Opinion ID: 1325953
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Reasonable Expectation of Privacy in Public Visiting Areas of Department of Correction Facilities

Text: The State contends that defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in any conversation that took place in a public visiting area of DOC facility, and therefore, the communications between defendant and Mrs. Rollins were not protected. We agree. There is no question that incarcerated persons have a diminished expectation of privacy. Given the realities of institutional confinement, any reasonable expectation of privacy a detainee retains necessarily is of diminished scope. State v. Wiley, 355 N.C. 592, 603, 565 S.E.2d 22, 32 (2002), cert. denied, 537 U.S. 1117, 123 S.Ct. 882, 154 L.Ed.2d 795 (2003); see also Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 557, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979). For purposes of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the Supreme Court of the United States has stated that the traditional right to privacy is fundamentally incompatible with the close and continual surveillance of inmates and their cells required to ensure institutional security and internal order. Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 527-28, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984). Prisoners in confinement know, or should know, that their statements may be monitored and even recorded. See United States v. Paul, 614 F.2d 115, 116 (6th Cir.) ([J]ail officials are free to intercept conversations between a prisoner and a visitor.), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 941, 100 S.Ct. 2165, 64 L.Ed.2d 796 (1980); see also Lanza v. New York, 370 U.S. 139, 143, 82 S.Ct. 1218, 8 L.Ed.2d 384 (1962) ([T]o say that a public jail is the equivalent of a man's `house' or that it is a place where he can claim constitutional immunity from search or seizure ... is at best a novel argument.... In prison, official surveillance has traditionally been the order of the day. (footnotes omitted)). While prisoners have a diminished expectation of privacy during confinement, this is not to say that their communications can never be private and completely confidential. Certain relationships, such as those between an attorney and client, are endowed with particularized confidentiality and must continue to receive unceasing protection even in prisons. Lanza, 370 U.S. at 143-44, 82 S.Ct. 1218. For this reason, prisoners are given great latitude when speaking with their attorneys. However, even in these situations, special actions must be taken to ensure the confidentiality of these communications. For instance, letters between a prisoner and counsel must be identified as legal correspondence in order to receive protection. See Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 576, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974) (holding that a state may require any [attorney-client] communications to be specially marked as originating from an attorney ... if they are to receive special treatment). As this Court has stated, the union of husband and wife is a sacred institution and its preservation and protection are necessary to every well-ordered civilized society. Whitford v. N. State Life Ins. Co., 163 N.C. 223, 226, 79 S.E. 501, 502 (1913). However, as with other confidential relationships, the protection afforded marital communications is not absolute and is inapplicable when no reasonable expectation of privacy exists. In the instant case, any reasonable expectation of privacy in the marital communications evaporated because each conversation took place in the public visiting areas of DOC facilities. As McCormick on Evidence states: The rationale that the spouses may ordinarily take effective measures to communicate confidentially tends to break down where one or both are incarcerated. However, communications in the jailhouse are frequently held not privileged, often on the theory that no confidentiality was or could have been expected. 1 Kenneth S. Broun et al., McCormick on Evidence § 82, at 377 (6th ed. 2006) (footnote omitted). This is not to say that special precautions cannot be taken in correctional institutions to protect the privacy of conversations between a husband and wife, just as precautions can be taken between prisoners and their attorneys. [9] However, communications occurring during ordinary DOC visits, in public visiting areas, do not invoke the protection subsection 8-57(c) affords to confidential communications because there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in such communications. The record clearly shows that the conversations between defendant and his wife occurred during routine DOC visits and thereby lacked any reasonable expectation of privacy. During each visit defendant and his wife were in public visiting areas of DOC correctional facilities, in the presence of other people. Mrs. Rollins testified that at times other people were in close proximity and even spoke to defendant and her during the course of their conversations. Furthermore, it can be inferred from the record that defendant doubted the privacy of the couple's conversations. On one occasion defendant physically inspected Mrs. Rollins to check for the presence of a recording device. Mrs. Rollins also told S.B.I. agents that defendant refrained from telling her particular details of the Highsmith murder during one meeting, but said he would tell her something important later, after he was released from prison and the two had pillow talk. [10]