Opinion ID: 2398903
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Admission of Video Evidence

Text: The defendant's final assignment of error is that the trial court erred by admitting into evidence the video of the defendant's attack on Mr. Smith. The defendant argues that the video was inadmissible because its contents had been illegally obtained from him by Tom Smith. At a hearing on the defendant's motion to exclude the video, the evidence established that both Mr. Smith and the defendant had wireless home video surveillance systems. It was also established that it was from a camera on the defendant's surveillance system that footage of the attack was transmitted. According to the testimony, Mr. Smith's system received images on the same frequency as that transmitted by the defendant's camera. Being aware of this frequency cross-over, Mr. Smith had previously programmed his computer to capture and record any video feed transmitted by the defendant's wireless camera. After being shot by the defendant, Mr. Smith informed law enforcement officers responding to the 911 call that the entire incident had been recorded and asked them to get the recording from his computer. The investigating officers went to Mr. Smith's computer and transferred a copy of the surveillance footage to a compact disc. It is that surveillance video footage that the defendant argues should have been excluded by the trial court on the basis that he had a privacy expectation in the video footage captured by Mr. Smith and Mr. Smith's interception of the video feed from his camera violated that right. Assuming arguendo that the defendant is accurate in his assertion that he had a privacy expectation in the wireless video transmission and that Mr. Smith violated that right by viewing and recording it, [9] this Court nonetheless concludes that the defendant did not have a basis to exclude this evidence at his criminal trial. In Syllabus Point 1 of State v. Oldaker, 172 W.Va. 258, 304 S.E.2d 843 (1983), we held that, in criminal trials, the United States Constitution, Amendment IV, and West Virginia Constitution, Article III, § 6, do not apply to searches by private individuals unless they are acting as instruments or agents of the State. Our rationale in Oldaker, for not applying the Fourth Amendment or Article III, Section 6 of the West Virginia Constitution to searches by private individuals, also extends to seizures by private persons. In Sutherland v. Kroger Company, 144 W.Va. 673, 683, 110 S.E.2d 716, 723 (1959), we observed that: [t]he constitutional provisions in the State and Federal Constitutions prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures, ... are only applicable to the State and Federal Governments and not to private individuals. In Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U.S. 465, 475, 41 S.Ct. 574, 65 L.Ed. 1048 (1921), the United States Supreme Court also discussed this issue, holding that: The Fourth Amendment gives protection against unlawful searches and seizures, and as shown in the previous cases, its protection applies to governmental action. Its origin and history clearly show that it was intended as a restraint upon the activities of sovereign authority, and was not intended to be a limitation upon other than governmental agencies; as against such authority it was the purpose of the Fourth Amendment to secure the citizen in the right of unmolested occupation of his dwelling and the possession of his property, subject to the right of seizure by process duly issued. In the present case the record clearly shows that no official of the Federal Government had anything to do with the wrongful seizure of the petitioner's property, or any knowledge thereof until several months after the property had been taken from him[.] It is manifest that there was no invasion of the security afforded by the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure, as whatever wrong was done was the act of individuals in taking the property of another. A portion of the property so taken and held was turned over to the prosecuting officers of the Federal Government. We assume that petitioner has an unquestionable right of redress against those who illegally and wrongfully took his private property under the circumstances herein disclosed, but with such remedies we are not now concerned. In the present appeal, there is no evidence to prove that Mr. Smith was acting as an instrument or agent of the state. Mr. Smith received a wireless signal being transmitted by the defendant's camera and the contents of that wireless transmission were recorded by Mr. Smith on his personal computer. After the defendant's attack, Mr. Smith gave a copy of that recording to police. We do not find the trial court erred in admitting the video surveillance footage captured by the victim, Mr. Smith.