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- Title
While You Were Out: You Were Evicted -- The Demise of Hotel Privacy in Commonwealth v. Molina.
- Authors
ANDERSON, ALAINA
- Abstract
The right to privacy under the Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable government intrusion into a citizen's pursuit of a meaningful life. Formulated with the intent of limiting pre-Revolutionary general warrants under the writs of assistance, Fourth Amendment protections extend to the individual and to that individual's surrounding sphere of privacy. By analogy, such protections have been extended to hotel guests and their right to exclude others from their hotel room. Whether a hotel guest maintains a reasonable expectation of privacy hinges on the two-prong test from United States v. Katz. While it is commonly understood that this right is extinguished when a guest abandons the room or stays beyond the rental period, some jurisdictions hold that a lawful eviction terminates a guest's legitimate expectation of privacy. Lawful eviction was a matter of first impression before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ("SJC") in Commonwealth v. Molina. However, the SJC disregarded established hotel jurisprudence when it held that lawful eviction through ambiguous steps and without notice is sufficient to terminate a reasonable expectation of privacy. Double-locking the door alone is insufficient, especially where the hotel guest is absent when the hotel staff locks the door and the guest does not return before the police search. By legitimizing the police search, absent a finding of exigent circumstances, the court validated illegal third-party consent and allowed private security to present incriminating evidence against a hotel guest to police on a "silver platter." This holding violates a hotel guest's Fourth Amendment rights and reverts hotel privacy back to the arbitrary pre- Revolutionary writs of assistance era.
- Subjects
UNITED States; EVICTION lawsuits; HOTEL rooms; RIGHT of privacy; UNITED States. Constitution. 4th Amendment; HOTEL guests; KATZ v. United States; WRITS of assistance; MASSACHUSETTS. Supreme Judicial Court; STATUS (Law); LAW
- Publication
New England Law Review, 2013, Vol 47, Issue 3, p773
- ISSN
0028-4823
- Publication type
Article