Norwood v. State

670 N.E.2d 32, 1996 Ind. App. LEXIS 1017, 1996 WL 444943
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedAugust 8, 1996
Docket27A02-9509-CR-530
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 670 N.E.2d 32 (Norwood v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Norwood v. State, 670 N.E.2d 32, 1996 Ind. App. LEXIS 1017, 1996 WL 444943 (Ind. Ct. App. 1996).

Opinions

OPINION

FRIEDLANDER, Judge.

Alexander Norwood appeals his conviction of Possession of Cocaine With Intent to Deliver,1 presenting the following restated issues for review:

1. Did Norwood receive ineffective assistance of trial counsel?
[34]*342. Did the trial court err in refusing to read to the jury a final instruction tendered by Norwood concerning a lesser included offense?
We affirm.

The facts favorable to the judgment are that between March 23, 1994 and April 13, 1994, Norwood stayed at the Broadmoor Hotel in Marion, Indiana continuously, except for one or two nights. While at the hotel, Norwood stayed in a room registered either to a female acquaintance or to him under the name of “R.J. Ryder”. His, then, most recent check-in date was April 12, when the room was registered to him as “R.J. Ryder”. On that day, he paid cash for a one-night stay. On the morning of April 13, sometime prior to checkout time, which Norwood knew to be 11:00 a.m., he fell in the bathtub and injured his shoulder. He called Rozetta Woodcock, the hotel’s assistant manager, and asked her to summon an ambulance, which she did.

Nora Alexander was a housekeeper at the hotel. She had been cleaning a room near Norwood’s when she saw him being taken away by ambulance. After she finished the nearby room, she entered Norwood’s room in order to clean it. Alexander picked up a white sweat shirt that was laying on the floor beside the bed and a “bag of white stuff fell out of it.” Record at 206. Alexander called the assistant manager to ask whether Nor-wood would be checking out of the room that day or holding over for another day and also informed her of the discovery of the white substance, which she believed to be cocaine. Alexander was instructed to leave the room immediately. The police were called.

Police responded to the hotel shortly thereafter, but were not allowed to enter Norwood’s room until 11:00 a.m. because, as Woodcock later explained,

The room is [Norwood’s], technically, until eleven o’clock. And at eleven o’clock we can put a knob lock on the door so that they have to come in and pay us before they get the stuff out of the room. If they want to do that. It’s our room after eleven o’clock.

Record at 229. Upon entering the room, police discovered a baggie containing what was later determined to be 3.18 grams of cocaine.

1.

Norwood claims that he received ineffective assistance of trial counsel because counsel failed to file a motion to suppress the evidence obtained when police searched the hotel and later failed to object to the evidence when it was introduced at trial. Nor-wood contends that the evidence was inadmissible because it was obtained after a search violative of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

We note initially that even had counsel submitted a pretrial motion to suppress and had such motion been denied, the ruling would not have served as the final expression of the evidence’s admissibility. Gajdos v. State, 462 N.E.2d 1017 (Ind.1984). In order to preserve any error in the denial of such a motion, the defendant must object to the evidence when it is offered at trial. Poulton v. State, 666 N.E.2d 390 (Ind.1996). Thus, the failure to submit a motion to suppress cannot constitute grounds for reversal in the instant case and we need not address that aspect of Norwood’s argument. Id. We note also that Norwood avoids waiver of the issue of the evidence’s admissibility by presenting the question in the context of ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to offer an objection when it was offered at trial. See Cardwell v. State, 666 N.E.2d 420 (Ind.Ct. App.1996).

In order to prevail on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, Norwood must demonstrate deficient performance that prejudiced him. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984); Turner v. State, 580 N.E.2d 665 (Ind. 1991), reh’g denied. A finding of ineffective assistance of counsel may not be premised upon the failure to present a claim that would have been meritless. Vaughn v. State, 559 N.E.2d 610 (Ind.1990). Therefore, in order to prevail, Norwood must demonstrate that an objection to introduction of the evidence would have been sustained.

[35]*35The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, protects persons from unreasonable government intrusions into areas of an individual’s life in which he has a reasonable expectation of privacy. State v. Thomas, 642 N.E.2d 240 (Ind.Ct.App.1994), trans. denied. Pursuant to the Fourth Amendment, all searches of private property must be reasonable. State v. Foreman, 662 N.E.2d 929 (Ind.1996). “A warrantless search is presumed to be unreasonable, and the State bears the burden to show that the search falls under an exception to the warrant requirement.” Id. at 981 (quoting Smith v. State, 565 N.E.2d 1059, 1060 (Ind.1991)). The validity of a warrant-less search is dependent upon the facts of each case. Id.

The first line of inquiry in a Fourth Amendment challenge to the admissibility of evidence is whether the defendant had a personal and legitimate expectation of privacy in the place searched. Perkins v. State, 483 N.E.2d 1379 (Ind.1985); Ceroni v. State, 559 N.E.2d 372 (Ind.Ct.App.1990), trans. denied. Assuming arguendo that Norwood had a subjective expectation of privacy, we must determine whether such is one that society would recognize as reasonable. Foreman, supra. Hotel guests enjoy the same constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure as do occupants of private residences. Ceroni supra; see also United States v. Arch, 7 F.3d 1300 (7th Cir. 1993), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 1139, 114 S.Ct. 1123, 127 L.Ed.2d 431 (1994). However, the expectation of privacy ends when the rental period expires and “Fourth Amendment protection of a motel or hotel room ends at the conclusion of the rental period.” Myers v. State, 454 N.E.2d 861 (Ind.1983).

In the instant case, it is undisputed that Norwood paid for one day’s stay on April 12 and that he knew checkout time was 11:00 a.m. the next day. Therefore, Norwood’s rental period ended on April 13 at 11:00 a.m. It is also undisputed that police did not enter and search the room until after 11:00 a.m. on April 13.

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Norwood v. State
670 N.E.2d 32 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 1996)

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Bluebook (online)
670 N.E.2d 32, 1996 Ind. App. LEXIS 1017, 1996 WL 444943, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/norwood-v-state-indctapp-1996.