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Standing Case Analysis

By: dmc-admin//April 9, 2003//

Standing Case Analysis

By: dmc-admin//April 9, 2003//

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There is a reason that the court made its holding on the standing issue as though it were a matter of undeniable common sense, rather than citing precedent to support it — no such precedent exists, either in the Seventh Circuit or the United States Supreme Court.

The entirety of the court’s reasoning consists of three sentences: “Haywood was not simply an unauthorized driver, he was also an unlicensed one. Haywood should not have been driving any car, much less a rental car that Enterprise never would have given him permission to drive. As a result, Haywood’s expectation of privacy was not reasonable.”

One U.S. Supreme Court case touches on the privacy expectations of unlicensed drivers, but the Court declined to offer any guidance. New York v. Class, 475 U.S. 106, 106 S.Ct. 960, 89 L.Ed.2d 81 (1986).

In Class, the Supreme Court stated in a footnote, as follows: “Petitioner invites us to hold that respondent’s status as an unlicensed driver deprived him of any reasonable expectations of privacy in the vehicle, because the officers would have been within their discretion to have prohibited respondent from driving the car away, to have impounded the car, and to have later conducted an inventory search thereof. Cf. South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 96 S.Ct. 3092, 49 L.Ed.2d 1000 (1976) (police may conduct inventory search of car impounded for multiple parking violations); Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 81 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984)(discussing the ‘inevitable discovery’ exception to the exclusionary rule). Petitioner also argues that there can be no Fourth Amendment violation here because the police could have arrested respondent, see N.Y.Veh. & Traf.Law § 155 (McKinney Supp.1986); N.Y.Crim.Proc.Law § 140.10(1) (McKinney 1981), and could then have searched the passenger compartment at the time of arrest, cf. New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981), or arrested respondent and searched the car after impounding it pursuant to the arrest, see Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 93 S.Ct. 2523, 37 L.Ed.2d 706 (1973). We do not, however, reach those questions here.” Class, 475 U.S. at 119, 106 S.Ct. at 969.

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Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals

Related Article

Unlicensed driver has
no standing to contest search

Nevertheless, rather than upholding the search on one of the numerous bases suggested by the Supreme Court, the Seventh Circuit simply held that Haywood lacked standing as if it were some ancient principle of constitutional law.

Furthermore, using the court’s reasoning, this holding can be extended to all unlicensed drivers, and not be limited to unlicensed drivers of rental cars.

As the court stated, “Haywood should not have been driving any car,…” Since that is the case, there’s no reason why an unlicensed driver should have an expectation of privacy in any car.

When someone rents a car, it is a violation of the rental agreement to allow any unlisted person to drive it; no special significance attaches to the fact that the unlisted driver has no license. As such, there’s no reason the court’s holding need be limited to rental cars.

– David Ziemer

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David Ziemer can be reached by email.

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