Cooper v. State

162 So. 3d 15, 2014 WL 1385328, 2014 Fla. App. LEXIS 5224
District Court of Appeal of Florida·Decided April 9, 2014·No. No. 1D13-2922·Published·Cited by 1 cases

Opinion

WOLF, J.

Appellant pled nolo contendré to possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell, possession of marijuana with intent to sell, and two counts of possession of paraphernalia. He expressly reserved the right to appeal the denial of his dispositive motion to suppress items seized from the rental automobile that he was driving at the time of the search.

The sole issue we need to address is whether appellant, as the unauthorized driver of a rental car, had standing. We [16]*16find that he did not have standing under the facts in this case and affirm.

(1) Facts

The police pulled appellant over for traffic violations. He was the only occupant of the vehicle. The officer recognized the car as a rental, and he confirmed this when he ran the vehicle’s registration. The officer asked appellant for consent to search his person and the vehicle. Appellant denied consent. The officer then asked to see a copy of the rental agreement. The agreement stated that no other person was permitted to drive the car except the renter, Carl Brown. Carl Brown was appellant’s cousin, who testified he gave appellant permission to drive the car.

The officer then contacted the rental company, and the representative asked the officer to have the vehicle towed. The officer called a tow truck, and while he waited for it to arrive, he conducted an inventory search of the car and found marijuana, sandwich bags, and a scale.

Appellant moved to suppress the evidence found in the vehicle, arguing the inventory search was illegal. The trial court found appellant lacked a privacy interest because he was an unauthorized driver, and thus, he lacked standing to contest the search. Alternatively, the court found even if appellant had standing, the search was valid. It is unnecessary for us to address the legality of the inventory search because we determine appellant did not have standing to raise this issue.

(2) Privacy Interest of an Unauthorized Driver of a Rental Car

In order to claim that Fourth Amendment rights were violated, one must first establish a reasonable expectation of privacy to be free from a particular intrusion by the police. Shapiro v. State, 390 So.2d 344, 347 (Fla.1980) (citing United States v. Salvucci, 448 U.S. 83, 100 S.Ct. 2547, 65 L.Ed.2d 619 (1980); Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 99 S.Ct. 421, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978)). “A reasonable expectation of privacy under a given set of circumstances depends not only upon one’s actual subjective expectation of privacy but also upon whether society is prepared to recognize this expectation as reasonable.” Id. (citing Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 99 S.Ct. 2577, 61 L.Ed.2d 220 (1979)).

a. Federal Circuits

Appellant correctly notes there is no Florida case that addresses the issue of whether the unauthorized driver of a rental car has a reasonable expectation of privacy, and thereby standing, to challenge a search of the rental car. He also correctly notes there is a three-way split among the federal courts.

The majority of the federal circuits that have ruled on this issue — the Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Tenth Circuits — have adopted a general “bright-line” rule that absent extraordinary circumstances, a driver of a rental car who is not authorized by the rental agreement has no reasonable expectation of privacy and thus no standing to challenge a search of the car. United States v. Kennedy, 638 F.3d 159, 164 (3d Cir.2011), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 132 S.Ct. 997, 181 L.Ed.2d 732 (2012); United States v. Wellons, 32 F.3d 117, 119 (4th Cir.1994); United States v. Seeley, 331 F.3d 471, 472 (5th Cir.2003); United States v. Roper, 918 F.2d 885, 887-88 (10th Cir.1990). We note the term “bright-line” rule seems to be a misnomer because generally a rule that has exceptions is not referred to as a bright-line rule. However, the Third Circuit in Kennedy clarified that there could be “extraordinary circumstances that might overcome the general rule.” Kennedy, 638 F.3d at 168.

A minority of the federal circuits — the Eighth and Ninth Circuits — have adopted [17]*17a “modification” of the majority bright-line rule that states an unauthorized driver has a reasonable expectation of privacy so long as the renter gave the driver permission, regardless of the fact that the rental agreement prohibited anyone other than the renter from driving the vehicle. United States v. Thomas, 447 F.3d 1191, 1198-99 (9th Cir.2006); United States v. Muhammad, 58 F.3d 353, 355 (8th Cir.1995).

Finally one circuit — the Sixth Circuit— applied a totality of the circumstances test to determine whether the unauthorized driver of a rental car has a reasonable expectation of privacy.

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Cooper v. State, 162 So. 3d 15, 2014 WL 1385328, 2014 Fla. App. LEXIS 5224 (Fla. Ct. App. 2014).

162 So. 3d 15 (Cooper v. State) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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