Court Opinion

ID: 9534099
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:36:46.995837+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:29.090723
License: Public Domain

RIGGS, J.,
dissenting.
Because the helicopter fly-over in this case was deliberately undertaken “for the express purpose of seeking out the contraband on defendant’s property, and was not merely an *257incidental observation made during a routine flight from one place to another,” 95 Or App at 242, the majority concludes that the challenged conduct necessarily constitutes a search subject to the Article 1, section 9, warrant requirement, citing State v. Slowikowski, 307 Or 19, 761 P2d 1315 (1988). I disagree. I believe that State v. Campbell, 306 Or 157, 759 P2d 1040 (1988), requires us to look beyond the intent of the officers involved and to examine “the nature of the act asserted to be a search[,]” 306 Or at 170, to decide whether the actions of the police fall outside the bounds of what is constitutionally permissible warrantless investigation. Judged by that standard, I would hold that the helicopter inspection in this case was not a search, and I accordingly dissent.
In Slowikowski, the police were alerted to the presence of marijuana in a storage locker rented by the defendant after a trained police dog unexpectedly led them to the defendant’s locker during a routine training exercise conducted at the storage facility. The Supreme Court held that there was no search because there was no “purposive intrusion into a protected area * * 307 Or at 27. The majority relies on the converse of the Slowikowski holding — that all purposive intrusions by police constitute searches — in reaching its result, but Slowikowski itself cautions against such an interpretation: “[N]ot every purposive action by a police officer is a ‘search,’ at least in the constitutional sense.” 307 Or at 27. Thus, in Slowikowski, the officer’s deliberate action in smelling for himself the odors emanating from defendant’s storage locker was not a search and, likewise, in State v. Louis, 296 Or 57, 672 P2d 708 (1983), the police did not conduct a search by deliberately photographing the defendant in his living room from a garage across the street.
Determining that the challenged police conduct is deliberate constitutes only the beginning, and not the end, of the necessary constitutional analysis under Article 1, section 9. State v. Campbell, supra, requires that we go on to determine whether the deliberate police conduct, “if engaged in wholly at the discretion of the government, will significantly impair ‘the people’s’ freedom from scrutiny * * 306 Or at 171. Judge Deits, in her separate dissent in this case, applies the Campbell rule as well, but I write separately to emphasize the impossibility of developing bright-line rules of law that precisely define the scope of the protection afforded by Article I, section *2589, notwithstanding the seductive appeal of searching for the definitive test or standard in this complex and fact-dependent area of the law.
In Oregon, analysis of Article I, section 9, rejects the “reasonable expectation of privacy” rule drawn from federal Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, because that rule is conclusory rather than analytical. State v. Campbell, supra, 306 Or at 164. Our courts recognize that “the privacy protected by Article 1, section 9, is not the privacy that one reasonably expects but the privacy to which one has a right[,]” 306 Or at 164 (emphasis in original), and that the Article 1, section 9, privacy interest is one held by “the people” rather than by particular individuals. State v. Tanner, 304 Or 312, 320, 745 P2d 757 (1987).
Similarly, it does not help our analysis to label the police activity in question as being characterized by the use of a “technological enhancement” and treating that as a determining factor in deciding whether there was a search. The use of different technological enhancements may be acceptable or unacceptable in differing degrees, while the use of a single technological enhancement may be acceptable in some circumstances and not in others. What does make a difference is the intrusive nature of the activity in question: “The critical question * * * is whether under our system of government, as reflected in the Constitution, we should impose on our citizens the risks of the electronic listener or observer without at least the protection of a warrant requirement.” United States v. White, 401 US 745, 786, 91 S Ct 1122, 1143, 28 L Ed 2d 453 (1971) (Harlan, J., dissenting). The linchpin of the personal freedoms guaranteed by the Oregon Constitution is the right of “the people” to be free from unwarranted government scrutiny, and it is against the Campbell standard, imprecise as it is, that all forms of investigative governmental intrusion, whether aided by technology or not, must be judged. Thus, in State v. Louis, supra, police observation and photographic recording of the defendant’s public behavior was held not to constitute a search because the defendant’s privacy was not thereby invaded, while in State v. Casconi, 94 Or App 457, 766 P2d 397 (1988), we suppressed similarly-obtained photographic evidence of similar conduct occurring in a public restroom stall, because the police surveillance “significantly impaired] freedom from scrutiny.” 94 Or App at 461.
*259The Campbell rule is hardly a model of judicial clarity, but this is an area of the law in which doctrinal rigidity is a handicap rather than a virtue. Only by adopting a flexible approach to search and seizure cases can the courts hope to keep abreast of rapid advances in technology while remaining true to the principles of liberty upon which our constitution is founded. To attempt otherwise is to embark on a fool’s errand.
The Campbell test, being adaptable to unforseen advances in technology, new applications of existing technology and changes in investigative techniques generally, is preferable to the approach employed by the majority, which would hold all purposeful acts of the police to be searches. The majority’s analysis ignores the critical question of whether the police activity in question has created an unreasonable intrusion into peoples’ freedom from scrutiny.
I agree with Judge Deits in her dissent, that “[w]hether aerial surveillance constitutes a search depends on all the circumstances involvedf,]” 95 Or App at 255, and I believe that she correctly applies the Campbell test to the facts of this case in reaching her conclusion that there was no search here.
I dissent.
Rossman and Deits, JJ., join in this dissenting opinion.