# Minnesota v. Olson

> Supreme Court of the United States · April 18, 1990 · 495 U.S. 91

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431980

## Case

- **Full name:** Minnesota v. Olson
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** April 18, 1990
- **Citations:** 495 U.S. 91; 58 U.S.L.W. 4464; 110 S. Ct. 1684; 109 L. Ed. 2d 85; 1990 U.S. LEXIS 2038
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Stevens
- **Judges:** Blackmun, Brennan, Kennedy, Marshall, O'Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia, Stevens, White
- **Cited by:** 1,506 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431980

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- finding exigent circumstances did not justify a warrantless entry into an upstairs duplex for the purpose of arresting an overnight guest believed to be involved in a murder where the police knew that the suspect was in the upstairs duplex with no suggestion of *369 danger to …
- explaining that “a person may have a sufficient interest in a place other than his home to enable him to be free in that place from unreasonable searches and seizures,” and more specifically that “a houseguest has a legitimate expectation of privacy in his host’s home”
- finding that a defendant’s status as an overnight guest in the upper unit of a duplex home was sufficient for him to claim a protected privacy interest in the premises, even though he was not given a key or left alone in the unit, and did not pay for his stay
- finding no exigent circumstances when individual was merely driver of getaway car, it was 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, and it was "evident that the suspect was going nowhere; and that if he came out of the house he would have been promptly apprehended"

## Opinion text

Justice Stevens,
concurring.
While I join the Court’s entire opinion, I add this caveat concerning the discussion in Part II of respondent’s standing to challenge his arrest on federal constitutional grounds. If we had concluded that he did not have standing as a matter of federal law, the question that would then have been presented would be whether this Court simply should have dismissed the appeal. For we have no power to prevent state courts from allowing litigants to raise federal questions even though they would not have standing to do so in a federal court. See Secretary of State of Maryland v. Joseph H. Munson Co., 467 U. S. 947, 970-971 (1984) (concurring opinion).
Questions of that kind buttress my opinion that the Court grants review in far too many cases in which state courts have protected the constitutional rights of their own citizens. Notwithstanding the Court’s decision to enlarge its *102 own power to review state-court judgments, see Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032 (1983), I remain convinced that this power should be used sparingly. See generally Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U. S. 673, 689-708 (1986) (dissenting opinion). Only in the most unusual case should the Court volunteer its opinion that a state court has imposed standards upon its own law enforcement officials that are too high.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431980. Public record. Not legal advice.