Opinion ID: 2631698
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Intent of Washington Constitution Framers

Text: ¶ 33 It is also our fundamental rule of constitutional interpretation that courts are to look to the right as it existed at the time of the constitution's adoption in 1889. Sofie v. Fibreboard Corp., 112 Wash.2d 636, 645, 771 P.2d 711 (1989); see also City of Pasco v. Mace, 98 Wash.2d 87, 99, 653 P.2d 618 (1982) (affirming right to jury trial in municipal court because [f]rom the earliest history of this state, the right of trial by jury has been treasured). At the constitutional convention in 1889 some delegates proposed Washington adopt language identical to the Fourth Amendment. THE JOURNAL OF THE WASHINGTON STATE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 1889, at 497 (Beverly Paulik Rosenow ed., 1962). However, the Founders expressly rejected this language, instead the convention adopted a strikingly different provision that does not expressly refer to searches, seizures, and warrants but does emphasize the individual's privacy rights. ROBERT F. UTTER & HUGH D. SPITZER, THE WASHINGTON STATE CONSTITUTION: A REFERENCE GUIDE 20-21 (2002). ¶ 34 Our Founding Fathers recognized one's privacy deserved heightened protection exceeding the Fourth Amendment, favoring a broader constitutional directive explicitly protecting our citizens' private affairs; whereas the United States Constitution never even mentions privacy. So doing, the framers created a broad and inclusive privacy protection. See, e.g., Sanford E. Pitler, Comment, The Origin and Development of Washington's Independent Exclusionary Rule: Constitutional Right and Constitutionally Compelled Remedy, 61 WASH. L. REV. 459, 520 (1986). Contemporaneous accounts describe the framers of article I, section 7 as having made private affairs sacred. THE JOURNAL OF THE WASHINGTON STATE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 1889, supra, at 497 n. 14. ¶ 35 The framers recognized the basic principle that the right to privacy is among the most fundamental of all rights to protect what Justice Brandeis famously stated nearly a century ago, [T]he right to be let alone [is] the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 478, 48 S.Ct. 564, 72 L.Ed. 944 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting).