Title: State v. Rogers

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

STATE_V_ROGERS.91-561; 161 Vt. 236; 638 A.2d 569

[Filed 27-Dec-1993]

 NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under V.R.A.P. 40
 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont Reports.
 Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Vermont Supreme
 Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of any errors in
 order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press.


                                 No. 91-561


 State of Vermont                             Supreme Court

                                              On Appeal from
      v.                                      District Court of Vermont,
                                              Unit No. 1, Bennington Circuit

 Candace and George A. Rogers, Jr.            September Term, 1992


 Robert Grussing III, J.

 Jeffrey L. Amestoy, Attorney General, and Susan R. Harritt, Assistant
   Attorney General, Montpelier, for plaintiff-appellee

 Richard A. Unger and Matthew Colburn, Montpelier, for defendants-
   appellants


 PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.


      DOOLEY, J.   Defendants Candace and George Rogers appeal the denial of
 their motion to suppress evidence obtained in a search of their home,
 arguing that the warrant under which the search was conducted was defective.
 Defendants assert that the visual observation of their garden, performed by
 a state trooper for the purpose of corroborating an anonymous tip that
 defendants were cultivating marijuana on their property, was an illegal
 search under the federal and Vermont constitutions and consequently could
 not support a finding of probable cause for issuance of the search warrant.
 We affirm.

 

      Defendants own a tract of wooded property on Chapel Road in
 Bennington, where they have constructed their home.  The house lies in a
 clearing that includes a pond and, approximately 150 feet from the house, a
 large garden.  The residence is secluded, as the thick growth of woodland
 prevents observation of the house and garden area from adjoining properties
 or the road.
      In late August 1987, an anonymous informant telephoned a Vermont State
 Police trooper with information that a large marijuana garden was under
 cultivation at the Rogers' residence.  The informant described to the
 trooper the point along Chapel Road at which he could enter the Rogers'
 property and, after traveling approximately 100 feet into the woods, reach a
 vantage point from which he could see a garden of eight- to ten-foot-tall
 marijuana plants.  The caller also advised the trooper that the garden was
 protected by surveillance equipment.  In a second telephone conversation,
 the informant told the trooper that an unidentified person had been caught
 in the garden by occupants of the house and threatened at gunpoint, and that
 because of this discovery, the marijuana had likely been harvested.
      The trooper went to the site described by the informant, entering the
 woods from Chapel Road by a "type of path" that disappeared as the trooper
 advanced into the woods.  He attempted to maintain a straight line through
 the thick vegetation, but was forced to cross a stretch of swampy terrain
 before reaching a point affording a view of defendants' garden area.  From
 this position, he was able to observe that the garden was planted half with
 corn and that the other half had been recently harvested and tilled.  The
 garden was surrounded by sheep fencing with a locked door and there were

 

 cameras and spotlights positioned at its edge.  Based on the anonymous tip
 and his personal observations, the trooper obtained a search warrant for
 defendants' residence and curtilage, where the state police seized a
 quantity of recently harvested marijuana from the house and outbuilding.
      Defendants were charged under 18 V.S.A. { 4224 with cultivation of
 marijuana and possession of marijuana with intent to sell.  Prior to trial,
 they filed a motion to suppress the evidence seized under the search
 warrant, arguing that the trooper's incursion on their land was an illegal
 search and could not be used to support probable cause for the warrant.  The
 trial court originally granted defendants' motion to suppress, finding the
 defendants' garden within the curtilage of their home and that the
 investigating officer's actions had interfered with their reasonable
 expectation of privacy.  Therefore, because the trooper's observations could
 not be used to establish probable cause for the warrant, the court ruled
 that the seized evidence was inadmissible.
      The State appealed this ruling. On remand from this Court, the trial
 court reversed its previous decision and denied defendants' motion.  The
 court concluded that the trooper's visual inspection of defendants' garden
 did not violate the Fourth Amendment because he did not physically invade
 defendants' curtilage.  The court further found that the trooper's actions
 did not violate Chapter I, Article 11 of the Vermont Constitution because,
 in the absence of affirmative steps by the defendants to demonstrate a
 reasonable expectation of privacy in their woods, the police were justified
 in entering such "open fields" and observing anything in plain view.
      On appeal, defendants assert that the garden area is clearly within the
 curtilage and, because their expectation of privacy in that area was both

 

 subjectively and objectively reasonable, the State was required to obtain a
 warrant before visually inspecting it.  They argue that the natural
 exclusionary barrier -- the woods -- within which they constructed their
 home and garden conveyed their expectation of privacy in such a way that an
 objective person would know they sought to avoid the public gaze.
 Defendants claim that the trial court misapplied federal and state
 constitutional law by failing to recognize the high degree of protection
 afforded areas within the curtilage of a home.
      The State suggests two summary means of affirming the decision below;
 neither was adopted by the trial court.  Because we conclude neither means
 is supported by the record, we discuss them only briefly.
      The State's first theory is that defendants invited onlookers to the
 vantage point used by the trooper by allowing a path to exist to that point.
 The trial court findings are not explicit on this point.  They describe the
 trooper as following a "100 foot path," but emphasize the "very thick
 undergrowth," the surrounding trees and the swampy nature of the land.  We
 have reviewed the evidence and find no support for the existence of a worn
 path from the mailbox to the place of observation.  We conclude that the
 trial court used the word "path" to describe the trooper's route of travel
 and not to find a preexisting footway all the way to the observation point.
      The second means of summary affirmance is more complicated.  As
 discussed in more detail below, defendants' theory under either the Fourth
 Amendment to the United States Constitution or Chapter I, Article 11 of the
 Vermont Constitution depends upon the garden being within the curtilage to
 the house.  The State argues that the garden is outside the curtilage and

 

 the decision can be affirmed on that basis.  For the reasons discussed
 below, we reject this argument.
      The trial court decision is also not explicit on this point.  In its
 first decision, the trial court found that the garden was within the
 curtilage and decided for defendants on that basis.  In the second decision
 following the remand, the court changed one finding of fact without taking
 new evidence.  It changed its finding on the distance between the house and
 the garden from 90 feet to 150 feet.  It did not, however, modify its
 determination that the garden was within the curtilage, probably in part
 because its new theory of analysis made this determination irrelevant.  It
 concluded that as long as the trooper did not enter the curtilage, no search
 occurred.  It is undisputed that the trooper did not enter the curtilage.
      We agree with the State that the determination of the boundary of the
 curtilage is a mixed question of fact and law, entitled to some deference in
 this Court.  See State v. Beresford, 156 Vt. 333, 335, 592 A.2d 882, 883
 (1991) (finding of abandonment that would allow warrantless search reviewed
 under clearly erroneous standard).  We do not agree, however, that we should
 treat the trial court decision as finding the garden to be outside the
 curtilage.  The court's only finding on the curtilage issue is to the
 contrary, and the court did not modify its finding despite the change in the
 subsidiary distance finding.  This is the finding to which we must defer.
      The curtilage is an area outside the physical confines of a house into
 which the "privacies of life" may extend, and which receives the same
 constitutional protection from unreasonable searches and seizures as the
 home itself.  Oliver v. United States,