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CA5: Prison escapee has no REP in a motel room he is hiding in

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

A prison escapee hiding in a motel room has no constitutionally recognizable reasonable expectation of privacy. His status as a prisoner with virtually no Fourth Amendment rights continues into his escape status. United States v. Ward, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 4806 (5th Cir. February 26, 2009): That Ward would have had no right to privacy in his prison cell does not a fortiori mean that he has no right to privacy in his motel room. The interests at play for determining whether the Fourth Amendment applies to an escapee in society may differ from those applicable in the prison cell context. In other words, although the privacy right is personal, defining the specific content and incidents of the right often requires reference to a place--hence the Hudson opinion's repetition of the clause "in his prison cell...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on March 13, 2009 (boomark / email).