Back porch search does not violate Fourth Amendment warrant requirement

This Fourth Amendment search and seizure case asks whether the police had the right to search a common-area porch at the defendant's place of residence while looking for drugs and other contraband. The warrant only said the police could search his apartment and basement. The Second Circuit says the search was legal.

The case is United States v. Lewis, issued on March 21. Bottom line: defendant cannot show that his Fourth Amendment rights extended to the porch. It all started when an informant told the police that defendant had large quantities of heroin and marijuana in defendant's bedroom in New Haven. The informant also said there was a gun in defendant's basement. The warrant therefore limited the police search to defendant's residence and the basement.

The police found drugs in the second-story apartment but they found the gun and more drugs in a sock in a laundry basket on the back porch off the ground-floor rear door which opened into a common stairwell. So the porch was not solely defendant's residence. While defendant sought to suppress the guns and the extra drugs, he had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the back porch. He did not take any steps to maintain his privacy while using the porch, either. Rather, he conceded the porch was a shared area. What it means is that defendant has no standing to object to that portion of the search. 

The Court of Appeals (Lohier, Carney and Nathan) is careful to note that it is not adopting a categorical rule that shard spaces in muti-unit buildings may be searched by the police without a warrant. The Court recognizes that in some factual circumstances, a warrant may be necessary to search these common areas. This is always a case-by-case analysis under Supreme Court precedent, including O'Connor v. Ortega, 480 U.S. 709 (1987). The Second Circuit cites a few extra-Circuit rulings in this regard. One case from the Sixth Circuit said a basement in a  two-unit building occupied solely by family members means the police cannot search the basement without a warrant. So while there is an exception to the rule that the police can search common areas like this, defendant cannot invoke that exception because he did not introduce evidence at the suppression hearing that would implicate that exception.