Opinion ID: 479433
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Objective Expectation of Privacy

Text: 20 Should we determine that defendants' subjective expectation was one which society is prepared to recognize as reasonable, then the state's circling overflights rise to the level of a search which, because it lacked a warrant in this case, violated the Fourth Amendment. See Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 740, 99 S.Ct. 2577, 2580, 61 L.Ed.2d 220 (1979), quoting Katz, 389 U.S. at 361, 88 S.Ct. at 516-17 (Harlan, J., concurring). We now address this question in light of Ciraolo and Dow. 21 In Ciraolo, a sharply divided 6 Supreme Court held that the defendant's expectation of privacy in a back yard marijuana patch was unreasonable in light of routine private and commercial flight in the public airways. 106 S.Ct. at 1813. The Court reasoned that, despite the erection of a ten-foot fence around the yard, routine private and commercial aviation rendered any expectation of privacy from unenhanced visual observations unreasonable. Id. Although the marijuana plants were located within the curtilage, 7 the plants were nevertheless visible to the naked eye. Id. The Court dismissed as irrational the distinction between observation made in a routine patrol and focused observation of a particular home, reasoning that the defendant's expectation of privacy from aerial observation could not differ as between two airplanes passing overhead at identical altitudes for different purposes. Id. at 1813 n. 2. In Dow, while acknowledging Dow's reasonable, legitimate, and objective expectation of privacy in its covered buildings, the Court held that the warrantless taking of aerial photographs of the open areas of Dow's plant complex from an aircraft lawfully in public navigable airspace was not a search. 106 S.Ct. at 1827. Once again sharply divided 8 , the Court discussed Dow in terms of open fields, 9 reasoning that the open areas of a plant complex were simply more like open fields than they were like curtilage. Id. The Court also rested its conclusion upon the lessened expectation of privacy in commercial property, given government inspection. Id. at 1826. 22 In this case, it is apparent that the police saw, from public navigable airspace, what anyone else could have seen from that position: outlines, shadows and colors of vegetation which resembled marijuana. For all of defendants' efforts, it would have served them little to make their greenhouse so opaque so as to deny sunlight to their crop. Accordingly, they knowingly exposed the translucent sides of their greenhouse to those who might view it from public navigable airspace. The officers' view was unenhanced by any equipment. The fact that their observation was focused on defendants' greenhouse, rather than routine and unfocused, does not alter our conclusion. See Ciraolo, 106 S.Ct. at 1813 n. 2. (defendant's expectations of privacy can hardly differ when two airplanes fly overhead at identical altitudes, simply for different purposes). 23 Nor does Dow 's acknowledgment of a reasonable and legitimate expectation of privacy in a covered commercial building compel a different result. A critical distinction between the buildings in Dow and defendants' greenhouse is that the walls of Dow's buildings did not betray illicit activity to the world. See Dow, 106 S.Ct. at 1825. See also United States v. Johns, 469 U.S. 478, 486, 105 S.Ct. 881, 886, 83 L.Ed.2d 890 (1985) (certain containers may not support reasonable expectation of privacy because contents may be inferred from their outward appearance) (citing Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. 753, 99 S.Ct. 2586, 61 L.Ed.2d 235 (1979)); Blalock v. State, 483 N.E.2d 439 (Ind.1985) (no expectation of privacy in greenhouse with translucent roof through which color of plants resembling marijuana was visible); United States v. Dunn, 674 F.2d 1093, 1100 (5th Cir.1982) (location, siding and screening of barn prevented view of contents unless viewer stood immediately adjacent to barn), vacated, 467 U.S. 1201, 104 S.Ct. 2380, 81 L.Ed.2d 340 (1984) 10 , reinstated, 782 F.2d 1226 (5th Cir.1986) 11 ; Wheeler v. State, 659 S.W.2d 381, 391 (Tex.Crim.App.1982) (defendants had reasonable expectation of privacy in opaque greenhouse located in remote rural area). 24 The proximity of defendants' greenhouse to a nearby airport further detracted from the reasonableness of the expectation that their greenhouse would remain free of aerial observation. See United States v. Allen, 675 F.2d 1373, 1379, 1380 (9th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 833, 102 S.Ct. 133, 70 L.Ed.2d 112 (1981). In that case, we held that the proximity of defendants' property to federal land and airspace which was routinely traversed by Coast Guard helicopters made impossible a reasonable expectation of privacy from aerial, sense-enhanced surveillance. Id. at 1381. 25 Katz rightly warned of the dangers created by technological advances by which the police conduct surveillance. Yet the result today can hardly be said to approve of intrusive technological surveillance where the police could see no more than a casual observer. In this case, no more sophisticated technology was used than a single-engine fixed-wing aircraft. See Ciraolo, 106 S.Ct. at 1813 (one can reasonably doubt that in 1967 Justice Harlan considered an aircraft within the category of future electronic developments that could stealthily intrude upon an individual's privacy), and no more intrusive techniques were used than to fly in navigable airspace, on three separate occasions, near defendants' greenhouse. Compare NORML v. Mullen, 608 F.Supp. 945, 957 (C.D.Cal.1985) (highly disruptive character of low helicopter flights distinguishes them from common airplane overflights to which society is accustomed), remanded, 796 F.2d 276 (9th Cir.1986). 26 What a person knowingly exposes to public view is not protected by the Fourth Amendment. Katz, 389 U.S. at 351, 88 S.Ct. at 511. The Constitution does not require one to build an opaque bubble over himself to claim a reasonable expectation of privacy. Allen, 675 F.2d at 1380. Where the bubble he builds, however, allows persons in navigable public airspace to view his illicit activity, whatever expectation of privacy he has certainly is not reasonable. See Ciraolo, 106 S.Ct. at 1813; Dow, 106 S.Ct. at 1827.