The defendant said yes and after he took several drags from the cigarette the officer asked if he could take the cigarette to throw it away for the defendant. After the defendant was handcuffed and taken outside to the driveway, an officer asked him if he wanted to smoke a cigarette. Acting with the primary purpose of obtaining a sample of the defendant’s DNA to compare to DNA from the victim’s rape kit, officers went to his residence to execute an unrelated arrest warrant. The defendant, a suspect in a murder case, refused four requests by the police to provide a DNA sample. In this rape and murder case, no Fourth Amendment violation occurred when an officer seized a cigarette butt containing the defendant’s DNA. The court reasoned that the extraction of DNA from an abandoned item does not implicate the Fourth Amendment. ![]() Finally, the court rejected the defendant’s argument that even if officers lawfully obtained the cigarette butt, they still were required to obtain a warrant before testing it for his DNA because he had a legitimate expectation of privacy in his DNA. The court reasoned that the cigarette butt was abandoned property. Next, the court rejected the defendant’s argument that even if the parking lot was not considered curtilage, he still maintained a possessory interest in the cigarette butt since he did not put it in a trash can or otherwise convey it to a third party. Consequently, the parking lot was not a location where defendant possessed “a reasonable and legitimate expectation of privacy that society is prepared to accept.” While the parking lot was in close proximity to the building, it was not enclosed, was used for parking by both the buildings’ residents and the general public, and was only protected in a limited way. On appeal, the court rejected the defendant’s argument that the seizure of the cigarette butt violated his constitutional rights because it occurred within the curtilage of his apartment:Į conclude that the parking lot was not located in the curtilage of defendant’s building. At trial the defendant unsuccessfully moved to suppress the DNA evidence. After DNA on the cigarette butt matched DNA found on the victim, the defendant was charged with the crimes. The area between the road and the parking lot was heavily wooded, but no gate restricted access to the lot and no signs suggested either that access to the parking lot was restricted or that the lot was private. ![]() The parking lot was located directly in front of the defendant’s four-unit apartment building, was uncovered, and included 5-7 unassigned parking spaces used by the residents. After the defendant discarded a cigarette butt in a parking lot, officers retrieved the butt. When the defendant refused to supply a DNA sample in connection with a rape and murder investigation, officers sought to obtain his DNA by other means. The trial court did not err by denying the defendant’s motion to suppress DNA evidence obtained from his discarded cigarette butt.
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