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NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS DIVISION OF ST. CROIX PEOPLE OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS SX-12-CR-618 Plaintiff, NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE BY MEANS OF A MOTOR VEHICLE/ PRINCIPALS INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER/PRINCIPALS VS. FAILURE TO REPORT AN ACCIDENT/ PRINCIPALS LEAVING THE SCENE OF AN ACCIDENT/PRINCIPALS OPERATING AN UNREGISTERED MOTOR VEHICLE/ JAZMIN LINARES, PRINCIPALS MISPRISON OF A FELONY/PRINCIPALS Defendant. ACCESSORY AFTER THE FACT/PRINCIPALS MEMORANDUM OPINION BEFORE THE Court is Defendant Jazmin Linares’ (hereinafter “Linares”) Motion to Suppress. The Motion was filed on November 8, 2013. The People of the Virgin Islands (hereinafter “People”) filed an opposition on November 18, 2013. A Hearing on the Motion to Suppress (hereinafter “Hearing”) was held on October 24, 2014. For the following reasons, the Court will deny Linares’ Motion. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY On the morning of March 12, 2012,' at approximately 4:40 a.m. 911 dispatch received a call from a concerned citizen about a man lying in road in the vicinity of Williams Delight and Mr. T. Laundromat. The man, later identified as Eli Moving (hereinafter “Moving), was pronounced dead at the Juan F. Luis Hospital. An anonymous witnesses stated that Moving was struck by a vehicle while in the roadway, dragged, and left in the road. The driver of the vehicle did not stop to render assistance to Moving, or contact 911, or give any information about being involved in an automobile accident. Witness described the vehicle as “goldish” in color. Officers put out an all-points bulletin for a 1 The Court will use March 12, 2012 as the date of the alleged incident because both parties use this date in their motions even though the Information states February 18, 2012 and the Affidavit states both February 18, 2012 and March 12, 2012 as the date of the incident. PVI v. Linares SX-12-CR-618 MEMORANDUM OPINION “goldish” color vehicle with damage to the front end and requested that anyone in the public seeing this vehicle make contact with the police. A few days later, an unknown mechanic notified the police someone brought a gold SUV bearing license plate number CDQ-763 with damages to the front right headlight, right front fender, hood and right door post to his body shop. When the mechanic returned the next day, the vehicle was gone. A registration check was made of the vehicle and it was determined that the vehicle was a 1999 Gold Lexus RX3 registered to Gregory Marcus (hereinafter “Marcus”) of Estate Whim. On March 16, 2012, Police Officer Arthur Joseph, Police Officer Tabia Pennyfeather and Auxillary Police Officer Chenae Harvey located the vehicle while on routine patrol by Cruzan Environmental Services behind the Lower Love Service Station. The officers observed damage to the vehicle and Marcus was notified that he was a person of interest in this incident. At the scene, Corporal Luis Encarnacion took photographs of the vehicle and samples of what appeared to be blood before the vehicle was impounded for further processing. Marcus was transported to the Ann Schrader police station, Mirandized and interviewed. During his interview Marcus stated that he was dropped off to work by his girlfriend Linares on March 12, 2012 at around 4:15 a.m. and she left with the vehicle. When Linares returned to pick him up after work, Marcus saw that his vehicle was damaged, but stated that he did not know anything about an accident. While Marcus was at the police station, Linares appeared. She was also Mirandized and interviewed. Linares stated that her boyfriend Marcus picked her up from her house at the Walter I. M. Hodge Pavilion, also referred to as Lagoon Project, in Frederiksted around 3:15 a.m. because she needed to use the vehicle. Linares was reclining in the passenger seat while Marcus drove down the Queen Mary Highway to Marcus’ job at Cruzan Environmental Services. Linares took possession of the vehicle and drove west on the Queen Mary Highway to her home at the Walter I. M. Hodge PVI y. Linares SX-12-CR-618 MEMORANDUM OPINION Pavilion. Linares stated that the only other time she drove the vehicle was later that day when she went to Marcus’ house in Campo Rico to do laundry. The glass debris collected from the crime scene on March 16, 2012, by forensic technician Corporal Luis Encarnacion matched the piece of glass missing from the right front headlight of the gold SUV bearing license plate number CDQ-763. Metal residue from the guard rail located at the crime scene was also found on the left front bumper of the vehicle. Hair samples taken from under the vehicle also matched the victim’s hair. Based on the evidence, both Linares and Marcus were charged with crimes related to the incident. However, the charges against Marcus were later dismissed. Linares now moves this Court to suppress the introduction of any statement she allegedly made to government agents and all evidence derived from the search and seizure of the vehicle on the grounds that they were obtained in violation of her Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights. The issues before the Court are (1) whether Linares has proper standing to challenge the search and seizure of the vehicle and (2) whether the search and seizure of the vehicle was constitutional. DISCUSSION Linares contends that she has standing to contest the constitutionality of the vehicle’s seizure because she was in possession of the vehicle at the time of the alleged incident, on March 12, 2012, with the registered owner’s permission. (Def.’s Mot. to Suppress at 3). She further argues that her possessory interest did not terminate on March 16, 2012 when the vehicle was seized. Jd. Contrarily, the People argue that since Linares has no ownership interest in the automobile and it was not in her possession when it was seized by the police, she has no standing to contest the search and seizure of the automobile. For the reasons elucidated below, the Court finds that Linares does not have standing under the Fourth Amendment to challenge the search and seizure of Marcus’s vehicle. PYVIy. Linares SX-12-CR-618 MEMORANDUM OPINION To prevail on a motion to suppress, the defendant bears the burden of establishing that her Fourth Amendment rights were violated by an unlawful search and seizure.?, However, when the search and seizure is conducted without a warrant—as in this case—the burden shifts to the government to demonstrate the existence of a well-recognized exception to the warrant requirement.? On the specific issue of standing to contest the legality of a search — whether the individual had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the place searched — the burden falls on the person asserting the Fourth Amendment right.4 The Fourth Amendment guards against unreasonable searches and seizures except when justified by certain well delineated exceptions.*> The Fourth Amendment “indicates with some precision the places and things encompassed by its protections”: persons, houses, papers, and effects.° It is undisputed that an automobile is an “effect” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.’ Because Fourth Amendment rights are personal, an accused must show that the search violated her, rather than a third party's, reasonable expectation of privacy.® In other words, Fourth Amendment protection is dependent “upon whether the person who claims the protection of the Amendment has standing’— a legitimate expectation of privacy in the invaded place.”!° 2 People of the Virgin Islands v. Samuel, 2010 V.I. LEXIS 80, *8 (V.I. Super. Ct. Nov. 12, 2010). 3 United States v. Murray, 53 V.1. 831, 842 (D.V.1, 2010) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “ United States v. Kennedy, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 43511, *6 (E.D. Pa. June 15, 2007) (citing Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98, 104 (1980)). > U.S. CONST. amend. IV. See Blyden v. People of the Virgin Islands, 53 V.1. 637, 647 n.5 (V.I. 2010) (internal quotations marks omitted) (The Fourth Amendment is applicable in the Virgin Islands pursuant to section 3 of the Revised Organic Act of 1954, as amended, 48 U.S.C. § 1561.) 6 Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 176 (1984). 7 United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 12 (1977). 8 Rakas v, Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 133,138 (U.S. 1978) (the "rights assured by the Fourth Amendment are personal rights, [which] . . . may be enforced by exclusion of evidence only at the instance of one whose own protection was infringed by the search and seizure) (citation omitted). ° Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165, 174 (1968). 10 Simmonds v. People of the Virgin Islands, 53 V.1. 549, 575 (VI. 2010). See Rakas, 439 U.S. at 143; see also United States v. Cortez-Dutrieville 743 F.3d 881, 883 (3d Cir. 2014) (Standing exists if the defendant can establish that he had "a legitimate expectation of privacy in the invaded place." ). PVIy, Linares SX-12-CR-618 MEMORANDUM OPINION A legitimate expectation of privacy has two elements: first, the individual must actually have a subjective expectation of privacy under the circumstances, and second, the circumstances of this expectation must be such that society accepts them as reasonable.'! A subjective expectation of privacy is demonstrated by action taken to keep objects, activities, or statements private. !? In a case involving a borrowed car, the Virgin Islands Supreme Court has not addressed this issue, however, the Third Circuit noted that “whether the driver of a car has the reasonable expectation of privacy necessary to show Fourth Amendment standing is a fact-bound question dependent on the strength of his interest in the car and the nature of his control over it; ownership is not necessary.” Rakas and its progeny have made clear that more than temporary occupancy or possession of a vehicle is needed to maintain standing.!* Typically, an individual who had only "casual" and temporary possession of vehicle lacks a sufficient expectation of privacy in the car to entitle her to challenge its seizure and search.!° Here, on the day of the incident, March 12, 2012, Linares was in possession of the vehicle with permission of her then boyfriend Marcus. However, Linares was not in possession of the vehicle when the vehicle was seized. The vehicle was in Marcus’s possession parked outside of his job at Cruzan Environmental Services. In her Motion, Linares merely states that her possessory interest did not terminate on March 16, 2012 without giving any explanation for how she actually maintained her expectation of privacy in a vehicle that she neither owned nor possessed on the date of the search, and 1 See Rakas. 439 U.S. at 143n.12 (Expectation of privacy “by definition means more than a subjective expectation of not being discovered.”); Katz, 389 U.S. at 361 (Harlan, J., concurring); United States v. Taborda, 635 F.2d 131, 139 n. 10 (2d Cir. 1980) (‘the reasonableness of an expectation of privacy [is] logically dependent principally ... on the degree to which the locale is viewable by a member of the public without visual aids.”). !2 Simmonds, 53 V.I. at $72. 3 United States v. Baker, 221 F.3d 438, 442 (3d Cir. 2000). 4 United States v. King, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69697, *3 (W.D. Pa. May 29, 2015) 15 Td. at *3-4 (internal quotation marks omitted) (citing United States v. Sanchez, 943 F.2d 110, 114 (1st Cir. 1991) (individual who had only "casual" and temporary possession of vehicle "lacked a sufficient expectation of privacy in the car to entitle him to challenge its seizure and search.")). See also Varner v. United States, 685 A.2d 396, 398 (D.C. Ct. App. 1996) (mere presence in and temporary command over a vehicle are insufficient to create a legitimate expectation of privacy). PYVI v. Linares SX-12-CR-618 MEMORANDUM OPINION was parked in a public area. Linares’ possession of the car was temporary. On the day Marcus’s vehicle was searched and seized, Linares’ possessory interest and expectation of privacy in the vehicle was no greater than a parking attendant who has temporary possession of a restaurant patron’s vehicle until its return at the end of evening. Linares did not have a legitimate expectation of privacy in Marcus’s vehicle at the time it was seized. Because Linares lacks standing to contest the search of the vehicle, the Court need not address the legality of the search. CONCLUSION Based on the foregoing analysis, the Court will deny Linares’s motion to suppress. Linares lacks standing to challenge the search of Marcus’s vehicle. The Court will issue an Order consistent with this Opinion. pelts” olf Ml? ‘Harold W.L. Willocks Administrative Judge of the Superior Court ATTEST: Estrella George Dated: