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71 Haw. 638

802 P.2d 478

State v. Woolsey

Hawaii Supreme Court

Decided December 4, 1990

Hawaii Supreme Court · decided 1990-12-04

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“The fact that the drug sales were an ongoing operation made it reasonable to believe that drug paraphernalia, proceeds and records existed in the residence. It is also reasonable to believe that in a residence where all occupants have access to all parts of such residence, drugs may be secreted in any part of the residence. The constitution does not prohibit all searches but only unreasonable searches. We hold that the authorized search of the residence based on the warrant was reasonable, especially in the absence of any evidence that [defendant Woolsey] was entitled to an expectation of privacy from the other occupants in areas in which the weapons were discovered and seized. Courts have held that in “multiple occupancy dwellings” in which several persons or families share common living areas but have separate bedrooms a single warrant authorizing the search of the entire premises is valid and reasonable.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including State v. Anderson

Relies on Maryland v. Garrison · State v. Rodrigues

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1990-12-04

How this case has been cited

Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently December 2019

13 state decisions

60199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1DISSENTING OPINION OF

WAKATSUKI, J.

¶2I dissent.

¶3The majority states:

In searching a multiple-occupancy dwelling in which all occupants have access to all parts of such residence, a single warrant authorizing the search of the entire premises is valid and reasonable.

¶4See syllabus, supra.

¶5I concur with that statement of law. But in this case there was no evidence that all the occupants of the house had access to Woolsey’s bedroom where the evidence sought to be suppressed was found.

¶6The affidavit in support of the search warrant implicated Lori Schmitt; Woolsey was not implicated in any way. Prior to commencing a search of Woolsey’s room, the police had ascertained that the bedroom was Woolsey’s. The police had no knowledge or reason to believe that Schmitt or anyone else had access to Woolsey’s room.

¶7Unless the police had a reasonable belief that the occupants had access to Woolsey’s room, or could establish some link to the criminality under investigation, the police were obligated to limit *643the search to common areas and areas accessible to Schmitt. See Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U.S. 79 (1987); 2 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 4.5(b), at 219 (2d ed. 1987). Cf. State v. Rodrigues, 67 Haw. 496, 692 P.2d 1156 (1985).

¶8Nothing in the record supports the search of Woolscy’s bedroom. I would reverse the circuit court’s order denying suppression of evidence found in Woolsey’s bedroom, and remand for a new trial.

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