State v. Robert Grimpson Smith, 154 A.3d 660

On Aug. 2, 2014, police responded to a collapsed woman (Kerry St. Lawrence) outside 14 Bank Street, a rooming house with 8–10 numbered, lockable rooms and shared kitchen/bathroom.
Sergeant Norris entered the building through the usually open front door, found defendant unconscious in room 1, and observed drug paraphernalia in plain view; defendant and St. Lawrence told EMTs they had used heroin.
Officers requested consent to search room 1; consent was refused, so they obtained a warrant and seized a syringe, a plastic spoon with cotton, and a metal spoon (metal spoon had trace heroin).
Defendant was charged with possession of heroin and moved to suppress evidence as the product of an illegal warrantless entry into the building’s common hallway.
Defense investigator interviewed St. Lawrence pretrial; she made equivocal statements ("pleading the Fifth"; "her apartment, her name on the lease and her items in the apartment"). The court excluded that testimony as inadmissible hearsay under Rule 804(b)(3).
Trial court denied suppression and excluded the investigator’s testimony; defendant was convicted and appealed. The Supreme Court of New Hampshire affirmed.

Issue	State's Argument	Smith's Argument	Held
Validity of warrantless entry into building/common hallway	Norris’s entry was lawful because defendant lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in the common hallway; entry fell within implied license/social norms (and was not a trespass under Jardines)	Entry through the front door and into the common hallway invaded defendant’s reasonable expectation of privacy; trespassory intrusion (Jardines) rendered the search unconstitutional	Court held defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the common hallway given building usage (many tenants, numbered locked rooms, open front door); implied license justified entry; no unlawful trespass under federal or state constitutions — suppression denied
Admissibility of investigator’s testimony recounting St. Lawrence’s statements	Statements were unreliable and not admissible as statements against penal interest under Rule 804(b)(3); declarant was unavailable and the statements were vague and made after invoking Fifth	Statements tended to show St. Lawrence claimed items as hers, which would be against her penal interest and thus admissible to exculpate Smith	Court excluded the statements: they were too vague, non-specific, and made in circumstances (invoking Fifth, delayed interview with defense investigator) that undermined trustworthiness; exclusion was sustainable

Florida v. Jardines, 133 S. Ct. 1409 (2013) (trespass/curtilage analysis: physical intrusion onto curtilage to conduct a search can violate Fourth Amendment)
United States v. Werra, 638 F.3d 326 (1st Cir. 2011) (focus on tenants’ living arrangements to determine privacy expectations in rooming-house common areas)
State v. Goss, 150 N.H. 46 (2003) (New Hampshire recognizes heightened privacy protection for the home under Part I, Article 19)
State v. Chaisson, 125 N.H. 810 (1984) (privacy interest in an apartment is comparable to that in a home)
State v. Mouser, 168 N.H. 19 (2015) (New Hampshire recognizes trespass theory under federal Fourth Amendment and discusses trespass test)
United States v. Anderson, 533 F.2d 1210 (D.C. Cir. 1976) (court holding privacy interest begins at individual room door, not the rooming-house front door)