Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-03-02424/USCOURTS-ca8-03-02424-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Richard Blatz
Appellee
E. Stephen Dean
Appellant
Marcia C. Dean
Appellant
Russell Duckworth
Appellee

Document Text:

1

The Honorable Rodney W. Sippel, United States District Judge for the Eastern

District of Missouri. 

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 03-2424

___________

E. Stephen Dean; Marcia C. Dean, *

*

Appellants, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* Eastern District of Missouri

Russell Duckworth; Richard Blatz, *

* [UNPUBLISHED]

Appellees. *

___________

Submitted: March 25, 2004

Filed: April 26, 2004

___________

Before BYE, McMILLIAN, and RILEY, Circuit Judges.

___________

PER CURIAM.

E. Stephen and Marcia Dean appeal from the final judgment entered in the

District Court1

 for the Eastern District of Missouri granting summary judgment to

defendants in the Deans’ 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action. The Deans filed this action

alleging that two Missouri Department of Conservation officers violated the Deans’

Fourth Amendment rights by trespassing onto their property and photographing the

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construction of their new home without a warrant. For reversal, they argue that they

had a legitimate expectation of privacy in their partially constructed home, defendants

acted unreasonably in ignoring a “no trespassing” sign posted at the entrance to their

property, and defendants’ taking photographs was akin to thermal-imaging. For the

reasons discussed below, we affirm the judgment of the district court. 

Upon de novo review, see Hill v. Scott, 349 F.3d 1068, 1971 (8th Cir. 2003),

we agree with the district court that defendants’ actions, which occurred in the course

of their investigating road and bridge damage on Conservation Commission property,

did not violate the Deans’ Fourth Amendment rights. At the time of the alleged

intrusion, the Deans did not live in the partially constructed home and were not even

present in Missouri, the state of the home’s construction did not prevent visual

intrusion into it, and a construction worker--not the Deans--had posted the “no

trespassing” sign and had done so merely to protect his construction equipment. See

California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207, 211 (1986) (under Fourth Amendment, focus is

on whether individual has manifested subjective expectation of privacy in object of

challenged search and whether society is willing to recognize that expectation as

reasonable); cf. United States v. Taylor, 90 F.3d 903, 908-09 (4th Cir. 1996) (no

search occurred when police officer, who came to claimants’ home on ministerial

mission to return handgun, looked through picture window located directly adjacent

to front door; although window had vertical blinds, position of blinds did not prevent

visual intrusion into dining room and thus claimants exhibited no subjective

expectation of privacy in their dining room or items clearly visible through window).

We reject as frivolous the Deans’ argument that taking photographs with an

ordinary camera was akin to thermal-imaging. Compare Ciraolo, 476 U.S. at 213

(warrantless aerial surveillance of fenced-in backyard within curtilage of home was

lawful), with Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 34, 40 (2001) (warrantless senseenhancing technology to observe interior of home was unlawful search because

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information obtained could not otherwise have been obtained without physical

intrusion into home and technology in question was not in general public use). 

Accordingly, we affirm.

______________________________

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