Standing Under State Search and Seizure Provision: Why the Minnesota Supreme Court Should Have Rejected the Federal Standards and Instead Invoked Greater Protection Under its Own Constitution in State v. Carter

Authors

Rebecca C. Garrett, University of Maine School of Law

Abstract

In State v. Carter, the Minnesota Supreme Court considered whether a criminal defendant had “standing” to challenge an alleged search under the Fourth Amendment and Article 1, Section 10 of the Minnesota Constitution. The defendant moved to suppress evidence obtained by a police officer who had peered in the window of an apartment where the defendant was participating in a drug-packaging operation with the apartment's leaseholder. A divided court held that the defendant had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the apartment. Therefore, the defendant had standing to challenge the legality of the police officer's observations pursuant to the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, and Article 1, Section 10 of the Minnesota Constitution. The court concluded that the police officer's observations constituted an unreasonable search. Recently, the United States Supreme Court reversed the Minnesota Supreme Court's decision, and held that the defendant did not have a legitimate expectation of privacy at the apartment. The Court justified this determination by focusing on the defendant's status as a temporary guest and the fact that he was at the premises solely for commercial purposes. As a result, the Court denied him standing to challenge whether the police officer's observations constituted an unreasonable search. This Note will criticize the Minnesota Supreme Court's analysis in Carter, concluding that the court should have discarded the privacy-based standard. This analysis will integrate the recent United States Supreme Court reversal of State v. Carter, and the Author intends to demonstrate the increasing subjectivity of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence in the area of guest cases. Thus, instead of following the Supreme Court's standards, the Minnesota Supreme Court should have analyzed the facts in Carter under its own state constitutional search and seizure provision, thereby adopting a standing rule that is textually based and supported by the purpose of the Fourth Amendment.

First Page

359

Recommended Citation

Rebecca C. Garrett, Standing Under State Search and Seizure Provision: Why the Minnesota Supreme Court Should Have Rejected the Federal Standards and Instead Invoked Greater Protection Under its Own Constitution in State v. Carter, 51 Me. L. Rev. 359 (1999).
Available at: https://digitalcommons.mainelaw.maine.edu/mlr/vol51/iss2/7