State v. Sweatt: An Examination of the Current Confusion in Fourth Amendment Standing

In State v. Sweatt the Maine Law Court held that an owner of gems being sold on consignment in a third party's store has standing under the fourth amendment to contest the seizure of the gems. The movants in Sweatt were the targets of several police searches during October and November of 1980. During these searches the police seized tourmaline gemstones which were alleged to have been stolen from Dale Sweatt's former business partner, and miscellaneous personal items belonging to the Sweatts. Subsequently, the Sweatts moved for suppression and return of all these articles. The superior court granted the movants' motion except as to the items seized during the search of a safe in the Sweatts' attorney's office. Both parties appealed. In denying the state's appeal and sustaining the movants', the Law Court ruled that the movants had standing to contest five searches and one seizure. The legality of the warrantless search of the third party's store and the subsequent seizure of the movants' property presented the Law Court with an excellent opportunity to provide fourth amendment standing guidelines to the lower state courts. The issue of the Sweatts' standing to object to the search of the store and the seizure of the gems generated both a majority and a concurring opinion. Neither opinion, however, adequately addressed the standing issue. Thus, the court failed to dispel the current confusion in fourth amendment standing law. This confusion is the result of recent United States Supreme Court decisions which have provided little guidance to federal and state courts on the issue of standing. These recent decisions reflect the Supreme Court's desire to limit the application of the exclusionary rule. The Court has effected this limitation by adopting a vague "expectation of privacy" standard for standing and discarding the clear, concrete guidelines adopted by the Warren Court. Without concrete guidelines, the state courts have broad discretion to grant or deny fourth amendment standing. Such discretion increases the likelihood of inconsistent and capricious results in fourth amendment standing decisions.