12, quoting Katz, supra, at 361 (Harlan, J., concurring).
* * *
As recognized by the Minnesota Supreme Court, the facts of this case are similar to those in Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257 (1960). In Jones, the defendant was arrested in a friend's apartment during the execution of a search warrant and sought to challenge the warrant as not supported by probable cause.
"[Jones] testified that the apartment belonged to a friend, Evans, who had given him the use of it, and a key, with which [Jones] had admitted himself on the day of the arrest. On cross-examination [Jones] testified that he had a suit and shirt at the apartment, that his home was elsewhere, that he paid nothing for the use of the apartment, that Evans had let him use it `as a friend,' that he had slept there `maybe a night,' and that at the time of the search Evans had been away in Philadelphia for about five days." Id., at 259.
The Court ruled that Jones could challenge the search of the apartment because he was "legitimately on [the] premises," id., at 267. Although the "legitimately on [the] premises" standard was rejected in Rakas as too broad, 439 U.S., at 142-148, the Rakas Court explicitly reaffirmed the factual holding in Jones:
"We do not question the conclusion in Jones that the defendant in that case suffered a violation of his personal Fourth Amendment rights if the search in question was unlawful . . .
"We think that Jones on its facts merely stands for the unremarkable proposition that a person can have a legally sufficient interest in a place other than his own home so that the Fourth Amendment protects him from unreasonable governmental intrusion into that place." 439 U.S., at 141-142.
Rakas thus recognized that, as an overnight guest, Jones was much more than just legitimately on the premises.
The distinctions relied on by the State between this case and Jones are not legally determinative. The State emphasizes that in this case Olson was never left alone in the duplex or given a key, whereas in Jones the owner of the apartment was away and Jones had a key with which he could come and go and admit and exclude others.
* * *
We do not understand Rakas, however, to hold that an overnight guest can never have a legitimate expectation of privacy except when his host is away and he has a key or that only when those facts are present may an overnight guest assert the "unremarkable proposition," Rakas, supra, at 142, that a person may have a sufficient interest in a place other than his home to enable him to be free in that place from unreasonable searches and seizures.
To hold that an overnight guest has a legitimate expectation of privacy in his host's home merely recognizes the everyday expectations of privacy that we all share.
* * *
From the overnight guest's perspective, he seeks shelter in another's home precisely because it provides him with privacy, a place where he and his possessions will not be disturbed by anyone but his host and those his host allows inside.
* * *
Because respondent's expectation of privacy in the Bergstrom home was rooted in "understandings that are recognized and permitted by society," Rakas, supra, at 144, n. 12, it was legitimate, and respondent can claim the protection of the Fourth Amendment.
* * *
We therefore affirm the judgment of the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Notes
1. Consider Olson in light of Rakas v. Illinois, supra, which held that a guest in an automobile did not have an expectation of privacy in an automobile in which he was riding. Does Olson overrule or cast doubt on Rakas? Could the difference be explained by noting the level of privacy expected in an automobile as compared to a home?
2. Since a home occupier has the right to exclude anyone from the home or to allow anyone or everyone inside the home, could one argue that a guest has no expectation of privacy since the home occupier could invite the police to enter at any time? Does it matter that social custom concerning house guests contemplates a threshold level of privacy?
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