STATE OF NEW JERSEY VS. YVES M. MARCELLUS (16-11-0791, UNION COUNTY AND STATEWIDE) (A-4102-19)
Defendant appealed the denial of his motion to suppress evidence taken by police from an opaque bag and closed shoebox located in his mother's room in a home owned by his aunt; his aunt had previously barred defendant from the home. Police did not seek a warrant but instead sought and obtained the consent of defendant's aunt to search her home. No effort was made to obtain defendant's mother's consent to search her room, even though the trial judge found she was a tenant, because she spoke only Creole. Notwithstanding questions about the validity of the consent to search defendant's mother's room, the court concluded in reversing that there was no evidence to support a finding that police had a reasonably objective belief that either defendant's aunt or his mother had the authority to consent to a search of the opaque bag and closed shoebox because the record revealed this property belonged only to defendant, who did not consent. That defendant had no possessory interest or reasonable expectation of privacy in the premises where the closed containers were found was irrelevant to the analysis about the validity of the search of the containers.
