Tenth Circuit US v. Wells 11-5162

Decision here.

   Wells was part of a ring of cops who were stealing money and drugs from suspects.  He wasn't initially the one that the FBI had a lead on, but he did get caught up in the sting.

   Essentially, an FBI agent posed as a drug dealer using the moniker "Joker," and then an informant leaked information about Joker to the Tulsa PD.  Wells and his co-conspirators detained Joker outside of his hotel room, obtained consent to search his room, and then stole some of the cash that they found.  They apparently did not find the cameras.

   They went on to try to set up drug deals with Joker (some of which were simulated by using informants or other FBI agents), and eventually they were arrested for being the dirty sons of bitches that they are.

   Wells was the only officer convicted out of that whole mess, and he appealed his conviction.  His arguments were all dumb, and only one of them is worth mentioning here.  He argued that the recordings of him stealing the cash should be suppressed, because they violated his reasonable expectation of privacy.  

   Yeah.  His reasonable expectation of privacy in someone else's hotel room where he was present not as an invited guest, but as a police officer purportedly investigating a crime.  Legally present in the room, sure.  He was there by valid consent.  But bullying your way into someone else's hotel room (or even asking nicely, on the off chance that he did that) doesn't create the sort of expectation of privacy that our society is going to acknowledge as reasonable.

   This decision contains some discussion of cases from the 9th circuit where an informant's invited guests were captured on video surveillance sampling the drugs for three hours after the informant left.  In that case, the evidence was suppressed because invited guests of whoever's room it is were held to have a reasonable expectation of privacy.  Without commenting on whether or not they agree with that reasoning, the Tenth Circuit pointed out that this case is entirely different.  Wells had no social connection to the room.  He didn't have any standing there, he wasn't invited by anyone with standing.  

   All of that means that he did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy, which means that the audio and video surveillance did not implicate the Fourth Amendment, which means that Wells' conviction stands.