The evidence established that on the morning of the arrest, the accused was carrying the drugs when
he "asked her if she would carry this for me and she said yes," at which point he dumped the drugs into
her purse. The woman testified that when she recognized the substances as drugs, she told the
accused to remove them from her purse. At that point, however, the police showed up. The Supreme
Court concluded that the defendant had no legitimate expectation of privacy in the purse. He had
known the woman for only a few days, and "had never sought or received access to her purse prior to
that sudden bailment...Nor did petitioner have any right to exclude other persons from access to Cox's
purse...The precipitous nature of the transaction hardly supports a reasonable inference that petitioner
took normal precautions to maintain his privacy...he had no subjective expectation that Cox's purse
would remain free from governmental intrusion...petitioner had no reasonable expectation of privacy in
Cox's purse at the time of the search."
U.S. v. Sanford, 12 MJ 170 (CMA, 1981), involved a similar problem. There, SFC Lander
approached the accused and told him, "Lieutenant Young wants to see you." As the accused entered
the battery area, he walked up to another soldier and handed him a leather pouch, saying, "hold this for
me." SFC Lander demanded that the other soldier give him the pouch, which was done. It turned out
to contain marijuana. In terms of whether the accused retained any reasonable expectation of privacy
in the pouch, the court said the issue was whether he "took actual precautions to ensure his
expectations of privacy in (the other soldier's) custody of the pouch and that society is prepared to
accept these efforts as reasonable or normal to accomplish this end." Here, the other soldier "had no
prior arrangement with appellant to possess or protect this or any other property on his
behalf...Appellant's hurried and gratuitous request for (the other soldier) to keep the property was no
more than a precipitous bailment incapable of providing any realistic expectation that his property would
remain private and secure."
d. Common Areas and Open Fields. In U.S. v. Grosskreutz, 5 MJ 344 (CMA, 1978), the court held
that the use of a marijuana detection dog in a public parking area to monitor the air spaces surrounding
an automobile did not violate any reasonable expectation of privacy. In U.S. v. Baker, 14 MJ 602
(AFCMR, 1982), the court held that "there is no expectation of privacy in the hallways and common
areas of a large apartment building...the volume of traffic from fellow tenants, guests, landlords and
maintenance personnel is sufficient to make any such subjective expectation of privacy objectively
unreasonable."
California v. Ciraolo, 54 L. W. 4464 (1986) involved police officers who received a tip that the
accused was growing marijuana in his backyard. They could not observe it at ground level, however,
due to a fence. They then obtained a private plane and flew over the house, within navigable airspace.
They photographed the marijuana plants, and used the photographs to support their application for a
search warrant. The Court held that the police were where they had a right to be, and that they made
their observations "in a physically nonintrusive manner...Any member of the public flying in this
MP1021
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