High court rules a homeless shelter is a home -- in privacy terms

The high court, ruling against the prosecutors, said the room where the juvenile and his mother lived was their home and they had a "reasonable expectation of privacy" in it. That expectation meant it couldn't be searched without a warrant.

"The room that the juvenile and his mother shared at the shelter was a transitional living space, but it was nonetheless their home," the court said in a 5-2 decision written by Justice Ralph Gants.

The court said the police could have searched the room if they had permission of a co-inhabitant of the home or if a landlord had a contract entitling police to seize contraband or evidence on the property. But the court said that neither of those conditions applied.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Judith Cowin argued that shelter residents did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. "The shelter services a transient population. it makes available a temporary place to live off the streets. In return, and for obvious reasons, the shelter requires that its residents surrender a considerable degree of personal freedom," she wrote.

Looking at life at the shelter, with its numerous rules, including one allowing the shelter director to enter any room essentially at will, Cowin said, "puts to rest any premise that a resident could conceivably harbor a reasonable expectation" of privacy.