Case Title: New Jersey v. McQueen

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: new-jersey

Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Date: 2021-08-10T00:00:00Z

Document:
SYLLABUS

This syllabus is not part of the Court’s opinion. It has been prepared by the Office of the
Clerk for the convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the
Court. In the interest of brevity, portions of an opinion may not have been summarized.

                  State v. Rasheem W. McQueen (A-11-20) (084564)

Argued March 1, 2021 -- Decided August 10, 2021

ALBIN, J., writing for a unanimous Court.

       The Court considers whether the right of privacy, safeguarded by the New Jersey
Constitution, extends to an arrestee’s call on a police line from the stationhouse when
neither party to the call is aware that the police are recording their conversation.

       Rasheem McQueen was arrested after driving off when Piscataway police officers
attempted to stop him for traffic violations. At police headquarters, McQueen was
permitted to make a call on a landline in the “report writing room.” No one told him the
call would be recorded -- as were all outgoing calls from headquarters. No sign was
posted warning that all calls were recorded. No one stood over McQueen to listen to the
conversation, and he “mumbled on the phone, hiding what his conversation was.”

       Later that day, a detective recovered a gun found outside the home near where
McQueen had been stopped and became “suspicious” about the call McQueen had made
from headquarters. Without securing a warrant or a subpoena, or consent from
McQueen, detectives listened to McQueen’s recorded conversation. The recording
revealed that McQueen called Myshira Allen-Brewer and told her to look for his “blicky”
-- apparently a slang name for a handgun -- near where the gun was found.

       McQueen was transferred to the Middlesex County Adult Correction Center
(Correction Center), from where he made further telephone calls to Allen-Brewer on a
clearly designated recorded line. During telephone calls placed from the Correction
Center, an automated message advises the parties that their conversation is being
recorded, and inmates receive written notification of the warning as well. In their
conversations, McQueen again told Allen-Brewer to look for the “blicky.” A recording
of those Correction Center conversations was secured through a grand jury subpoena.

       Both McQueen and Allen-Brewer were indicted on multiple counts, and both
moved to suppress their telephone conversations recorded by the Piscataway Police
Department and the Correction Center. The motion judge suppressed the recorded calls
and dismissed the indictment against Allen-Brewer.

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        The Appellate Division reversed the suppression of the Correction Center calls
and reinstated the charges against Allen-Brewer. The panel, however, split on the
legality of the seizure of the police station call, with the majority affirming the
suppression of that call.

       The Court granted the State’s motion for leave to appeal from the appellate panel’s
affirmance of the suppression of the police station call,  244 N.J. 244 (2020), but denied
Allen-Brewer’s cross-motion seeking a declaration that the Correction Center calls were
the “fruit” of the unlawfully recorded police station call,  244 N.J. 245 (2020).

HELD: The right of privacy, and particularly privacy in one’s telephone conversations,
is among the most valued of all rights in a civilized society. McQueen’s custodial status
in the stationhouse did not strip him of all constitutional protections. Article I, Paragraph
7 broadly protects the privacy of telephone conversations in many different settings.
McQueen and Allen-Brewer had a reasonable expectation of privacy in their conversation
in the absence of fair notice that their conversation would be monitored or recorded. The
recorded stationhouse telephone conversation was not seized pursuant to a warrant or any
justifiable exigency and therefore must be suppressed.

1. To determine whether Allen-Brewer had a constitutionally protectible privacy interest
in her conversation with McQueen, the Court considers whether Allen-Brewer had a
reasonable expectation of privacy in that call and, if she did, whether the non-consensual
and warrantless recording of and listening to her conversation by law enforcement
officers violated the constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and
seizures. Noting the lack of certainty in this area of federal law, the Court turns to the
broader protections afforded under Article I, Paragraph 7 of the State Constitution in
analyzing whether McQueen and Allen-Brewer possessed a reasonable expectation of
privacy in the police station call. (pp. 17-19)

2. The telephone is an essential instrument in carrying on personal affairs, and there is a
general societal assumption that the people and places one calls on a telephone, no less
than the resulting conversations, will be private. The place where such a call is made
does not matter, be it home, office, hotel, or even public phone booth. What a person
seeks to preserve as private, even in an area open to the public, may be constitutionally
protected, and a person does not lose the right to the privacy of a telephone call simply
because he made his calls from a place where he might be seen. (pp. 19-21)

3. A police station’s “report writing room” is not an area open to the public, and
legitimate security concerns must be taken into account in the setting of a stationhouse.
Few would dispute that an arrestee has a lesser expectation of privacy within the confines
of a police station. A police station, however, is not a constitution-free zone. Clearly, an
arrestee cannot make a call from a stationhouse phone line without the authorization of
the police. When permission is given, however, the State does not suggest that the police
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have a right to record and listen to an arrestee’s stationhouse call to his attorney. And, of
course, the phone lines are not used exclusively by arrestees. No empirical evidence has
been presented to support that there is a general understanding that all outgoing phone
lines from a police station are recorded or that social norms instruct that an expectation of
privacy in a police station call is not one that “society is prepared to recognize as
reasonable.” See State v. Evers,  175 N.J. 355, 369 (2003). (pp. 21-23)

4. Upon review of the cases on which the State relies, the Court finds no support for the
proposition that the general public is aware that a call made by a civilian on an outgoing
line can be recorded without notice, or that a call that cannot be overheard by an officer
through natural means loses a reasonable expectation of privacy because of a non-
consensual recording on a police line. In this case, no police officer heard through the
use of the naked ear either side of the conversation. The surreptitiously recorded
conversation in this case does not fall within the ambit of the so-called “plain hearing”
exception to the warrant requirement. And the holding in State v. Jackson that the
defendant-inmates had no reasonable expectation of privacy in their calls was premised
on two critical factors: the correctional facilities’ legitimate security interests and the
notice given to inmates that their calls might be recorded and monitored. See  460 N.J.
Super. 258, 276 (App. Div. 2019), aff’d,  241 N.J. 547 (2020). (pp. 23-28)

5. The Court concludes that, under Article I, Paragraph 7 of the New Jersey Constitution,
an arrestee has a reasonable expectation of privacy in a call made from a police station in
the absence of notice that the conversation may be monitored or recorded. First, police
monitoring of telephone conversations -- without consent, a warrant, or other appropriate
judicial authorization -- empowers the government to arbitrarily peer into the most
private sanctums of people’s lives in violation of the privacy protections afforded by
Article I, Paragraph 7. Second, the State has provided no factual support and scant
judicial authority for the notion that New Jersey’s residents have a widespread
understanding that all outgoing telephone calls from a police station are recorded. Third,
requiring notice of recording does not undermine and may enhance institutional security
and public safety by deterring the unlawful use of the stationhouse line. Fourth, the right
to notice of monitoring or recording accords with basic notions of fairness and decency.
Fifth, the fruits of an unlawful search cannot provide an after-the-fact justification for the
search. Sixth, McQueen and Allen-Brewer had an expectation of privacy in their
conversation that “society is prepared to recognize as reasonable.” Evers,  175 N.J. at 369. The Court explains that Allen-Brewer’s expectation of privacy is largely derivative
of McQueen’s privacy right. See id. at 370. (pp. 28-32)

6. The Court’s holding that McQueen and Allen-Brewer enjoyed a reasonable
expectation of privacy in the police station call means that the Piscataway police had to
comply with the warrant requirement of Article I, Paragraph 7, in the absence of one of
the specifically established and well-delineated exceptions to the warrant requirement,
such as consent or exigent circumstances. Here, the Piscataway police did not secure
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either a warrant for the seizure of the recorded conversation or McQueen’s or Allen-
Brewer’s consent to monitor or record their call. Nor has the State attempted to justify
the seizure based on exigent circumstances. Therefore, the McQueen/Allen-Brewer
stationhouse conversation must be suppressed. (pp. 32-33)

7. Police departments that record or monitor outgoing calls of arrestees must give them
reasonable notice of that practice. Reasonable notice may be satisfied in different ways.
For example, the police could have an arrestee read and sign a form that explains the
practice or could post a prominent sign by the telephone. Any forms or signs employed
to provide notice must take account of language differences, and attorney conversations
may not be monitored. (p. 33)

       AFFIRMED and REMANDED to the trial court.

CHIEF JUSTICE RABNER and JUSTICES LaVECCHIA, PATTERSON,
FERNANDEZ-VINA, SOLOMON, and PIERRE-LOUIS join in JUSTICE
ALBIN’s opinion.

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       SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY
             A-
11 September Term 2020
                       084564

                State of New Jersey,

                 Plaintiff-Appellant,

                          v.

               Rasheem W. McQueen,

                     Defendant,

                         and

              Myshira T. Allen-Brewer,

               Defendant-Respondent.

         On appeal from the Superior Court,
                Appellate Division .

      Argued                       Decided
    March 1, 2021               August 10, 2021

David M. Liston, Assistant Prosecutor, argued the cause
for appellant (Yolanda Ciccone, Middlesex County
Prosecutor, attorney; David M. Liston, of counsel and on
the briefs).

Tamar Y. Lerer, Assistant Deputy Public Defender,
argued the cause for respondent (Joseph E. Krakora,
Public Defender, attorney; Tamar Y. Lerer, of counsel
and on the briefs).

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            Sarah C. Hunt, Deputy Attorney General, argued the
            cause for amicus curiae Attorney General of New Jersey
            (Andrew J. Bruck, Acting Attorney General, attorney;
            Sarah C. Hunt, of counsel and on the brief).

            Tess Borden argued the cause for amicus curiae
            American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey (American
            Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey Foundation,
            attorneys; Tess Borden, Alexander Shalom, and Jeanne
            LoCicero, on the brief).

            Denise Alvarez argued the cause for amicus curiae
            Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey
            (Pashman Stein Walder Hayden, attorneys; Denise
            Alvarez, on the brief).

            Jonathan Romberg argued the cause for amicus curiae
            Seton Hall University School of Law Center for Social
            Justice (Seton Hall University School of Law Center for
            Social Justice, attorneys; Jonathan Romberg, of counsel
            and on the brief).

             JUSTICE ALBIN delivered the opinion of the Court.

      The right of privacy -- the right to be free from government officials

arbitrarily prying into our personal conversations -- is one of the preeminent

rights in our constitutional hierarchy. Article I, Paragraph 7 of the New Jersey

Constitution provides heightened protection to telephone calls and prohibits

government eavesdropping, absent a warrant or an exception to the warrant

requirement. This case tests whether the right of privacy, safeguarded by our

State Constitution, extends to an arrestee’s call on a police line from the

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stationhouse when neither party to the call is aware that the police are

recording their conversation.

       The police arrested Rasheem McQueen for allegedly committing certain

offenses and brought him to the police station, where he gave a statement to an

investigating detective. The police permitted McQueen to make a telephone

call from one of the stationhouse’s landlines but did not tell him his

conversation would be recorded or accessible to law enforcement without his

consent or a warrant. McQueen called and spoke with defendant Myshira

Allen-Brewer. The next day, a detective retrieved the recording and listened to

their private conversation. Based, in part, on the contents of that conversation,

Allen-Brewer was charged with various crimes.

       The trial court suppressed the McQueen/Allen-Brewer telephone

conversation, finding that the warrantless retrieval and use of that recording

violated Allen-Brewer’s statutory and constitutional privacy rights. In a split

decision, the Appellate Division panel upheld the suppression of the telephone

conversation on Fourth Amendment grounds only, concluding that McQueen

and Allen-Brewer enjoyed a reasonable expectation of privacy. 1

1
    Only Allen-Brewer’s appeal is before this Court.

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      We affirm. The right of privacy, and particularly privacy in one’s

telephone conversations, is among the most valued of all rights in a civilized

society. See Doe v. Poritz,  142 N.J. 1, 100 (1995); see also Olmstead v.

United States,