Opinion ID: 1687725
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Federal Constitutional Question

Text: Petitioners argue that there is no authority for the district court's creation of a general federal right of personhood and that, even if there is a federal constitutional right of disclosural privacy, the Florida Public Records Law does not unconstitutionally infringe upon any such right when applied to the circumstances of this case. Respondents, on the other hand, contend that there is a distinct constitutional right of disclosural privacy which outweighs any interest of the state in requiring disclosure. The district court's holding, that a federal right of privacy prevents public disclosure of the consultant's papers, is based on its determination that the Bill of Rights recognizes the fundamental integrity of persons which gives rise to a privacy of personhood that cannot be violated by government except to vindicate a compelling state interest. In essence, the district court formulated a general federal right of privacy the core of which is described as the inviolability of personhood. We find that the district court's conclusion is unsupported by either the decisions of this Court or those of the Supreme Court of the United States. While there is no right of privacy explicitly enunciated in the Bill of Rights, the Supreme Court has construed the federal constitution to protect certain privacy interests. These protected interests can be said to comprise the federal constitutional right of privacy. This right of privacy cannot be characterized as a general right because its application has been strictly limited. It has been characterized as consisting of three protected interests: an individual's interest in being secure from unwarranted governmental surveillance and intrusion into his private affairs; a person's interest in decisional autonomy on personally intimate matters; and an individual's interest in protecting against the disclosure of personal matters. Whalen v. Roe, 429 U.S. 589, 599, 97 S.Ct. 869, 51 L.Ed.2d 64 (1977). The protection of a person's general right of privacy  his right to be left alone  is left to the law of the individual states. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 350-51, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). The oldest and most widely understood of these privacy interests protected by the federal constitution is a person's interest in being secure against arbitrary governmental surveillance and intrusion into his private affairs. This privacy interest, basic to our concept of a free society, is rooted in the fourth amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968); Katz; Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 34 S.Ct. 341, 58 L.Ed. 652 (1914). The parameters of this interest have been repeatedly delineated over the years by the Supreme Court, and, as a result, governmental intrusion upon activity safeguarded by this interest can be readily identified and remedied by the courts. The criminal law courts are often called upon to vindicate this interest. The second privacy interest which has gained federal constitutional recognition is the right of an individual to be free from unjustified governmental interference in making various types of important personal decisions. This interest has been characterized as the right of decisional autonomy and is protected from governmental regulation, absent a narrowly drawn legislative enactment based upon a compelling state interest. Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U.S. 678, 97 S.Ct. 2010, 52 L.Ed.2d 675 (1977). This particular privacy interest, first explicitly recognized in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965), has its foundation in the fourteenth amendment's concept of ordered liberty. Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973). The personal rights encompassed are only those which are fundamental. Although the Supreme Court stated in Carey that the boundaries of this interest have not been marked, the Court has clearly established that an individual may make a decision relating to intimate personal activities and relationships such as marriage, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 12, 87 S.Ct. 1817, 18 L.Ed.2d 1010 (1967); procreation, Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U.S. 535, 541-42, 62 S.Ct. 1110, 86 L.Ed. 1655 (1942); contraception, Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438, 453-54, 92 S.Ct. 1029, 31 L.Ed.2d 349 (1972); family relationships, Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 166, 64 S.Ct. 438, 88 L.Ed. 645 (1944); and child rearing and education, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 535, 45 S.Ct. 571, 69 L.Ed. 1070 (1925); Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399, 43 S.Ct. 625, 67 L.Ed. 1042 (1923), without unjustified governmental interference. In these enumerated activities and relationships, there are limitations on government's power to regulate conduct substantively. Unwarranted governmental intrusion on decisions in these fundamental areas is a deprivation of the liberty secured by the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment. The remaining privacy interest is the interest respondents argue applies to the present circumstances and prevents disclosure of the consultant's papers. That interest has been characterized as the individual's interest in avoiding public disclosure of personal matters and has been explicitly mentioned by the Supreme Court only twice, once in Whalen v. Roe and once in Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425, 97 S.Ct. 2777, 53 L.Ed.2d 867 (1977). This interest is the newest and the least defined. As recognized by the Fifth Circuit in Plante v. Gonzalez, 575 F.2d 1119 (5th Cir.1978), the Supreme Court has provided little specific guidance on this aspect of the right of privacy, and neither Whalen nor Nixon resolves the question presented. In Whalen, a New York statute requiring physicians to identify patients obtaining certain prescription drugs and to record such information in a centralized computer file was challenged as being violative of the individual's interest in avoiding public disclosure of private matters. The act provided that the computerized information could only be used in judicial proceedings and made unauthorized disclosure a criminal offense. In reversing the district court's finding of unconstitutionality, the Supreme Court discussed the security precautions taken to prevent public disclosure of the data and concluded that public disclosure was unlikely. Having found public disclosure to be unlikely, the Court refrained from discussing the nature of this privacy interest and the standard to be applied when passing on its applicability. In Nixon, the Supreme Court considered an alleged invasion of privacy by the federal act which provided that the Administrator of General Services would take custody of former President Nixon's papers and tapes. The Court affirmed the district court's decision upholding the constitutionality of the statute. Although stating that Nixon had a legitimate expectation of privacy in material covering extremely private communications between [him] and, among others, his wife, his daughters, his physician, lawyer and clergyman, and his close friends as well as personal diary dictabelts and his wife's personal files, 433 U.S. at 459, 97 S.Ct. at 2798, the Court did not attempt to define the privacy interest in avoiding public disclosure of personal matters because it found that the case did not present the problem of public dissemination but was concerned with the viewing and screening of documents by government archivists. Just as in Whalen, the Court in Nixon acknowledged that such a privacy interest exists but did not describe or define it, nor did it establish a standard of review to be employed in determining when this interest has been transgressed. Despite announcing that a privacy interest which protects individuals from public disclosure of private matters does exist, neither Whalen nor Nixon explicitly held that the federal constitutional right of privacy precludes dissemination of private information by the government. The district court's reliance upon Whalen and Nixon as support for its expansive right of personhood is misplaced. We conclude that a person's right of disclosural privacy is not as broad as the district court has held. Until the Supreme Court gives some substance and life to this interest, we will be guided by that Court's decision in Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693, 96 S.Ct. 1155, 47 L.Ed.2d 405 (1976). In that case, Davis sought damages and injunctive and declaratory relief under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1970), against city and county officials who had placed his name and picture on a police flyer of active shoplifters which was distributed to merchants. He had been arrested for shoplifting, but the charges had been dismissed thereafter. Davis contended that this governmental disclosure had deprived him of his constitutional right of privacy under the first, fourth, fifth, ninth, and fourteenth amendments. The Court rejected his argument, stating: Respondent's case, however, comes within none of these areas. He does not seek to suppress evidence seized in the course of an unreasonable search. See Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351, 88 S.Ct. 507, 511, 19 L.Ed.2d 576, 581 (1967); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 8-9, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1872-73, 20 L.Ed.2d 889, 898 (1968). And our other right of privacy cases, while defying categorical description, deal generally with substantive aspects of the Fourteenth Amendment. In Roe the Court pointed out that the personal rights found in this guarantee of personal privacy must be limited to those which are fundamental or implicit in the concept of ordered liberty as described in Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 325, 58 S.Ct. 149, 152, 82 L.Ed. 288, 292 (1937). The activities detailed as being within this definition were ones very different from that for which respondent claims constitutional protection  matters relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, and child rearing and education. In these areas it has been held that there are limitations on the States' power to substantively regulate conduct. Respondent's claim is far afield from this line of decisions. He claims constitutional protection against the disclosure of the fact of his arrest on a shoplifting charge. His claim is based, not upon any challenge to the State's ability to restrict his freedom of action in a sphere contended to be private, but instead on a claim that the State may not publicize a record of an official act such as an arrest. None of our substantive privacy decisions hold this or anything like this, and we decline to enlarge them in this manner. None of respondent's theories of recovery were based upon rights secured to him by the Fourteenth Amendment. 424 U.S. at 713-14, 96 S.Ct. at 1166. The principles involved in Paul and in the present case are strikingly similar. Both involve the release of information concerning an official act of government that is allegedly damaging to the protestants. In Paul, the Court found no privacy interest to protect, and in the present case we reach the same conclusion. The Supreme Court may some day breathe life into the privacy interest asserted by respondents, but, until that occurs, we conclude that there does not exist, under the facts of this case, a constitutionally protected interest sufficient to prevent the public from seeing the consultant's papers. In reaching this conclusion, we have not overlooked the recent decision in Plante v. Gonzalez where the Fifth Circuit, although recognizing the Supreme Court's failure to provide guidance, nevertheless applied this interest and formulated a balancing test to be applied in examining the strength of this interest. There is nothing in Plante that persuades us that the facts of the present case establish a disclosural privacy interest that would keep the consultant's papers from public view.