At 3:50 a.m. a woman called the County Sheriff's Office on behalf of Marc Cole, who claimed a man had shot at him at a state campground. Near the campground, the officers encountered Mr. Cole. Cole told the officers that Kenneth D. Gooch fired a shot in his direction after a fight during which Gooch tried to "stick my head into a campfire." These incidents occurred between midnight and 2:00 a.m.

The officers arrived at the entrance to the campground at 5:00 a.m. They waited at the entrance for some time for backup units to arrive. The officers then traveled down the entrance road for approximately one mile. On the road, the officers met a young man that told them Gooch was in his tent with a woman. Upon arrival at Gooch's campsite, the officers determined he was asleep in his closed tent. Gooch lived in the tent. He had no other residence.

Without an arrest warrant the officers ordered Gooch out of the tent, patted him down and arrested him. He was handcuffed and locked in a police car 20 yards from the tent. The officers then order the other occupant, Mary Baker, out of the tent.

Without a search warrant, the officers searched the tent for the firearm. One of them found a loaded handgun under Gooch's air mattress. After dismissal of state charges, a federal indictment for being a felon in possession of a firearm was returned. At trial Gooch moves to suppress the firearm.

Should his motion be granted?
Would it make a difference if Gooch's campsite was on private land, and he was a trespasser?

Submitted by Brett Hanna

Wake Forest University School of Law

Answer

Warrantless searches are presumed to be unreasonable.  In a case with this fact scenario, the court ruled that the defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his tent and no exigent circumstances existed to justify the warrantless search.  The evidence of the firearm was suppressed.  U.S. v. Gooch, 6 F.3d 673.

However, in State v. Pentecost 825 P.2d 365, the court held that the defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy as to the items in his tent on someone else's private property.