hotels and the law

rat tat tat tat

rat tat tat tat

Ex-Bluelighter
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In a hotel room are you subject to the same rights as if you were in your own house? For instance, would they need a warrant to perform a search in a hotel room? Would simply stepping into the room without your permission be considered a search or forcing you to let them anywhere beyond the door way without reasonable cause be against practice?
 
im pretty sure they go to the front desk first and ask for permission to gain entry into the room. least thats what i would think. ive stayed in my share of cheap motels but never have had the cops called on me before. had them looking for me one night and the clerk told them i wasnt there and they left.
 
Im not positive but i believe if the police have permission from the hotel they can enter because the hotel owns the property, but im sure they still have to prove probable cause
 
In my experience was staying in a cheap o in panama city florida. Hotel was workin with the pigs gave them permission they entered with a hotel issued key card. Yea was fucked seized a qp of pot thankfully no one was charged
 
you do have an expectation of privacy and Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure when staying in a hotel. but there are a lot of gray areas here, and the law varies depending on the state.
 
Was spring break everyone was 17 5 people staying in the room. everyone had there own ounce different places but alot were in plain view we were smokin partyin you know spring break shit. We had only been there like 4 hours when the cops showed up they knocked once then entered we were all like oh shit. They were nice actually made us flush most of the pot I managed to hide an ounce under a matress. Flushed a 1/4 pound told us we need rehab and to find jesus. They werent so nice when they came back a week later on 420 we werent the smartest kids in the world. Funny shit was they just made us leave panama city and promise to never return. Cool Cops
 
medicine cabinet said:
im pretty sure they go to the front desk first and ask for permission to gain entry into the room. least thats what i would think. ive stayed in my share of cheap motels but never have had the cops called on me before. had them looking for me one night and the clerk told them i wasnt there and they left.
Click to expand...

that clerk sounds like good people.
 
"A hotel guest is entitled to the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. The hotel clerk had no authority to permit the room search and the police had no basis to believe that petitioner had authorized the clerk to permit the search...

At least twice the U.S. Supreme Court has explicitly refused to permit an otherwise unlawful police search of a hotel room to rest upon consent of the hotel proprietor."

Stoner v. California, Lustig v. United States, United States v. Jeffers.
 
^that's very useful information.

is it just me that finds it funny that there was a story about a hotel room + cops + weed in this thread, and the name of that case is
STONER v. CALIFORNIA

i lol'd
 
Iv worked for quit afew hotels(in CA.) And there is no expectation of privacy. If we want to open your door, we will. Its not your hotel room, even if all your stuffs in it.
 
^ By that reasoning, it's not your apartment even though your stuff is in it.

What is the difference between renting an apartment for a month and renting a hotel room for a night?
 
In Texas there's a lease form that is exactly the same no matter what apartment you move to (and possibly no matter which house you rent, I'm not sure). In this form, it makes it pretty clear that the landlord can for a variety of reasons unlock your door and let police in, or just do a random inspection. Most of the time, if a landlord really hates you for a valid reason, these reasons can be made up or exaggerated.

People think the issue is whether this interferes with things like the constitution and miranda rights (or whatever else). It may or may not, but it doesn't really matter anywhere except for that little pocket of people's imaginations that play out legal scenarios based on what the law says, and what being an American citizen is "all about" based on the constitution.

In the real world, cops and landlords can and will kick in your door without warrants, lie in police reports and in court testimony, wrongfully arrest you, etc. And there isn't a damn thing you can do about it if you don't have any money. Hotels, btw, are the least safe place you can possibly be, and police can basically get those keys based on a noise complaint or a "smell of marijuana."

If someone thinks you're breaking the law and that someone happens to be anyone involved in the management of a hotel or rental property, you can pretty much expect for things to work out badly for you, regardless of what the law says.
 
thugpassion said:
Iv worked for quit afew hotels(in CA.) And there is no expectation of privacy. If we want to open your door, we will. Its not your hotel room, even if all your stuffs in it.
Click to expand...
Hotel employees are not state actors like cops are. As such, the Fourth Amendment does not apply to them, though I suspect there are statutory and contractual hurdles to hotel employees entering a rented room on a whim.
 
^It dosent matter. If they are suspect(in CA.) they are getting entered, if they like it or not. And if their difficult then security or the cops are surley involved. But Iv found that some of the smaller hotels/motels in CA. like to deal with problums their self.
 
You are describing practice, thugpassion, but not law. Both are important. It's helpful to know what is going on out there.

Legally, though, if the 4th Amendment applies to hotel rooms, then what the cops find in there is subject to being excluded from evidence if they did not obtain a search warrant or use an exception to the search warrant requirement (granted, there are some broad exceptions).

If there are state statutes protecting one's privacy in a hotel room, then even the hotel personnel going inside - other than perhaps to clean or inspect the room? - could violate the law. Certainly they couldn't help themselves to the guest's property. Perhaps they could also not go through suitcases and drawers that are packed with the guest's property as well?

Someone would have to research this further. It's an interesting topic, especially as there appears to be a gap between practice and legality.
 
^I dont know how this relates in terms of the 4th amendment. But I myself have entered rooms(with or without there tenents being there) because they were suspect or because I just felt like it. And when police ever showed up they would go to the room, and if they couldnt gain entrence than they would have me make keys. And pobable cause is always easy to come by after the fact.
 
fine. that doesn't make what you did legal. there is an infinite set of examples where cops or civilians ignored the law, and it is not something that can be controlled or even analyzed here more than it already has. but thanks for sharing. though your tangent on probable cause is extremely misleading.
 
Thugpassion must work at some grimy hotels. The hotels I've worked at would never DREAM of doing that.

A cop came up to my clerk while I was over seeing the late night shift with a search warrant. They guy at the counter brought him back and the only reason we were cooperative was because he had the search warrant.

If there hadn't been a search warrant the response would have been, "Sorry officer, but its not in our best interest to violate our customers policy, but we can always tell them you came by."
 
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