Opinion ID: 461208
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Exposure to Public View

Text: 68 The majority found that Alinovi had no legitimate privacy interest once she brought the paper to Midland Street School because in giving it to the chairman of the special education evaluation team she exposed her paper to public view. In so ruling, I believe that the majority has misapplied Illinois v. Andreas, 463 U.S. 765, 103 S.Ct. 3319, 77 L.Ed.2d 1003 (1983), the case on which it relies. In Andreas, a customs officer at an airport opened a container holding marijuana. He notified Drug Enforcement Agents who saw the marijuana inside the container and then resealed the container and delivered it to the addressee's residence where Andreas took possession of it. When Andreas was arrested, he tried to assert a privacy interest in the marijuana. The Supreme Court ruled that no protected privacy interest remains in contraband inside a container once government officers have lawfully opened the container and examined its contents. Andreas, 463 U.S. at 771, 103 S.Ct. at 3323. 69 Alinovi was obviously not asserting a privacy interest in the physical sheets of paper that were viewed, but in the thoughts expressed thereon, thoughts which clearly were not exposed in any meaningful way. 4 Therefore, I cannot agree that when Alinovi brought the paper to the reevaluation meeting and gave it to Generelli, who immediately placed it inside his briefcase and returned it to her unread, that she had exposed the paper to view and thereby lost her expectation of privacy.