Opinion ID: 1364701
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Defendants Had a Reasonable Expectation of Privacy Regarding Activities of Employees in the Break Room.

Text: This Court has adopted the following two-part test, borrowed from the concurring opinion of Justice Harlan in Katz, 389 U.S. at 361, 88 S.Ct. at 516, to determine when a person's expectation of privacy may be deemed reasonable: First, one must exhibit an actual, subjective expectation of privacy. Second, that expectation must be one that society would recognize as objectively reasonable. Biggar, 68 Haw. at 407, 716 P.2d at 495; see also State v. Barnett, 68 Haw. 32, 36-37, 703 P.2d 680, 684 (1985); State v. Texeira, 62 Haw. 44, 48, 609 P.2d 131, 134-35 (1980); State v. Kaaheena, 59 Haw. 23, 27-28, 575 P.2d 462, 466 (1978). Accordingly, we must ascertain whether the record before us supports the district court's findings and conclusion that the defendants had such reasonable expectations with respect to their activities in the post office break room.
Regarding the first prong of the two-part test, the State challenges the district court's FOF No. 13, in which it found that [t]he [d]efendants demonstrated subjective expectations that they would not be covertly viewed and videotaped by government agents in their employee breakroom... and that their activities in that area would remain private. The State argues that the existence of an actual subjective expectation is ... not to be presumed in the absence of some affirmative evidence.... Here, the only defendant to testify was ... Gonsalves. She asserted her own personal expectations of privacy.... Accordingly, the [district] court had no evidence upon which to base a factual finding as to actual expectations of privacy on the part of [the other defendants].... Opening brief in No. 16031 at 12 (emphasis in original). We believe that the State's argument is without merit. As noted above, the district court expressly requested that defense counsel make an offer of proof as to what your witnesses [are] going to tell us? Defense counsel complied by proffering a detailed list of factual matters, which, if believed, would definitively establish the defendants' actual subjective expectations of privacy regarding the break room and as to which each of the defendants would testify. He then validated his offer of proof through Gonsalves's testimony, at the conclusion of which he renewed his offer  to which the State did not object and which the record confirms that the district court accepted. As a direct result, defense counsel did not adduce any testimony from the other defendants, all of whom were present at the hearing, but rather moved on to other witnesses. In effect, defense counsel's renewed proffer amounted to an offer to enter into an oral stipulation [6] regarding the cumulative testimony of the remaining defendants, which, through the DPA's silence, the State accepted. Pursuant to Hawaii Rules of Evidence (HRE) 611(a) (1981), which provides in relevant part that [t]he court shall exercise reasonable control over the mode and order of interrogating witnesses and presenting evidence so as to ... (2) avoid needless consumption of time, the district court clearly had the discretion to allow such a stipulation. It has long been the rule in this jurisdiction that [t]he object of a stipulation ... is to avoid the necessity of bringing other evidence to establish the facts stipulated as true and to avoid the necessity of calling certain witnesses who it is stipulated if called would testify to certain facts. Both the facts stipulated to be true and those which it is stipulated certain witnesses would swear to if called are fully before the court as evidence when the stipulation is [entered]. Kaluhiwa v. Miguel, 25 Haw. 246, 250 (1919). Moreover, when an oral [stipulation] has been established ... and it has been relied upon to the prejudice of the party asserting it ... the adverse party will not be permitted to gain an advantage by reason of the [stipulation] not having been in writing. Kaui v. County of Kauai, 47 Haw. 271, 277, 386 P.2d 880, 884 (1963) (citations omitted). Inasmuch as the stipulated testimony was properly before the district court, the DPA's complete failure to object to it in the course of the February 21, 1992 hearing constitutes a waiver of the point on appeal. HRE 103(a)(1) (1981); see also State v. Samuel, 74 Haw. 141, 147, 838 P.2d 1374, 1378 (1992); Larsen v. Pacesetter Systems, Inc., 74 Haw. 1, 46, 837 P.2d 1273, 1295 (1992); State v. Naeole, 62 Haw. 563, 570-71, 617 P.2d 820, 826 (1980). Significantly, the State does not argue on appeal that Gonsalves's testimony fails to establish her actual subjective expectation of privacy and freedom from covert, governmental video surveillance in the employee break room. On the record before us and in the face of that testimony, combined with defense counsel's unchallenged offer of proof regarding the like testimony of the other defendants, we hold that FOF 13 was not clearly erroneous. See State v. Batson, 73 Haw. 236, 245-46, 831 P.2d 924, 930 (1992).
Regarding the second prong of the two-part test, the State challenges FOF Nos. 16 and 17 and COL No. 8, in which the district court found and concluded that the defendants' actual, subjective expectations of privacy were reasonably held. The State contends that [t]here can be no reasonable expectation of privacy in a place, activity or object which a defendant exposes to open view. Opening brief in No. 16031 at 12. The State further urges in summary that the openness and non-exclusivity of the breakroom area and the openness with which the gambling activities were conducted precluded any reasonable expectation of privacy from surveillance, personal or remote, open or covert. Id. at 24. We disagree. Whether an actual, subjective expectation of privacy is one that society would recognize as objectively reasonable is a question of law, and the issue is therefore reviewed de novo on appeal. United States v. Taketa, 923 F.2d 665, 669 (9th Cir.1991) (citation omitted). Although this court has not expressly labeled the pertinent standard of review in the past, we have effectively applied the right/wrong test. See, e.g., State v. Jensen, 69 Haw. 534, 536-37, 750 P.2d 932, 933 (1988); Barnett, 68 Haw. at 37-38, 703 P.2d at 684; State v. Dias, 52 Haw. 100, 106-07, 470 P.2d 510, 514 (1970). [A] person has a `halo' of privacy wherever he goes and can invoke a protectable right to privacy wherever he may legitimately be and reasonably expect freedom from governmental intrusion. State v. Matias, 51 Haw. 62, 65-66, 451 P.2d 257, 259 (1969). Accordingly, the test is ... one of reasonable expectations of privacy. Every individual has expectations of privacy with regard to his person wherever he may go, be it a public park or a private place; yet this is not so with regard to places where an individual happens to be. The place must be of such a character as to give rise reasonably to these expectations of privacy. Dias, 52 Haw. at 106-07, 470 P.2d at 514 (emphasis in original). In assessing the reasonableness of an expectation of privacy, we consider, inter alia, the nature of the area involved, the precautions taken to insure privacy, Barnett, 68 Haw. at 37, 703 P.2d at 684, and the type and character of [the] governmental invasion employed. Jensen, 69 Haw. at 536, 750 P.2d at 933 (citation omitted). A person may have a subjective expectation of privacy that is objectively reasonable in some area of his or her workplace. Taketa, 923 F.2d at 672. Such an expectation is not defeated merely because the area is accessible to others. Id. at 673. This is precisely because what a person `seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected.' Kaaheena, 59 Haw. at 26, 575 P.2d at 465 (quoting Katz, 389 U.S. at 351-52, 88 S.Ct. at 511). Privacy does not require solitude.... [E]ven private business offices are often subject to the legitimate visits of coworkers, supervisors, and the public, without defeating the expectation of privacy unless the office is so open to fellow employees or the public that no expectation of privacy is reasonable. Taketa, 923 F.2d at 672 (citation omitted). In the present case, the employee break room was neither a public place nor subject to public view or hearing. Only postal employees and invited guests were allowed in it. Accordingly, the defendants were in a position to regulate their conduct as a function of present company. Moreover, when seated in the break room, the defendants could see anyone approaching and could avoid being surprised by an untrusted intruder. It is true that we have held that where the object observed by the police is in `open view,' it `is not subject to any reasonable expectation of privacy and the observation is not within the scope of the constitution.' Kapoi, 64 Haw. at 140, 637 P.2d at 1113 (quoting Kaaheena, 59 Haw. at 29, 575 P.2d at 467) (footnote and other citations omitted). However, the State's reliance on the open view doctrine is misplaced. In the `open view' situation, ... the observation takes place from a non-intrusive vantage point. The governmental agent is either on the outside looking outside or on the outside looking inside [at] that which is knowingly exposed to the public. Kaaheena, 59 Haw. at 28-29, 575 P.2d at 466-67 (citation and footnote omitted). By contrast, the video surveillance at issue in this appeal involved the yearlong observations, from the inside looking inside, of a smoke detector-obscured seeing eye video camera occupying a grossly intrusive vantage point and targeting activity that by no stretch of the imagination can be regarded as having been knowingly exposed to the public. Cf. Biggar, supra (defendant had reasonable expectation of privacy inside closed toilet stall which was violated by warrantless surveillance of police detective perched on toilet in adjoining stall and peering over partition); Kaaheena, supra (where defendants engaging in gambling activities drew curtains and closed venetian blinds covering window, they enjoyed reasonable expectation of privacy free from governmental intrusion even if there was one-inch hole in drapes and blinds where hole was high enough off ground so that no one could look through window; thus, where police officers climbed on crates to look through aperture, observations constituted unreasonable search). [7] We now address the type and character of [the] governmental invasion  video surveillance  leveled against the defendants in the present case. See Jensen, 69 Haw. at 536, 750 P.2d at 933. To measure the government's intrusion we must consider the expectations of society. United States v. Cuevas-Sanchez, 821 F.2d 248, 251 (5th Cir.1987). We agree with the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that [t]his type of surveillance provokes an immediate negative visceral reaction: indiscriminate video surveillance raises the spectre of the Orwellian state. Id. (footnote omitted). [T]elevision surveillance in criminal investigations is indeed reminiscent of the `telescreens' by which `Big Brother' in George Orwell's 1984 maintained visual surveillance of the entire population of `Oceania,' the miserable country depicted in that anti-utopian novel.... Torres, 751 F.2d at 877. And we likewise believe it to be unarguable that television surveillance is exceedingly intrusive ... and inherently indiscriminate, and that it could be grossly abused  to eliminate personal privacy as understood in modern Western nations. Id. at 882. [8] Accordingly, based on the totality of the circumstances present in the record before us, we hold that the defendants had an objectively reasonable privacy expectation that [they] would not be videotaped by government agents in the employee break room. See Taketa, 923 F.2d at 677. Our holding is grounded in the same factors as those considered by the Taketa court: First, the video search was directed straight at [the defendants], rather than being a search of property [they] did not own or control. Second, [the defendants were] of course present during the video search in question.... Third, the silent, unblinking lens of the camera was intrusive in a way that no temporary search of the office could have been. Id. Whatever the general privacy interest the defendants may or may not have had in the break room, they had an actual and objectively reasonable expectation of privacy against being videotaped in it. Id. at 676. [9]