Was the area searched within the curtilage of the house?

Question

Officers responded to a shots-fired call at a residential street corner at approximately 6:20 a.m., describing one of the suspects as a black male wearing a blue Nike coat. The first officer on the scene saw Zhivargo Jenkins peeking out from the corner of the house at 833 Brewer Street. When the officer called Jenkins over, Jenkins ran across the front of the house and between two cars parked in the yard, bent down beside one of the cars, an inoperative red Chevrolet Lumina, and made a throwing motion. Jenkins then ran, stopped, and surrendered. The officers searched under the Lumina and found a stolen 9mm handgun, hollow-point ammunition, and a plastic bag containing 3.6 grams of crack rocks under the Lumina and arrested Jenkins. The front yard of 833 Brewer Street was unfenced, the back yard was fenced and guarded by a dog , and the lumina was seven to eight feet from the house.

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

No
The area searched, under the red Chevrolet Lumina, was close enough to the house to be within the curtilage. There is not, however, any fixed distance at which curtilage ends. Close proximity to he house is only one factor that determines whether an area is within the curtilage. Fencing is a factor. U.S. v. Dunn (1987) distinguished two kinds of fences: (1) fences that encircle the house and outbuildings can support a finding that everything within the fence belongs to the curtilage, but (2) interior fences that define off portions of the yard from the house can indicate that these fenced areas do not belong to the curtilage. The backyard at 833 Brewer Street was fences and guarded by a large rottweiler dog; because the area searched was outside the portion of the yard that was fenced, this factor negates the curtilage. Another factor is the use to which the area was put. Parking an inoperative car was not an intimate activity associated with domestic life and the privacies of the home. Another factor is the effort taken to protect the area from observation by passers by. Although the homeowner testified that he parked his second vehicle behind and at a slight angle to the Lumina and that "if somebody was in the area [searched] without my consent, I would call the city of Fayetteville, tell them somebody in my yard," he made no effort to protect the portion of the yard where the Lumina was parked from the observation of passers by. The owner's subjective desire to exclude others was not supported with objective steps taken to exclude others and conceal the area from public view. . In sum, each factor except proximity weighs against a finding that the front yard was in the curtilage of the house at 833 Brewer Street.