Opinion ID: 1243792
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Constitutional Privacy Guaranties

Text: The defendants challenge the admissibility of the Operation Hardfall recordings under both the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and Article I, Section 7 of the State Constitution. [9] This court has clearly established that where one participant in a conversation has consented to the recording of the conversation, the recording does not violate Article I, Section 7 of the State Constitution. State v. Corliss, 123 Wash.2d 656, 663-64, 870 P.2d 317 (1994). Indeed, in State v. Salinas, 119 Wash.2d 192, 197, 829 P.2d 1068 (1992), where a wired undercover informant posed as an illegal narcotics seller and secretly recorded conversations with the defendant-buyer, we observed that this constitutional issue was settled, and stated that there is no expectation of privacy under our State Constitution where one party consents to the conversation being recorded. Similarly, recording a conversation with one party's consent does not violate the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. United States v. Caceres, 440 U.S. 741, 99 S.Ct. 1465, 59 L.Ed.2d 733 (1979). The United States Supreme Court has held that a person offering a bribe takes the risk that the offer would be reproduced in court, whether by faultless memory or mechanical recording. Lopez v. United States, 373 U.S. 427, 439, 83 S.Ct. 1381, 1388, 10 L.Ed.2d 462 (1963). The Supreme Court reasoned that one who unwittingly speaks to an undercover agent necessarily risks the listener's trustworthiness, and has no justifiable expectation of privacy that the same conversation that could be recounted under oath in a court of law might not also be played back in court on a tape recorder. United States v. White, 401 U.S. 745, 751, 91 S.Ct. 1122, 1126, 28 L.Ed.2d 453 (1971). [A] defendant who has no constitutional right to exclude the informer's unaided testimony has no Fourth Amendment privilege against a more accurate version of the events in question. White, 401 U.S. at 753, 91 S.Ct. at 1127. It is undisputed that Glass consented to the recordings here. Accordingly, under either the state or federal constitutional privacy guaranties, the defendants had no reasonable expectation of privacy that their buyer would not record their conversations. The state and federal constitutions are not violated, and any privacy protection afforded defendants' conversations with Glass must be found in the Privacy Act.