Source: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/California_v._Ciraolo/Dissent_Powell
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 11:16:25+00:00

Document:
Dissent Powell by Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr.
The Fourth Amendment protects "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." While the familiar history of the Amendment need not be recounted here, we should remember that it reflects a choice that our society should be one in which citizens "dwell in reasonable security and freedom from surveillance." Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 14 (1948). Since that choice was made by the Framers of the Constitution, our cases construing the Fourth Amendment have relied in part on the common law for instruction on "what sorts of searches the Framers...regarded as reasonable." Steagald v. United States, 451 U.S. 204, 217 (1981). But we have repeatedly refused to freeze "'into constitutional law those enforcement practices that existed at the time of the Fourth Amendment's passage.'" Id., at 217, n. 10, quoting Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 591, n. 33 (1980). See United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297, 313 (1972). Rather, we have construed the Amendment "'in light of contemporary norms and conditions,'" Steagald v. United States, supra, at 217, n. 10, quoting Payton v. New York, supra, at 591, n. 33, in order to prevent "any stealthy encroachments" on our citizens' right to be free of arbitrary official intrusion, Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 635 (1886). Since the landmark decision in Katz v. United States, the Court has fulfilled its duty to protect Fourth Amendment rights by asking if police surveillance has intruded on an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy.
Our decisions following the teaching of Katz illustrate that this inquiry "normally embraces two discrete questions." Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 740 (1979). "The first is whether the individual, by his conduct, has 'exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy.'" Ibid., quoting Katz v. United States, 389 U.S., at 361 (Harlan, J., concurring). The second is whether that subjective expectation "is 'one that society is prepared to recognize as "reasonable."'" 442 U.S., at 740, quoting Katz v. United States, supra, at 361 (Harlan, J., concurring). While the Court today purports to reaffirm this analytical framework, its conclusory rejection of respondent's expectation of privacy in the yard of his residence as one that "is unreasonable," ante, at 213, represents a turning away from the principles that have guided our Fourth Amendment inquiry. The Court's rejection of respondent's Fourth Amendment claim is curiously at odds with its purported reaffirmation of the curtilage doctrine, both in this decision and its companion case, Dow Chemical Co. v. United States, post, p. 227, and particularly with its conclusion in Dow that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable expectations of privacy in the curtilage, post, at 235.
The second question under Katz has been described as asking whether an expectation of privacy is "legitimate in the sense required by the Fourth Amendment." Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 182 (1984). The answer turns on "whether the government's intrusion infringes upon the personal and societal values protected by the Fourth Amendment." Id., at 182-183. While no single consideration has been regarded as dispositive, "the Court has given weight to such factors as the intention of the Framers of the Fourth Amendment,...the uses to which the individual has put a location,...and our societal understanding that certain areas deserve the most scrupulous protection from government invasion." Id., at 178. Our decisions have made clear that this inquiry often must be decided by "reference to a 'place,'" Katz v. United States, supra, at 361 (Harlan, J., concurring); see Payton v. New York, 445 U.S., at 589, and that a home is a place in which a subjective expectation of privacy virtually always will be legitimate, ibid.; see, e. g., United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705, 713-715 (1984); Steagald v. United States, 451 U.S., at 211-212. "At the very core [of the Fourth Amendment] stands the right of a [person] to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion." Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505, 511 (1961).
The Court concludes, nevertheless, that Shutz could use an airplane--a product of modern technology--to intrude visually into respondent's yard. The Court argues that respondent had no reasonable expectation of privacy from aerial observation. It notes that Shutz was "within public navigable airspace," ante, at 213, when he looked into and photographed respondent's yard. It then relies on the fact that the surveillance was not accompanied by a physical invasion of the curtilage, ibid. Reliance on the manner of surveillance is directly contrary to the standard of Katz, which identifies a constitutionally protected privacy right by focusing on the interests of the individual and of a free society. Since Katz, we have consistently held that the presence or absence of physical trespass by police is constitutionally irrelevant to the question whether society is prepared to recognize an asserted privacy interest as reasonable. E. g., United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S., at 313.
This line of reasoning is flawed. First, the actual risk to privacy from commercial or pleasure aircraft is virtually nonexistent. Travelers on commercial flights, as well as private planes used for business or personal reasons, normally obtain at most a fleeting, anonymous, and nondiscriminating glimpse of the landscape and buildings over which they pass. The risk that a passenger on such a plane might observe private activities, and might connect those activities with particular people, is simply too trivial to protect against. It is no accident that, as a matter of common experience, many people build fences around their residential areas, but few build roofs over their backyards. Therefore, contrary to the Court's suggestion, ante, at 213, people do not "'knowingly expos[e]'" their residential yards "'to the public'" merely by failing to build barriers that prevent aerial surveillance.
^ . The warrant authorized Shutz to search the home and its attached garage, as well as the yard, for marijuana, narcotics paraphernalia, records relating to marijuana sales, and documents identifying the occupant of the premises.
^ . See, e. g., Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 583-585, n. 20 (1980).
^ . As was said more than four decades ago: "[T]he search of one's home or office no longer requires physical entry for science has brought forth far more effective devices for the invasion of a person's privacy than the direct and obvious methods of oppression which were detested by our forbears and which inspired the Fourth Amendment.... Whether the search of private quarters is accomplished by placing on the outer walls of the sanctum a detectaphone that transmits to the outside listener the intimate details of a private conversation, or by new methods of photography that penetrate walls or overcome distances, the privacy of the citizen is equally invaded by the Government and intimate personal matters are laid bare to view." Goldman v. United States, 316 U.S. 129, 139 (1942) (Murphy, J., dissenting). Since 1942, science has developed even more sophisticated means of surveillance.
^ . In Justice Harlan's classic description, an actual expectation of privacy is entitled to Fourth Amendment protection if it is an expectation that society recognizes as "reasonable." Katz v. United States, 389 U.S., at 361 (Harlan, J., concurring). Since Katz, our decisions also have described constitutionally protected privacy interests as those that society regards as "legitimate," using the words "reasonable" and "legitimate" interchangeably. E. g., Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170 (1984); Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 143-144, n. 12 (1978).
^ . "Legitimation of expectations of privacy by law must have a source outside of the Fourth Amendment, either by reference to concepts of real or personal property law or to understandings that are recognized and permitted by society." Ibid. This inquiry necessarily focuses on personal interests in privacy and liberty recognized by a free society.
^ . The Oxford English Dictionary defines curtilage as "a small court, yard, garth, or piece of ground attached to a dwelling-house, and forming one enclosure with it, or so regarded by the law; the area attached to and containing a dwelling-house and its out-buildings." 2 Oxford English Dictionary 1278 (1933).
^ . The Court omits any reference to the fact that respondent's yard contained a swimming pool and a patio for sunbathing and other private activities. At the suppression hearing, respondent sought to introduce evidence showing that he did use his yard for domestic activities. The trial court refused to consider that evidence. Tr. on Appeal 5-8 (Aug. 15, 1983).
^ . Of course, during takeoff and landing, planes briefly fly at low enough altitudes to afford fleeting opportunities to observe some types of activity in the curtilages of residents who live within the strictly regulated takeoff and landing zones. As all of us know from personal experience, at least in passenger aircrafts, there rarely--if ever--is an opportunity for a practical observation and photographing of unlawful activity similar to that obtained by Officer Shutz in this case. The Court's analogy to commercial and private overflights, therefore, is wholly without merit.
^ . Some of our precedents have held that an expectation of privacy was not reasonable in part because the individual had assumed the risk that certain kinds of private information would be turned over to the police. United States v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435, 443 (1976). None of the prior decisions of this Court is a precedent for today's decision. As Justice Marshall has observed, it is our duty to be sensitive to the risks that a citizen "should be forced to assume in a free and open society." Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 750 (1979) (dissenting opinion).
^ . The Court's decision has serious implications for outdoor family activities conducted in the curtilage of a home. The feature of such activities that makes them desirable to citizens living in a free society, namely, the fact that they occur in the open air and sunlight, is relied on by the Court as a justification for permitting police to conduct warrantless surveillance at will. Aerial surveillance is nearly as intrusive on family privacy as physical trespass into the curtilage. It would appear that, after today, families can expect to be free of official surveillance only when they retreat behind the walls of their homes.
^ . Of course, the right of privacy in the home and its curtilage includes no right to engage in unlawful conduct there. But the Fourth Amendment requires police to secure a warrant before they may intrude on that privacy to search for evidence of suspected crime. United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705, 713-715 (1984).

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