Opinion ID: 849329
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the meaning of private conversation

Text: To answer this question, we must first define private conversation. Determining this phrase's meaning requires us to construe the eavesdropping statutes, and the primary goal of statutory construction is to give effect to the Legislature's intent. People v. Morey, 461 Mich. 325, 330, 603 N.W.2d 250 (1999). To ascertain that intent, this Court begins with the statute's language. When that language is unambiguous, no further judicial construction is required or permitted, because the Legislature is presumed to have intended the meaning it plainly expressed. Id. Here, the plain language of the eavesdropping statutes does not define private conversation. This Court may consult dictionaries to discern the meaning of statutorily undefined terms. Id. However, recourse to dictionary definitions is unnecessary when the Legislature's intent can be determined from reading the statute itself. Renown Stove Co. v. Unemployment Compensation Comm., 328 Mich. 436, 440, 44 N.W.2d 1 (1950). Despite the Legislature's failing to define private conversation in the eavesdropping statutes, its intent can be determined from the eavesdropping statutes themselves. This is because the Legislature did define the term private place. A private place is a place where one may reasonably expect to be safe from casual or hostile intrusion or surveillance. MCL 750.539a(1); MSA 28.807(1)(1). By reading the statutes, the Legislature's intent that private places are places where a person can reasonably expect privacy becomes clear. Applying the same concepts the Legislature used to define those places that are private, we can define those conversations that are private. Thus, private conversation means a conversation that a person reasonably expects to be free from casual or hostile intrusion or surveillance. Additionally, this conclusion is supported by this Court's decision in Dickerson v. Raphael, in which we stated that whether a conversation is private depends on whether the person conversing intended and reasonably expected that the conversation was private. Dickerson, supra at 851. Although this definition of private conversation facially resembles standards that the United States Supreme Court has used in Fourth Amendment cases, those standards developed in the context of law enforcement activity seeking to detect criminal behavior. See Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 360, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967) (Harlan, J.). However, our definition of private conversation emanates from our eavesdropping statutes, which, by their own terms, do not apply to law enforcement personnel acting within their lawful authority. MCL 750.539g(a); MSA 28.807(7)(a). Because of these differences, we do not rely on the Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, and do not incorporate it into our statute. Rather, we rely only on the eavesdropping statutes' language to define the term private conversation.