Opinion ID: 1243792
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Private Nature of the Conversations

Text: On the issue of whether these four conversations were private, I find the majority's reliance on the fact that the interaction between Glass and these defendants was visible to any passersby particularly unpersuasive. The majority compares this to the circumstances in State v. Drumhiller, 36 Wash.App. 592, 675 P.2d 631, review denied, 101 Wash.2d 1012 (1984), where the defendants were consuming controlled substances in front of a picture window. There, the Court of Appeals rightly concluded that objects, activities, or statements that he [the defendant] exposes to the `plain view' of outsiders are not `protected' because no intention to keep to himself has been exhibited. Drumhiller, 36 Wash.App. at 595, 675 P.2d 631 (quoting Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 361, 88 S.Ct. 507, 516-17, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967) (Harlan, J. concurring)). The problem with this analogy is that the four defendants whose conversations took place in the car where they were alone with Glass did not expose their statements to outsiders. Unlike the drug activity in Drumhiller, which could be observed from outside the house, the conversations at issue herein could not be heard from outside the car. Each defendant exhibited the intention to keep to himself by entering the car where passersby would be unable to hear the conversation that ensued. [1] The majority emphasizes that these four defendants either expressly or implicitly agreed to provide Glass with cocaine while standing in plain view on the street before entering the more private environment of the car. The majority seems to suggest that this public initiation of the conversation somehow diminishes the private character of any subsequent conversation. I disagree. It seems more logical to conclude that when the defendants deliberately moved off a public thoroughfare and into an enclosed space to converse, that conversation was intended to be private. The final factor influencing the majority is that Glass was a stranger to each of these defendants. While the lack of any preexisting relationship may, in certain circumstances, make it less reasonable for a person to expect that any confidences shared between the parties will be respected, it seems unlikely that the Legislature intended to exclude all conversations between people in business transactions simply because they were strangers. If it had, it would have been simple enough to draft such a limitation.