What Defines a Home’s Curtilage? An Ill-Advised Search Leads to a Reversal for Defendant in Drug Case

By Robert Phillips
Deputy District Attorney (Ret)

Legal Concepts and Case Citation 

Sixth Amendment right to competent counsel 

Warrantless entries into the curtilage of one’s home 

A parole search as it relates to the entry of the curtilage 

Good faith belief a defendant resides at a house entered by police 

Tran & Chong v. United States (9th Cir. Aug. 14, 2024) 112 F.4th 848 

Rule:  

The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to the effective assistance of counsel in all criminal cases. Counsel’s ineffectiveness is shown where the attorney’s performance was constitutionally deficient and when such ineffectiveness prejudiced the defendant.  

Law enforcement’s warrantless entry into the curtilage of one’s home for the purpose of conducting a search violates the Fourth Amendment. A non-resident lacks the necessary standing to challenge the illegal search of a residence. 

Facts 

Defendant Tac Tran, a state parolee, was believed by homeland security investigators to be staying at the home of co-defendant Harson Chong in the suburbs of Los Angeles. This information came from a wiretap recording of a telephone conversation between Tac Tran and Hao Tang, a known drug distributor who was the target of a Department of Homeland Security investigation. Those phone calls led authorities to believe that Tac Tran, in his association with Hoa Tang, had violated his parole conditions by engaging in criminal activity. Tac Tran, as it was later discovered, is Chong’s uncle and was only visiting Chong when the wiretaps occurred. Normally, Chong lived in the house with his girlfriend, his sister, his sister’s husband, and their infant son.  

As a result of the information gleaned from the wiretaps, deputies of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department set up surveillance outside Chong’s house in July 2012. Given the house’s location at the end of a cul-de-sac, it was noted that the house had a short driveway, no more than one and a half car lengths from the sidewalk to the garage door. The garage entrance, facing the street, was fully exposed from the sidewalk. There was no fencing, vegetation, or other permanent ....