Opinion ID: 2543718
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: interpretation of the city council's definition

Text: ¶ 24 Based on the definition in the Salt Lake City Code, for defendant's sexual conduct to have occurred in a place open to public view, the sexual conduct must have occurred (1) in an area capable of use or observance by persons from the general community, and (2) where an expectation for privacy for the activity engaged in by individuals is not reasonably justified. Salt Lake City Code § 11.16.010(M) (1996). ¶ 25 Neither party contends that the definition's first element requires additional interpretation. Regarding the definition's second element, Salt Lake City echoes the views of the court of appeals' dissent and argues that, in determining what the city council intended by an expectation for privacy that is not reasonably justified, we should rely on case law from the Fourth Amendment search and seizure context. Under this case law, observations by law enforcement of activity in open view from a position lawfully accessible to the public do not infringe upon an individual's  reasonable expectation of privacy,  and thus do not constitute a search under the Fourth Amendment. State v. Lee, 633 P.2d 48, 51 (Utah 1981) (emphasis added) (ruling, in Fourth Amendment search and seizure context, that a person does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in an automobile parked in a parking lot open to the public). We reject Salt Lake City's argument for two reasons. ¶ 26 First, interpreting the definition's second element as turning on whether law enforcement observed the conduct from a position lawfully accessible to the public would render it almost identical to the first requirement, i.e., whether the conduct occurred in an area capable of use or observance by persons from the general community. Salt Lake City Code § 11.16.010(M) (1996). Thus, under Salt Lake City's proposed interpretation, the expectation for privacy element would become largely superfluous. An interpretation of statutory language that renders other parts of the statute superfluous is to be avoided. State v. Morrison, 2001 UT 73, ¶ 11, 31 P.3d 547. ¶ 27 Second, in the absence of evidence of intent to the contrary, the words of a statute or ordinance are given their common meaning. Ambassador Athletic Club v. Utah State Tax Comm'n, 27 Utah 2d 377, 378, 496 P.2d 883 (Utah 1972) (holding that, because legislature did not define the word `hotel' in statute taxing proceeds from the rental of rooms, it must be understood to have a meaning generally understood and accepted by the public). The Salt Lake City Council did not evidence an intent to depart from the common meaning of the terms in the second element and adopt a definition from a different legal context. Turning first to the language of the ordinance and the definition, we note that the city council did not express an intent to adopt the Fourth Amendment definition. In addition, in Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 104 S.Ct. 1735, 80 L.Ed.2d 214 (1984), in which the United States Supreme Court held that law enforcement's entry onto open fields to observe marijuana plants was not a Fourth Amendment search, the Supreme Court downplayed the existence of a correlation between a reasonable expectation of privacy and the viewing of the conduct by the general community: [W]e reject the suggestion that steps taken to protect privacy establish that expectations of privacy in an open field are legitimate. It is true, of course, that [the alleged drug growers], in order to conceal their criminal activities, planted the marihuana upon secluded land and erected fences and No Trespassing signs around the property. And it may be that because of such precautions, few members of the public stumbled upon the marihuana crops seized by the police. Neither of these suppositions demonstrates, however, that the expectation of privacy was legitimate in the sense required by the Fourth Amendment. The test of legitimacy is not whether the individual chooses to conceal assertedly private activity. Rather, the correct inquiry is whether the government's intrusion infringes upon the personal and societal values protected by the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 182-83, 104 S.Ct. 1735 (emphasis added). Thus, because a reasonable expectation of privacy in the Fourth Amendment sense is a term of art that embodies policies unrelated to the purpose of the disorderly conduct ordinance, the city council likely did not intend for Fourth Amendment case law to establish the meaning of the terms used in the ordinance. See Evans v. State, 963 P.2d 177, 184 (Utah 1998) (stating that our primary goal [in interpreting legislation] is to give effect to the [legislative] intent in light of the purpose  of the legislation (emphasis added)). Instead, courts should apply the terms in the definition according to their common meaning.