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Passenger in a rented SUV lacked standing to contest search of vehicle

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Court determines that a passenger in a validly stopped rented SUV had no standing to challenge the search of the vehicle which led to finding interior panels that had been tampered with, which, when opened, revealed meth. United States v. Resa, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 35615 (E.D. Tenn. March 17, 2008): In Smith, the Sixth Circuit considered five factors which it found to militate, under the facts of that case, against application of the general rule depriving an unauthorized driver of a rental vehicle from asserting a privacy interest in the vehicle. Those factors were: (1) whether the defendant was a properly licensed driver, who could legally drive the vehicle in question; (2) whether the defendant was able to present the officer with a rental agreement and provide the officer with sufficient information regarding the vehicle; (3) whether the driver can identify some related individual who gave him possession of the vehicle (in Smith, it was the defendant's wife) or whether the purported authorized driver is "some unrelated third party;" (4) whether the defendant's related party had given him permission to drive the vehicle; and (5) most significantly, whether the defendant had a business relationship with the rental company such as having made a reservation, or presented it with a credit card number...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on May 05, 2008 (boomark / email).