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New Jersey Criminal Lawyer - Appellate Opinions
State v. Minitee,
N.J. Super. (App. Div. 2010)
Bland's
participatory interest in the red SUV registered to Minitee stems
from his occupancy of the vehicle at the time Officer Lorenzo first
stopped it. His occupancy gave him dominion and use of the area in
and around the vehicle where the police subsequently found the
incriminatory evidence. This participatory interest continued,
unabated, to that point in time when the police seized the vehicle
and arrested Minitee and her codefendant.
Relying
on Bruns,
the State argues that Bland cannot show that he has a participatory
interest in the vehicle because “there is no evidence in the record
that [he] was even an occupant of the SUV prior to its seizure.” The
State is mistaken. As noted, the record shows that Bland was an
occupant of the SUV at the time Lorenzo ordered him to exit the
vehicle. By Officer Gerardo's own account, he came upon Minitee and
Jones next to the SUV just minutes after Lorenzo reported his
encounter with Bland over the police radio and described the
vehicle's make, model, and direction.
These facts
are in sharp contrast to the salient facts in
Bruns. As the Court emphasized in
Bruns, the defendant did not have a proprietary or
possessory interest in the vehicle that was searched. The defendant
in
Bruns argued that he had a “participatory interest in the
weapons seized because they were used to commit the robbery for
which he was charged.” In rejecting the defendant's argument, the
Court noted that Bruns “was not a passenger in the vehicle and he
was not in the vicinity of the vehicle at the time it was searched.”
Ibid. With these key facts in mind, the Court held that a
“generalized connection” to the evidence seized is not enough to
confer standing based on a participatory interest. According to
Bruns, to confer standing based on a participatory
interest there “must be at a minimum some contemporary connection
between the defendant and the place searched or the items seized.
Applying these
principles to the facts in this case, we are satisfied that Bland
has standing to challenge the propriety of the vehicle's warrantless
search. His occupancy of the SUV just minutes before the police
seized it conferred upon him the constitutionally required
participatory interest to challenge the search of that vehicle.
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