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CA6: Use of an alias renting a hotel room through an agent did not defeat a reasonable expectation of privacy

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

The use of an agent to rent a hotel room under an assumed name did not defeat a reasonable expectation of privacy in the room. They had keys to the room and their stuff was in it. That was enough. United States v. Domenech, 08-1220 (6th Cir. October 7, 2010) Had the Domenech brothers rented Room 22 under their own name, they unquestionably would possess a legally cognizable expectation of privacy. See Allen, 106 F.3d at 699. That they used an agent to rent the room for them does not change this. The D.C. Circuit focused on the relationship of self-registration to one’s expectation of privacy in a hotel room in United States v. Lyons, where “a key to the room that had been rented on [the defendant’s] behalf was given to him by a third party (whose identity remains secret) ...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on October 07, 2010 (boomark / email).