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10/21/2014 Justices Will Rule on Police Scrutiny of Hotel Registries | National Law Journal

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ustices Will Rule on Police Scrutiny of Hotel Registries

Marcia Coyle, Supreme Court Brief

October 20, 2014 | 0 Comments

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Andrey Burmakin

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether a city ordinance authorizing police to search hotel and motelguest registries violates the Fourth Amendment.

City of Los Angeles v. Patel is the second Fourth Amendment case the justices have taken this term. The high court heardarguments on Oct. 6 in Heien v. North Carolina , which asks whether a traffic stop, based on a police officer's mistaken belief about what the law prohibits, violates the Fourth Amendment.

The city's petition poses two questions for the justices: whether facial challenges (that a law is unconstitutional in everyapplication) to laws are permitted under the Fourth Amendment, and if so, whether the amendment requires those laws toprovide for judicial review before police can inspect the registries.

Los Angeles' municipal code requires hotels to maintain guest registries and to make them available to police inspection atany time without consent or a search warrant. Failure to comply with an officer's inspection demand is a misdemeanor,punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Naranjibhai Patel and Ramilaben Patel are owners and operators of motels in Los Angeles. They challenged the cityordinance, arguing it was facially unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment because it authorizes unreasonable invasionsof their private business records without a warrant or pursuant to any recognized warrant exception.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, ruling 7-4, held that hotel operators have an expectation of privacy in theirhotel registries, and that the ordinance is facially unconstitutional because it makes no provision for judicial review.

Deputy city attorney Gregory Orland told the justices that there is split between the Ninth and Sixth circuits regarding whetherfacial challenges are permitted under the Fourth Amendment. And, he added, there is a split between the Ninth Circuit andthe Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court over whether hotels enjoy expectations of privacy in guest registries underordinances like the one in Los Angeles.

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"Not only is there a multi-tier split of decision by severely divided courts, there is a compelling national interest to decidethese issues," Orland wrote. "Hotel guest registry inspection statutes and ordinances are ubiquitous."

An appendix to the city's petition for review notes 70 such laws including two state statutes as well as county and cityordinances across the country, ranging from large cities to small towns representing 26 states.

"These laws expressly help police investigate crimes such as prostitution and gambling, capture dangerous fugitives and evenauthorize federal law enforcement to examine these registers, an authorization which can be vital in the immediate aftermathof a homeland terrorist attack," the petition says.

As an aside, the city's case brings to the court what has been called the "Patel Motel" phenomenon. A 1999 New York Timesarticle, and a 2012 book, Life Behind the Lobby: Indian American Motel Owners and the American Dream, noted that abouthalf of all motels in the United States are owned by Indian Americans. Although unrelated, 70 percent of them share thename "Patel" and come from the same region in India, according to the Asian American Hotel Owners Association.

The justices also agreed to decide in Henderson v. United States whether a former U.S. Border Patrol agent, convicted of distributing marijuana, is entitled to have his private firearms, held by the government during his criminal proceedings,transferred to a third party or a relative of his choosing.

The agent voluntarily surrendered to FBI agents not only his Border Patrol firearms but also as many as 19 other weapons. Heargued he was entitled to the transfer under Rule 41(g) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The Eleventh Circuitaffirmed a magistrate's denial of the agent's motion because a prior circuit decision prevents courts from "violating 18 U.S.C. 922(g) by delivering actual or constructive possession of firearms to a convicted felon."

And in Chappell v. Ayala , the high court will examine whether a state court's rejection of a claim of federal constitutional erroron the ground that any error, if one occurred, was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt is an "adjudication on the merits" forpurposes of federal habeas relief.

Contact Marcia Coyle at [email protected] .

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