Case Name: State of Vermont v. Robert Kirchoff
Court: Vermont Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Vermont
Decision Date: 1991-01-25
Citations: 156 Vt. 1
Docket Number: No. 87-603
Parties: State of Vermont v. Robert Kirchoff
Judges: Present: Allen, CJ., Peck, Dooley and Morse, JJ., and Springer, D.J. (Ret.), Specially Assigned
Reporter: Vermont Reports
Volume: 156
Pages: 1–34

Head Matter:
State of Vermont v. Robert Kirchoff
[587 A.2d 988]
No. 87-603
Present: Allen, CJ., Peck, Dooley and Morse, JJ., and Springer, D.J. (Ret.), Specially Assigned
Opinion Filed January 25,1991
John Quinn, Addison County State’s Attorney, Middlebury, and Jo-Ann Gross, Legal Intern, Department of State’s Attorneys, Montpelier, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
Walter M. Morris, Jr., Defender General, Henry Hinton, Appellate Defender, and David J. Williams, Special Defender for Drug Offenses, Montpelier, for Defendant-Appellant.

Opinion:
Morse, J.
The sole issue in this appeal from a conviction for cultivating marijuana is the legality under the Vermont Constitution of a warrantless search of defendant's posted land. We hold that this search violated Chapter I, Article 11, of the Vermont Constitution, and accordingly reverse.
In 1982, defendant purchased thirty-nine acres of land, consisting of woods, swamp, and meadows, in an isolated part of Lincoln, Vermont. He put up several "no trespassing" signs where the road turned into his driveway and posted his land with signs that said, "POSTED Private Property. Hunting, Fishing, Trapping or Trespassing for Any Purpose Is Strictly Forbidden. Violators Will Be Prosecuted," and recorded that fact with the town clerk. See 10 V.S.A. § 5201. Although he gave specific permission to certain neighbors to ride their bikes on trails that crossed his land, defendant took actions to keep strangers off his property.
Acting on an informant's tip that marijuana was growing on defendant's land, a sheriff and another law enforcement officer went onto the land, without a warrant, in September of 1986. They first drove up defendant's driveway where they noticed the "no trespassing" signs, as well as one that read "Road Ends — Private Drive Ahead." The officers parked at a neighbor's house, crossed a fence, and walked along an old logging road toward defendant's house. They observed one or two old "no trespassing" signs as they walked. At some point, the officers left the road and walked through woods and a marsh, coming upon a marijuana patch about 100 yards from defendant's house. The marijuana plants were not visible from any road.
The officers left the area to obtain a search warrant. Two other officers arrived to watch over the patch while waiting for the warrant. Defendant was there tending the plants and was confronted by the officers. He was talkative and confessed to cultivating marijuana. Later, after the warrant arrived, the officers searched the house, finding more evidence of marijuana cultivation and seizing numerous plants.
Defendant moved to suppress the evidence gathered during the search on the ground that it was obtained in violation of the Vermont Constitution. The motion was denied, and the evidence was admitted over defendant's objection at trial.
I.
We begin by acknowledging that this "walk-on" search would be permissible under the federal constitution. The United States Supreme Court has held that the Fourth Amendment permits the police to conduct a warrantless search of an area in which a person does not have a "reasonable expectation of privacy." Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 360 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring). In Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 179 (1984), that Court held that an expectation of privacy in "open fields" will not be deemed reasonable for Fourth Amendment purposes. That is, "an individual may not legitimately demand privacy for activities conducted out of doors in fields, except in the area immediately surrounding the home." Id. at 178; see State v. Byrne, 149 Vt. 224, 227, 542 A.2d 276, 278 (1988). "Open fields" is a term of art and denotes areas that may be neither open nor fields as those words are used in common speech; it refers generally to land that is unoccupied or undeveloped. Oliver, 466 U.S. at 180 n.11. Woods, in particular, may be open fields. As the warrantless search in this case was not of "the area immediately surrounding the home," an area known in law as "the curtilage," defendant's Fourth Amendment rights were not violated.
The Court in Oliver also gave a textual and historical explanation for its conclusion that the Amendment's framers "would have understood the term 'effects' to be limited to personal, rather than real, property." 466 U.S. at 177 n.7. On that basis, as well as "expectation-of-privacy" grounds, the Court found open fields to be outside the scope of the Fourth Amendment.
II.
That the officers' conduct was permissible under the federal constitution does not, of course, end our inquiry. The Vermont Constitution may afford greater protection to individual rights than do the provisions of the federal charter. State v. Badger, 141 Vt. 430, 449, 450 A.2d 336, 347 (1982). The issue is whether the "walk-on" search violated Chapter I, Article 11, of the Vermont Constitution. Article 11 provides:
That the people have a right to hold themselves, their houses, papers, and possessions, free from search or seizure; and therefore warrants, without oath or affirmation first made, affording sufficient foundation for them, and whereby by any officer or messenger may be commanded or required to search suspected places, or to seize any person or persons, his, her or their property, not particularly described, are contrary to that right, and ought not to be granted.
There are two notable textual differences in the language of the federal and state provisions. First, the Fourth Amendment guarantees freedom from "unreasonable searches and seizures"; Article 11 by contrast does not contain the word "unreasonable." We have held, however, that "[r]egardless of this difference, . . . the word 'unreasonable' is as implicit in Article Eleven as it is express in the Fourth Amendment." State v. Record, 150 Vt. 84,85, 548 A.2d 422,423 (1988) (upholding warrant-less vehicle stops).
Second, and more to the point here, the Vermont Constitution protects persons, houses, papers, and possessions, while the Fourth Amendment protects persons, houses, papers, and effects. Unfortunately, research into the possible significance of this textual difference sheds little light on the issue. While our research suggests that, at the time the Vermont Constitution was adopted, the word "possessions" in certain contexts would have included all real estate over which an individual exercised a certain degree of control, McCabe, State Constitutions and the "Open Fields" Doctrine: A Historical-Definitional Analysis of the Scope of Protection Against Warrantless Searches of "Possessions," 13 Vt. L. Rev. 179 (1988) (term "possessions" meant personalty, realty, or both), it also suggests that the word "effects" would have been susceptible to a similar definition. Webster's New International Dictionary 818 (2d ed. 1961) (term "effects" sometimes means real property). From a definitional standpoint, in many contexts the two words were, and remain, largely interchangeable. See People v. Smith, 420 Mich. 1, 20, 360 N.W.2d 841, 849 (1984). The word "effects" is now construed narrowly by the United States Supreme Court, but that does not obscure the fact that it was often given a broader meaning in the late eighteenth century. F. Stroud, Stroud's Judicial Dictionary 603-05 (2d ed. 1903).
Perhaps such endeavors would prove more useful if the drafters of the Vermont Constitution had left a more complete historical record. Unfortunately, the Vermont Constitution was adopted with little recorded debate. Shaeffer, A Comparison of the First Constitutions of Vermont and Pennsylvania, in In. a State of Nature: Readings in Vermont History 54,58 (Muller & Hand eds. 1982). It borrowed from several other state constitutions and included a few unique passages. Id. Most commentary focuses on those portions that were unique to Vermont rather than those, like Article 11, which were copied practically verbatim from other state constitutions. See id. The paucity of historical record prompts us to look elsewhere when determining the breadth of those individual rights the Vermont Constitution was drafted to protect.
We are not the first state to address this issue, but a survey of those states that have offers little guidance. Several states having constitutions with language similar to Article 11 have found that the term "possessions" does not include all real estate in which an individual has a possessory interest, effectively giving it the same meaning that the federal courts give to the term "effects." State v. Pinder, 128 N.H. 66, 74, 514 A.2d 1241,1245-46 (1986) (term "possessions" in New Hampshire Constitution does not include real property beyond curtilage); Brent v. Com monwealth, 194 Ky. 504,509-10,240 S.W. 45,47-48 (1922) (term "possessions" means "the intimate things about one's person"). Other states with similar constitutional language, however, have held that the word "possessions" does result in broader protection for their citizens than that granted under the current interpretation of the Fourth Amendment. See, e.g., Falkner v. State, 134 Miss. 253, 257-61, 98 So. 691, 692-93 (1924) (term "possessions" "embraces all of the property of the citizen"). Furthermore, some states whose constitutions contain the same language as that used in the federal constitution have found nonetheless that their constitutions afford greater protection of individual rights when it comes to issues of search and seizure. See, e.g., State v. Dixson/Digby, 307 Or. 195, 208-12, 766 P.2d 1015, 1022-24 (1988).
Our decision, however, need not rest on the drafters' choice of one word over another. Even if we cannot say with confidence that the scope of the term "possessions" mandates a right of privacy in real estate, it certainly does not rule out such a right. We strive to honor not merely the words but the underlying purposes of constitutional guarantees, and to give meaning to the text in light of contemporary experience. "We do not construe constitutional provisions of this sort the way we do statutes, whose drafters can be expected to indicate with some comprehensiveness and exactitude the conduct they wish to forbid or control and to change those prescriptions when they become obsolete." Oliver, 466 U.S. at 186-87 (Marshall, J., dissenting) (citing McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316, 407 (1819)). Instead, our duty is to discover and protect the core value that gave life to Article 11. In the case of Fourth Amendment-Article 11 jurisprudence, the value traditionally protected is "freedom 'from unreasonable government intrusions into . . . legitimate expectations of privacy.'" Oliver, 466 U.S. at 187 (Marshall, J., dissenting) (quoting United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 7 (1977)).
If we confined the meaning of "possessions" to personalty for Article 11 purposes, we would necessarily run counter to the federal development of the even narrower word "effects" found in the Fourth Amendment. In numerous cases, the United States Supreme Court has extended protection beyond the plain meaning of the places and things enumerated in the Fourth Amendment. Katz, for example, upheld a person's right to privacy while talking in a public telephone booth, although the telephone booth is not a person, house, paper or effect because "the Fourth Amendment protects people — and not simply 'areas.'" 389 U.S. at 353. Other cases have established protection from warrantless searches of commercial premises, Marshall v. Barlow's, Inc., 436 U.S. 307, 311 (1978), and hotel rooms, Hoffa v. United States, 385 U.S. 293, 301 (1966). "Curtilage" is protected, even though that word .is nowhere to be found in the Fourth Amendment.
The incompatibility of the narrow textual rationale in Oliver with the Court's broader doctrinal approach in its prior Fourth Amendment jurisprudence perhaps explains why the Court in Oliver felt constrained to show that the result was also justified under the "reasonable-expectation-of-privacy" rubric. In our opinion, the Oliver Court misinterpreted its own Fourth Amendment precedent, as expressed in Katz and its progeny. We believe Article 11 embraces the core value of privacy discarded in Oliver.
Our more concrete task is to determine the scope of Article 11 in prohibiting warrantless searches of protected areas. Vermont cases have recognized certain "well-delineated exceptions" to the warrant requirement. See State v. Wood, 148 Vt. 479, 483, 536 A.2d 902, 905 (1987). For example, we recently decided that warrantless vehicle stops in certain circumstances are permissible under Article 11. Record, 150 Vt. at 90,548 A.2d at 426; State v. Jewett, 148 Vt. 324, 330, 532 A.2d 958, 961 (1987). Moreover, we emphasize that a person cannot rely on Article 11 to protect areas or activities that have been willingly exposed to the public. Article 11 protects the people from governmental intrusion into their private affairs; to the extent their affairs are willingly made public, the provision has no application. Thus, "Article 11 does not protect one who, by opening up his or her home to those who wish to take part in illegal activity, exposes such activity to undercover police officers." State v. Zaccaro, 154 Vt. 83, 91, 574 A.2d 1256,1261 (1990). This principle is axiomatic in federal law. See, e.g., Katz, 389 U.S. at 351 ("What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection.").
Consequently, while Article 11 "defines a right dependent on a possessory interest," Wood, 148 Vt. at 489, 536 A.2d at 908, and people undoubtedly have a possessory interest in the land they own or occupy, not all state intrusions onto private lands violate Article 11. We must define the contours of the right to privacy in open fields by determining when activities in open fields are sufficiently private to warrant constitutional protection and when, on the other hand, they are sufficiently public not to deserve protection.
III.
The Supreme Court in Oliver concluded that privacy in land beyond the curtilage can never be constitutionally sanctioned. The Court reasoned that society does not recognize a reasonable expectation of privacy in open fields because they "do not provide the setting for those intimate activities that the Amendment is intended to shelter from government interference or surveillance." 466 U.S. at 179.
While generally there is not an expectation of privacy in unoccupied lands, such is not the case where the landowner has taken steps, such as fencing or posting, to indicate that privacy is exactly what is sought. The Oliver Court informs us that an individual's expectations of privacy in land — regardless of steps taken to establish that expectation — can never be legitimate. Id. at 182. This per se approach cannot be squared with Article 11 — nor, we believe, can it be squared with the Fourth Amendment principles of Katz. Undoubtedly, people will confine their "intimate activities" to narrower areas as "government interference or surveillance" grows more intrusive and pervasive. But constitutional rights should not succumb to waning expectations or fluctuations in the degree of government intrusion "society" is willing to condone.
The Supreme Court in Oliver appears to equate privacy with crime, stating that "[t]he test of legitimacy is not whether the individual chooses to conceal assertedly 'private' activity," id. at 182, and adding: "Certainly the Framers did not intend that the Fourth Amendment should shelter criminal activity wherever persons with criminal intent choose to erect barriers and post 'No Trespassing' signs." Id. at 182 n.13. If one assumes at the outset that people will only seek privacy in the use of their land for criminal purposes, the conclusion that society will not recognize a claim to privacy in the land readily follows. But we cannot presume how an individual will employ private lands — that is the nature of privacy. Constitutional guarantees inevitably protect some criminal activity in securing the rights of all of us.
Even assuming that society's perception of what is reasonable is the relevant standard for measuring constitutional rights, Oliver's conclusion is an ipse dixit. The Court sought to rationalize the Katz test with Oliver Wendell Holmes's declaration in 1924 that "open fields" are not among the places protected by the Fourth Amendment. Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57, 59 (1924). But there is no empirical evidence on whether society is willing to recognize an expectation of privacy in "open fields" as reasonable or unreasonable. Certainly, it was a bold and unsupported pronouncement in Oliver that society is not prepared under any circumstances to recognize as reasonable an expectation of privacy in all lands outside the curtilage. Indeed, the fact that society may adjudge one who trespasses on such lands a criminal belies the claim. See 13 V.S.A. § 3705.
The Court's conclusion was justified in part by its view that "a case-by-case approach [would not] provide a workable accommodation between the needs of law enforcement and the interests protected by the Fourth Amendment." Oliver, 466 U.S. at 181. The Court was concerned that "[t]he ad hoc approach not only makes it difficult for the policeman to discern the scope of his authority; it also creates a danger that constitutional rights will be arbitrarily and inequitably enforced." Id. at 181-82 (citation omitted). We do not believe, however, that the difficulty of determining the degree of privacy to afford a particular "open field" is any greater than the difficulty in deciding, case by case, whether a search has invaded the curtilage — a question that must be faced if Oliver is followed and that has proved vexing to the courts. See, e.g., United States v. Dunn, 480 U.S. 294 (1987) (listing criteria for identifying curtilage, including steps landowner has taken to protect area from observation); United States v. Van Dyke, 643 F.2d 992, 994 (4th Cir. 1981) ("isolated, rural area," "secluded setting," and "no trespassing" signs are all factors in determining that curtilage extended 150 feet from residence). Furthermore, the police and courts are accustomed to enforcing the law against trespass, 13 V.S.A. § 3705; deciding whether a search intrudes upon protected Article 11 interests will in most cases be no more arduous. See Oliver, 466 U.S. at 195-96 (Marshall, J., dissenting). In any event, however easy the bright-line test of Oliver is to apply, the test simply fails to do justice to the values underlying Article 11.
IV.
We stated recently that Article 11 protects the people of the state "from unreasonable, warrantless governmental intrusion into affairs which they choose to keep private." State v. Zaccaro, 154 Vt. at 91, 574 A.2d at 1261. Oliver's per se rule, that a person may never legitimately demand privacy under the Fourth Amendment in land beyond the borders of the curtilage, fails to guarantee that right. We now hold that a lawful possessor may claim privacy in "open fields" under Article 11 of the Vermont Constitution where indicia would lead a reasonable person to conclude that the area is private. On the other hand, Article 11 does not afford protection against searches of lands where steps have not been taken to exclude the public. By this standard, we seek to protect the constitutional rights of those who have sought privacy in their lands, while not preventing police from using evidence of affairs that were not kept private — that were, in Katz's terms, "knowingly expose[d] to the public." 389 U.S. at 351.
Where the indicia, such as fences, barriers or "no trespassing" signs reasonably indicate that strangers are not welcome on the land, the owner or occupant may reasonably expect privacy. "Allowing the police to intrude into private land, regardless of the steps taken by its occupant to keep it private, would be a significant limitation on the occupant's freedom from governmental scrutiny." State v. Dixson/Digby, 307 Or. at 211, 766 P.2d at 1024 (no per se "open fields" doctrine under Oregon constitution). The inquiry is objective — whether a reasonable person should know that the occupant has sought to exclude the public. Whether the steps taken are adequate for this purpose will depend on the specific facts of each case. The standard for criminal trespass is similar. 13 V.S.A. § 3705(a) provides that a person shall be subject to criminal penalties
if, without legal authority or the consent of the person in lawful possession, he enters or remains on any land or in any place as to which notice against trespass is given by:
(1) Actual communication by the person in lawful possession or his agent or by a law enforcement officer acting on behalf of such person or his agent; or
(2) Signs or placards so designed and situated as to give reasonable notice.
This portion of our holding follows the rule fashioned by the Oregon Supreme Court: "A person who wishes to preserve a constitutionally protected privacy interest in land outside the curtilage must manifest an intention to exclude the public by erecting barriers to entry, such as fences, or by posting signs." Dixson/Digby, 307 Or. at 211-12, 766 P.2d at 1024. It also approximates the view of the majority of courts that have addressed the lawfulness of official searches of open fields under the Fourth Amendment during the years between the Supreme Court's decisions in Katz in 1967 and Oliver in 1984. Those courts hold that an expectation of privacy in land outside the curtilage may be legitimate in certain circumstances and that the per se approach is inconsistent with Katz. Note, Florida v. Brady: Can Katz Survive in Open Fields?, 32 Am. U.L. Rev. 921, 930 (1983) (citing cases). "The large majority [of courts] . . . have harmonized the Hester and Katz decisions by holding that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to searches and seizures made pursuant to observations across open fields where the area observed is not subject to a reasonable expectation of privacy." Sproates v. State, 58 Md. App. 547, 559-60, 473 A.2d 1289, 1295 (1984) (citing cases). In Sproates, for example, the court concluded, after canvassing the cases, that the defendant had not shown even a subjective expectation of privacy in the area searched where no signs or fences precluded entry onto the land. Id. at 565, 473 A.2d at 1298.
Vermont law allows persons to enter lands for certain purposes under certain conditions. Chapter II, § 67, of the Vermont Constitution grants the people of this state the liberty "in seasonable times, to hunt and fowl on the lands they hold, and on other lands not inclosed . under proper regulations." Furthermore, 10 V.S.A. § 5212 limits a landowner's liability in negligence when the owner "gratuitously gives another permission, either actual or implied," to enter upon unposted land for "recreational purposes," such as "hunting, fishing, trapping, hiking, gathering wildflowers or berries, birdwatching, horseback riding, picnicking, swimming, skiing, snowshoéing and similar activities." These provisions evidence the state's policy of providing the public with certain privileges and liberties not permitted under the common law. See Cabot v. Thomas, 147 Vt. 207, 211-12, 514 A.2d 1034, 1037-38 (1986). They evidence no intent, however, to limit the right of landowners to pursue their affairs free from unregulated intrusion by officials.
V.
Although we reject the per se rule in Oliver, the inquiry we have described does not wholly cast aside the reasonable-expectation-of-privacy framework that has ordered Fourth Amendment jurisprudence since Katz in 1967 and has been reiterated in the case law since. See, e.g., Florida v. Riley, 488 U.S. 445, 450-51 (1989). For several reasons, however, we are reluctant to use the phrase "reasonable expectation of privacy." First, it connotes certain results, as in Oliver, that do not obtain under Article 11. Second, the phrase may be misunderstood to reflect merely what society will at any given moment recognize as reasonable. That is indeed the gloss given to the test by Justice Harlan in his influential concurrence in Katz, 389 U.S. at 361 (and repeated in Oliver, 466 U.S. at 177): "My understanding of the rule that has emerged from prior decisions is that there is a twofold requirement, first that a person have exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy and, second, that the expectation be one that society is prepared to recognize as 'reasonable.'" Yet what society is prepared to recognize as reasonable shifts with political winds and the perceived exigencies of the day, and should not be the measure of individual rights under state and federal constitutions — which, in our view, are to be protected, even from those intrusions that society may be prepared at the moment to tolerate. The question is not what society is prepared to accept but what the constitution requires.
Third, as the reasonable-expectation-of-privacy test is applied in federal law, constitutional rights diminish with advances in technology. Under Oliver, an expectation of privacy that was at one time reasonable may no longer be, if, during the interim, people have adjusted to technologies that encroach on privacy. This reasoning makes us uneasy, for our role is to protect constitutionally guaranteed privacy, not to acquiesce in its erosion if and as people's expectations ebb. "[W]e strive, when interpreting these seminal constitutional provisions, to effectuate their purposes — to lend them meanings that ensure that the liberties the Framers sought to protect are not undermined by the changing activities of government officials." Oliver, 466 U.S. at 187 (Marshall, J., dissenting).
Finally, we differ from federal doctrine by placing on the State the burden to prove that a warrantless search of open fields is not prohibited under the principles we announce today. Federal law places the burden on the defendant to establish a reasonable expectation of privacy in the area searched in order to claim rights under the Fourth Amendment. Thus, under federal law, the open fields doctrine is not generally treated as an exception to the warrant requirement — the burden is always on the State to establish an exception, see Katz, 389 U.S. at 357 ("searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment") — but as a rule limiting the scope of the Fourth Amendment in the first instance. But see State v. Verhagen, 86 Wis. 2d 262, 269, 272 N.W.2d 105, 108 (Ct. App. 1978) (holding that "the burden of proving that the evidence was seized in an open field, in common with other exceptions to the warrant requirement, rests with the State"). In contrast, we view government searches of a person's land as presumptively implicating Article 11, and consequently the State has the burden of proving that such a search does not violate Article 11. See State v. Dixson/Digby, 307 Or. at 212, 766 P.2d at 1024 (burden on State to prove no violation of Oregon constitution in official search of land beyond curtilage); cf. State v. Zaccaro, 154 Vt. at 87, 574 A.2d at 1259 (search warrant not required under Article 11 where State proves that defendant voluntarily consented to officer's entry).
In the end, it matters little whether we use the phrase "reasonable expectation of privacy" or some variant. (Justice Potter Stewart, writing for the Court in Katz, asked whether the government's activities violated the privacy upon which the defend ant "justifiably relied." 389 U.S. at 353.) Our fundamental divergence from federal law, in the present case, lies not in the name given to the test but in the manner in which the test is understood and applied in the specific context of "open fields."
VI.
There will undoubtedly arise cases where the question of the legitimacy of a possessor's expectation of privacy in a particular area is a close one. In this case, we need not explore nice distinctions. By no stretch of the imagination could the officers reasonably conclude, under the standards we have set out here, that their "walk-on" search was permissible. Given the extensive posting of the land, defendant's intent to exclude the public was unequivocal. On these facts, we find that the officers' walk over defendant's logging roads and through his woods violated his right to privacy under Article 11, and the evidence obtained thereby may not be used against him.
We appreciate the concern that drug-related activities are a major social problem. We do not believe, however, that the solution is a declamation of martial law that reduces the warrant requirement to an easily discarded "technicality." The rule announced here does not significantly hamper the police from investigating suspected criminal activity. It does require police to obtain a warrant, based upon probable cause, before they enter land where it is apparent to a reasonable person that the owner or occupant intends to exclude the public. The rule brings the practice of law enforcement into compliance with our fundamental law, which empowers the judiciary to guard the rights of the people through the warrant process.
Reversed.