In United States v. Lewis, 62 F.4th 733 (2d Cir. 2023), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit addressed whether the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable search and seizure extends to the warrantless search of a shared back porch of a multiunit dwelling. In a unanimous opinion authored by Circuit Judge Alison Nathan and joined by Circuit Judges Raymond Lohier and Susan Carney, the panel affirmed the district court’s denial of the defendant-appellant’s motion to suppress evidence that police recovered from the shared porch behind his three-apartment house, but declined to adopt a categorical rule that occupants of multiunit dwellings have no reasonable expectation of privacy in shared spaces.

By refusing to adopt such a categorical rule, the Second Circuit was careful not to draw distinctions between residents of apartments and those in single-family homes—a distinction that some other circuits have similarly refused to draw. The Second Circuit’s decision also shows the importance of defendants articulating in such cases specific facts regarding their use of the relevant area of the shared space.

Background and District Court Ruling

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