Opinion ID: 1122734
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Admissibility of the evidence under pre-De Lancie California law.

Text: California decisions before De Lancie followed the pattern of the federal decisions, admitting the challenged evidence in virtually all cases. In the leading case, North v. Superior Court, supra, 8 Cal.3d 301  the only case to exclude a monitored conversation  North was detained in jail awaiting trial. When his wife came to visit him in jail, Detective Neesan invited them into his private office, left them there with the door closed, and secretly monitored their conversation. North sought to exclude the conversation on two grounds: unreasonable search under the state and federal Constitutions, and violation of the privilege extended by Evidence Code section 980 to confidential marital communications. Our opinion first noted that prior California cases have uniformly held that an inmate of a jail ordinarily has no right of privacy. (P. 308.) Even marital communications, we explained, were not protected: [i]n view of the general rule that an inmate of a jail or prison has no reasonable expectation of privacy, ... an ordinary jailhouse conversation between spouses could not be deemed to have been `made in confidence,' as required by Evidence Code section 980.... (P. 311.) North went on, however, to observe that the conversation in question occurred under circumstances which strongly indicate that petitioner and his wife were lulled into believing that their conversation would be confidential. Although the record does not disclose whether or not Neesan made any representations to that effect, his admitted conduct spoke as clearly as words  first by surrendering to petitioner and his wife Neesan's own private office so that they might converse and then by exiting and shutting the door, leaving them entirely alone. Certainly, nothing in Neesan's actions indicated that petitioner's conversation would be monitored. The foregoing circumstances, coupled with the statutory presumption that a conversation between spouses is presumed to have been made in confidence (Evid. Code, § 917 ...), constituted a sufficient showing by petitioner to establish a reasonable expectation of privacy. (Pp. 311-312.) We concluded by emphasizing that nothing in our opinion should be deemed a disapproval of the common practice of monitoring inmates' conversations with others, including their spouses, in visiting rooms or similar places. That practice seems reasonably necessary in order to maintain jail security and (with the exceptions set forth in Pen. Code, § 636, supra ), is not proscribed by law. (P. 312, fn. omitted.) The North opinion stood on two grounds: the marital privilege and the deliberate creation of an expectation of privacy. In the following year the Court of Appeal addressed the question whether the creation of an expectation of privacy alone would require exclusion. In People v. Finchum (1973) 33 Cal. App.3d 787 [109 Cal. Rptr. 319], the sheriff put two codefendants in an interview room and asked, `[I]f I left them together for ten or fifteen minutes, could they get their stories straight ...?' (P. 789.) He then went to another room to monitor the conversation. Reversing an order suppressing evidence, the court stated that the defendant and his companion did not occupy a privileged status. In North it was the husband-wife relationship coupled with Detective Neesan's conduct that gave rise to the expectation of privacy. Absent the privileged relationship from the North case, as we read that case, there would have been no reasonable expectation of privacy. (P. 791.) During the 10 years following North, all attempts to suppress conversations based upon unprivileged relationships failed. (See In re Joseph A. (1973) 30 Cal. App.3d 880, 885-886 [106 Cal. Rptr. 729] (defendant's conversation with his uncle in police interview room); People v. Fonville (1973) 35 Cal. App.3d 693, 707 [111 Cal. Rptr. 53] (defendant's conversation with his uncle in police interview room); People v. Martinez (1978) 82 Cal. App.3d 1, 15 [147 Cal. Rptr. 208] (defendant's jailroom conversation with his brother and sister); People v. Estrada (1979) 93 Cal. App.3d 76, 99 [155 Cal. Rptr. 731] (defendant's conversation with his sister in jail visiting room); People v. Owens (1980) 112 Cal. App.3d 441, 448-449 [169 Cal. Rptr. 359] (codefendants in jail interview room); People v. Dominguez (1981) 121 Cal. App.3d 481, 505 [175 Cal. Rptr. 445] (codefendant and his mother in jail visiting room).) Even marital communications were held admissible absent unusual circumstances demonstrating a deliberate attempt to create an expectation of privacy. ( People v. Hill (1974) 12 Cal.3d 731, 765 [117 Cal. Rptr. 393, 528 P.2d 1] (conversation in jail visiting room); [] cf. People v. Rodriguez (1981) 117 Cal. App.3d 706, 713-715 [173 Cal. Rptr. 82] (letter from inmate husband to inmate wife). In fact, apart from North, we have uncovered no pre- De Lancie case from any jurisdiction suppressing a jail or police station conversation on Fourth Amendment or equivalent state grounds. Defendant nevertheless argues that his motion to suppress should be granted under pre- De Lancie law. He cannot predicate his claim on the family relationship, for communications between brothers are not privileged under the Evidence Code. And under the post- North cases, merely leaving the communicants alone in a room was not considered an improper attempt to create an expectation of privacy. ( People v. Finchum, supra, 33 Cal. App.3d 787, 791; In re Joseph A., supra, 30 Cal. App.3d 880, 885-886.) He therefore stresses the unique aspect of his case: the fact that neither he nor his brother was under arrest at the time of their conversation. In upholding the admission of intercepted conversations, the pre- De Lancie California cases do not clearly distinguish whether the crucial factor is the status of the speakers  at least one being an inmate or detainee  or the location of the conversation in a jail or police station. Federal cases involving searches antedating Katz v. United States, supra, 389 U.S. 347, had emphasized the place of the conversation (see Lanza v. New York, supra, 370 U.S. 139, 143-144 [8 L.Ed.2d 384, 387-388]; Christman v. Skinner, supra, 468 F.2d 723, 726; Williams v. Nelson, supra, 457 F.2d 376, 377); older California cases proclaimed instead that a prisoner has no right of privacy (see People v. Lopez (1963) 60 Cal.2d 223, 248 [32 Cal. Rptr. 424, 384 P.2d 16]; People v. Morgan (1961) 197 Cal. App.2d 90, 93 [16 Cal. Rptr. 838]). [4] After Katz, however, all cases talked in terms of the effect of the location of the conversation or the speaker's status on whether he could reasonably and justifiably expect privacy. [5] The fundamental premise underlying all these decisions upholding admissibility was that routine monitoring of police station and jail conversations was necessary for institutional security, and consequently that society should not recognize any expectation of privacy which would impede that activity. Prior to De Lancie, the fact that a particular conversation was monitored not for security purposes but to gather evidence did not argue against admissibility. [6] (See Henry, Electronic Surveillance in California Prisons After De Lancie v. Superior Court (1982) 22 Santa Clara L.Rev. 1109, 1112-1116.) The cases evince no reliance on the speaker's lack of awareness of the pervasive practice of monitoring conversations in jail or in the police station, [7] and thus undertake no real attempt to assess the reasonableness of his expectation of privacy. Instead they state a legal fiction: that no one can reasonably expect privacy in a jail or police station unless the conversation is protected by an evidentiary privilege. The foregoing review of pre- De Lancie California cases does not support the present defendant's claim that police interception of the conversation between him and his brother violated their right of privacy under then-existing California law. It is true that many cases spoke of persons in custody lacking a right of privacy, but the underlying rationale of that language was that monitoring conversations by such persons is essential to institutional security. That rationale applied equally to all persons admitted to and left alone in an interview or other interior room of the police station, whether or not they have been arrested. Thus, under pre- De Lancie California law, the Donaldsons' expectation of privacy would be unreasonable as a matter of law.