Justice Antonin Scalia succinctly summarized the plaintiffs’ position during a recent oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court in City of Los Angeles v. Patel, No. 13-1175: “You can’t see my register. It’s dear to me.” In Patel, the Supreme Court examined a facial Fourth Amendment challenge to Los Angeles Municipal Code Section 41.49, which authorized law enforcement officers to routinely inspect hotel guest registers without exigent circumstances, probable cause, or judicial supervision. During an active oral argument, the justices explored whether a hotel—not its guests—had an expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment in a hotel guest register, where the litigants agreed that maintaining the information contained in the register was mandated by law. The court also examined whether statutes and ordinances may ever be challenged under the Fourth Amendment on a facial basis.
Background
Los Angeles Municipal Code Section 41.49 required hotel and motel operators to maintain a register with specified information about their guests. It also mandated that the register must “be made available to any officer of the Los Angeles Police Department for inspection” that was to be “conducted at a time and in a manner that minimizes interference with the operation of the business.” A group of hotel owners in Los Angeles challenged this provision of Section 41.49 that authorized warrantless, on-site inspections of such registers. The hoteliers sought an injunction prohibiting enforcement of Section 41.49.
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