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D.Ariz.: Loaning car to another is waiver of expectation of privacy in contents

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

By loaning his car to another, defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the vehicle when the driver was stopped. United States v. Balcazar, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73409 (D. Ariz. March 8, 2010): In One 1977 Mercedes Benz, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a defendant lacked standing to challenge the search of her vehicle where she had voluntarily turned possession of that automobile over to a third party for his exclusive use and had taken no precautions to safeguard any privacy interest within the vehicle. 708 F.2d at 449. The relevant holding from One 1977 Mercedes Benz has been applied broadly in this district. In United States v. Vizcarra, 835 F. Supp. 1160, 1162 (D. Ariz. 1993), the Court held, "where the owner of a vehicle has turned that vehicle over to someone else, the owner retains an insufficient privacy interest to possess standing to challenge the search of that vehicle...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on July 23, 2010 (boomark / email).