United States v. Daniel E. Heisman, United States of America v. Michael Ray Radford’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

43 federal appellate · 4 district · 14 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 66 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[Mjutual use of the property by persons generally having joint access or control for most purposes, so that it is reasonable to recognize that any of the co-inhabitants has the right to permit the inspection in his own right and that the others have assumed the risk that one of their number might permit the common area to be searched.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. United States v. Kelly · United States v. Selberg

2. ““In the case sub judice Kesterson had a property interest in the searched area because he was a co-lessee. The question we must decide, however, is whether he had the requisite ‘joint access or control for most purposes’ over the property, [cited is Matlock, 415 U.S. at 171, n. 7 , 94 S.Ct. at 993 , heretofore quoted]. We conclude that he did not. Although there was no door or lock to Heisman’s room, it was nevertheless an area set aside for his own private use. Kesterson had only been in the room once and then with Heisman’s permission. As a practical matter, Kesterson did not have access or control of Heisman’s room for any purpose. Kesterson and Heisman were co-tenants in a building in which there were both common areas of use and private areas for each to run his separate business. In short, Kesterson had a legal but not a possessory right to the area in which Heisman stored his work product. Thus, Kesterson could not legally consent to a search of that area. “At the hearing on defendants’ motions to suppress evidence obtained as a result of the search, Kesterson testified that at the time of the agents’ request to search he ‘assumed it was all right’ for the agents to search Heisman’s room. This was in response to a question asking whether Kesterson ‘assumed [he] had access to [Heisman’s room].’ We do not find layman Kesterson’s state of mind on this legal question at the time of the request to be controlling. Whether Kesterson had the requisite ‘joint access or control ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Bettuo v. Pelton