CAN THE POLICE CHECK MOTEL REGISTRIES TO SEE IF THERE IS A WARRANT FOR YOUR ARREST?

The issue of whether the police can randomly check a motel registry to see who is staying at the motel and whether they have outstanding warrants is of particular interest to me, not only because of the constitutional implications, but because I encountered this specific issue back when I was appealing felony convictions at the Washington Appellate Project in 2005.

In the case that I appealed, the police observed the defendant and his female companion enter a motel on Aurora, a high crime area known for prostitution and drug activity. After the defendant entered the room, the police checked the motel registry. They then ran a warrants check on the defendant after getting his name, birth date, and driver's license number from the registry. Sure enough, the defendant had an outstanding warrant.

The police then went to the defendant's motel room and knocked on the door. The man answered and by this time, he was not wearing pants. The police arrested him because of the outstanding warrant and placed him in a patrol car. They then went back into the motel room to get the defendant's pants. Before giving the pants to the defendant, they searched the pants and found...crack cocaine.

So my client was convicted of a felony- possession of a controlled substance. The main issues I argued on appeal involved illegal searches and seizures. One of the first questions in a search and seizure argument is whether there is a privacy interest involved. Another question is whether that privacy interest is protected by the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. At the time I was drafting my brief, the U.S. Supreme Court had held that it was not a violation of the Fourth Amendment for the police to randomly check motel registries without probable cause.

The next question to ask in this type of case is whether the search is a violation of our state constitution. The Washington Supreme Court has long held that the Washington State Constitution provides broader protection than the Fourth Amendment. This is largely because Article 1, Section 7 of our state constitution includes the words, "private affairs." So in 2005, I argued that a person in the state of Washington has a privacy interest in the information they provide to motels and that a random check of motel registries by police was a violation of our state constitution. This argument was rejected by Division One of the Washington State court of Appeals and the felony conviction was affirmed.

While I was drafting the brief for the appeal, another attorney shared her brief with me. She was arguing the very same issue, but she was taking it to the Washington Supreme Court. By 2007, the Washington Supreme Court had decided the case and held that random checks of motel registries without probable cause was a violation of our state constitution and are not permitted. The case was State v. Jorden.

In a relatively short opinion, the Court reasoned that "private affairs" meant "interests which citizens of this state have held, and should be entitled to hold, safe from government trespass." The court acknowledged that there were a number of legitimate reasons why a person who was lawfully staying at a motel would want to keep his or her presence at the motel private. For that reason, the Court found that the Washington State Constitution prohibits random searches of motel registries.

The decision in State v. Jorden was a major victory, not only for criminal defense lawyers like myself, but for the residents of Washington in general. For years police had made arrests by checking who was signed in at a motel and running warrants checks on those people just in case they might find something. The police can no longer do this in Washington State.

Since State v. Jorden, evidence has been suppressed after police conducted random searches at motels. For example, a colleague of mine recently had a case in which police performed a random search of a motel registry which led them to his client, who happened to be in possession of 1 pound of methamphetamine. My colleague referred the court to State v. Jorden and the evidence was suppressed. Needless to say, the case was dismissed.