Search and seizure in constitutional law

Abandoned Property and Search and Seizure Laws

Identifying the Article:

The article being reviewed is "Abandoning Places," authored by Dr. Jayme W. Holcomb, chief of the Legal Instruction Section of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). It appeared in the October 2008 issue of the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, Volume 77, Number 10 (pp 22-32), published jointly by the federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO). The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin is available in a monthly hard-copy subscription format directly from the GPO for $55.00 annually or from the official FBI public website at:

http://www.fbi.gov/publications/leb/2008/october2008/october08leb.htm#page22.

Article Summary:

The article explains how the Fourth Amendment constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure apply to abandoned places and property. Generally, the Fourth Amendment prohibits law enforcement from entry to and searches of any places and property in which the law recognizes a reasonable expectation of privacy (REP) on the part of any individual. In circumstances where the individual abandons property or dwelling places, the protections against unwarranted search and seizure do not necessarily still apply. In such cases, various specific criteria have been used by courts to determine how the concept of REP and search and seizure law apply to abandoned places and property.

Typically, the issues of abandonment in relation to search and seizure law arise in connection with hotel rooms, because in some respects, the relative rights of the occupants are extremely susceptible to changing, almost instantaneously, in some instances. The clearest cut criterion for determining that property or places have been abandoned is where the individual entitled to REP with respect to that property or place voluntarily relinquishes it, such as by telling police that he or she has no connection to the area or to the property inside.

The second criterion for distinguishing REP situations from non-REP situations in such cases is the physical relinquishment of the premises by the individual who was previously entitled to REP in that area. Typical scenarios of this type involve cases where law enforcement authorities search a hotel room that has apparently been vacated even prior to checkout time and the technical end of the lease period. In such cases, courts have determined that actual relinquishment (such as removing personal belongings and leaving the room key) terminate any REP even before the end of the formal lease period.

Critique: