Supreme Court strikes warrantless hotel record searches

In a win for privacy Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that police must obtain a warrant before forcing hotels to hand over information about guests.

The court, in a 5-4 decision, struck down a 116-year-old Los Angeles law that required hotels to record and store and make available to police information including guest names, addresses and vehicle descriptions for 90 days.

A group of motel owners sued over the law in 2003, arguing that it violated 4^th Amendment protections in City of Los Angeles v. Patel.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a decision on the case Monday that the 1899 law penalizes hotel owners for “declining to turn over their records without affording them any opportunity for precompliance review.”

“A hotel owner who refuses to give an officer access to his or her registry can be arrested on the spot,” she wrote. “The court has held that business owners cannot reasonably be put to this kind of choice.”

Sotomayor was joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, with Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts dissenting.

Scalia, in his dissent, argued that government should be able to search hotel and motel records without warrant because the lodging establishments are often breeding grounds for crime.

“The private pain and public costs imposed by drug dealing, prostitution, and human trafficking are beyond contention, and motels provide an obvious haven for those who trade in human misery,” Scalia wrote.

“The warrantless inspection requirement provides a necessary incentive for motels to maintain their registers thoroughly and accurately: They never know when law enforcement might drop by to inspect.”

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