Court Opinion

ID: 9697553
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:20:58.331876+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:33.617162
License: Public Domain

LaVECCHIA, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
The majority concludes that defendant, an involuntarily committed psychiatric patient in a State-run institution, was subjected to an unreasonable search when hospital security and an investigator from the Camden County Prosecutor’s office conducted a warrant-less search and found contraband pills secreted in the hem of the curtain in his ward room. They did so after another psychiatric patient died suddenly during the night from an apparent overdose of controlled dangerous substances and after they were told there were Xanax pills hidden in the room. The majority finds the *370search violated the reasonable privacy expectations of a patient involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution. I disagree that the search in this case violated defendant’s reasonable expectations of privacy. I also disagree with the majority’s conclusion that a warrantless search was not justified by the totality of the circumstances. I therefore dissent.
The analysis starts, as it must, with examination of the nature of the privacy interest at stake. Did defendant have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the hem of the curtain in the ward room he shared with another, now-deceased, psychiatric patient? The majority answers that question with the general proposition that hospital patients have an expectation of privacy in their hospital rooms. Ante at 355. The general proposition may be correct, but it does not fit the circumstances of this case.
Our search and seizure jurisprudence is based on the premises that general social norms establish expectations of privacy and that an individual’s expectations in respect of privacy must be objectively reasonable. State v. Hempele, 120 N.J. 182, 200, 576 A.2d 793 (1990). It follows that an individual’s privacy interest in the home is accorded the most deference in state and federal constitutional law. State v. Johnson, 168 N.J. 608, 625, 775 A.2d 1273 (2001) (citing Kornegay v. Cottingham, 120 F.3d 392, 399-400 (3d Cir.1997)). Other settings also enjoy recognized expectations of privacy, although they do not receive the same deference as that accorded to one’s home. United States v. Thomas, 729 F.2d 120, 123-24 (2d Cir.1984) (stating that citizen’s expectation of privacy is less in office than in residence); United States v. Mankani, 738 F.2d 538, 542-45 (2d Cir.1984) (recognizing that defendant had diminished expectation.of privacy in motel room).
One such setting is an inpatient hospital room, which carries “some indicia of privacy, even if not to the degree otherwise enjoyed in one’s private home.” Michael T. Flannery, First, Do No Harm: The Use of Covert Video Surveillance to Detect Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy An Unethical Means of Preventing Child Abuse, 32 U. Mich. J.L. Ref. 105, 154 (1998). See *371Jones v. State, 648 So.2d 669, 676-77 (Fla.), cert. denied, 515 U.S. 1147, 115 S.Ct. 2588, 132 L.Ed.2d 836 (1995) (finding that defendant did not have heightened expectation of privacy in his hospital room that he would have had in his home, and noting that although defendant could expect that hospital personnel would enter to perform routine hospital procedures and visitors would enter if he did not object, he had no reason to believe that third parties would enter to look for and seize his personal property); People v. Brown, 88 Cal.App.3d 283, 151 Cal.Rptr. 749, 755 (1979) (recognizing that “at least for certain purposes, a hospital room is fully under the control of the medical staff; yet for other purposes it is ‘the patient’s room’ ” because patient understands that nurses, doctors, food handlers, and others enter and exit hospital room in accordance with medical need and hospital routine); People v. Courts, 205 Mich.App. 326, 517 N.W.2d 785, 786 (1994) (“Although patients in hospital rooms have some legitimate expectations of privacy ... those expectations are not similar in nature to the expectations of privacy people have about homes and motel rooms.”).
Although hospital rooms carry some expectation of privacy, the reasonableness of that expectation is circumscribed by the intrusion of other persons whose functions temper the “privateness” of the room. In an acute care hospital catering to medical and surgical needs of patients in single or multiple occupancy rooms, it is obvious that normal patient care functions require hospital staff to enter patients’ rooms to perform routine tasks. In that setting, affording a diminished expectation of privacy in a hospital room as compared to a home sensibly accommodates the hospital administrative and medical personnel’s need to have access to the patient’s room. But that is not this case.
In a psychiatric institution caring for the involuntarily committed, the expectation of privacy becomes even more circumscribed. Involuntarily committed psychiatric patients are entrusted to the care and supervision of State psychiatric institutions because a court has declared those patients dangerous to themselves or to *372others. N.J.S.A. 30:4-27.1 to 27.23; Rule 4:74-7. Protection of those persons from themselves, or the protection of other patients from those patients, is the responsibility of the individuals who manage the public institution. N.J.S.A. 30:4-27.1(a). Institutional administrative and professional staff especially must have access to the patients to supervise properly. That perforce includes living quarters.
The legislative enactment of a patient’s bill of rights including a right of privacy is not inconsistent with the view that a diminished expectation of privacy must pertain in a psychiatric institution. N.J.S.A. 30:4-24.2(e) provides that committees in a State institution have the right to privacy and dignity and, more specifically, to have access to individual storage space for private use. The question, however, is what constitutes an appropriate level of privacy in areas other than individual storage spaces.
In my view, the privacy expectation of an involuntarily committed psychiatric patient to his room is not equivalent to the expectation of a voluntary patient in a general acute care hospital. A heightened responsibility for protection against harm is imposed on those running the psychiatric institution, and that circumstance limits the involuntarily-committed patient’s reasonable expectations of privacy. Because of the need to supervise closely the behavior of involuntarily committed psychiatric patients, such patients cannot have the same expectations of privacy as patients in an acute care hospital. The “living quarters” of psychiatric patients simply are unlike those of a regular hospital patient. And, in this case, the reasonableness of any expectation of privacy also is circumscribed by the fact that the patient was allotted certain parts of the room that he could lock and thus keep private from other patients and staff, as N.J.S.A. 30:4-24.2(e)(4) requires. That portion of defendant’s room was not searched. In my view, the hem of the curtain in his room does not have protected status. A hem is not a compartment that is meant for storage, concealment, or private discard of any type of material.
*373The trial court acknowledged an exceedingly diminished expectation of privacy in the room, and concluded that the search of the curtain hem in defendant’s shared room was reasonable and not excessively intrusive. I find the trial court’s judgment to have been based on a sound assessment of societal expectations. The Appellate Division declined to base its affirmance on that footing and proceeded to an analysis of exigency to excuse the warrant requirement. Although I respect the soundness of the trial court’s reasoning, like the Appellate Division I believe there was exigency here. However, conceding some limited expectation of privacy in the shared ward room of an institutionalized psychiatric patient, that limited interest must be balanced against the State’s interest in safety.
Concern for the safety of others in one’s care is a traditional basis for determining exigency to exist:
The simplest of exigent circumstances are raised in those cases where there is some apparent need to go to the aid of an individual or to seek to protect persons or property from imminent peril. Such circumstances are universally held to authorize entry onto premises and, in most cases, some limited form of search____ The most complex and fact-sensitive of all exigent circumstances eases are those where there is neither an apparent emergency risk to life or property nor the immediacy of a chase of a fleeing felon but, instead, where a combination of factors makes it probable that legitimate law enforcement goals will be thwarted if the officers were to seek an arrest or search warrant.
[Byrnes, New Jersey Arrest, Search & Seizure § 11.1 at 187-88 (Gann 2001-02).]
The application of the doctrine of exigent circumstances requires a fact-sensitive, objective analysis. State v. DeLuca, 168 N.J. 626, 632, 775 A.2d 1284 (2001) (citing State v. Bruzzese, 94 N.J. 210, 219, 463 A.2d 320 (1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1030, 104 S.Ct. 1295, 79 L.Ed.2d 695 (1984)). As the majority observes, an officer’s belief that exigent circumstances are present must be based on “more than mere speculation.” United States v. Restrego, 890 F.Supp. 180, 206 (E.D.N.Y.1995). Here, the record is not speculative and amply supports the investigating officers’ perceived need to find and secure immediately the Xanax pills. Review of the record reveals that the investigation into Hilliard’s death the morning of October 8, 1997 was a collaborative effort *374involving administrative staff and security of the New Jersey Department of Human Services, and Officer Koslowsky, an investigator dispatched from the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office. The testimony of Officer Koslowsky and Human Service Officer Cichoski details that combined effort.
Koslowsky testified that on his arrival at the hospital Human Service officers already had secured Hilliard’s and defendant’s room and had brought the patients into the day room. Cichoski testified that it was the responsibility of the Human Service Police to maintain security for the institution and its patients. After meeting with the Human Services Police, Koslowsky and the Human Services officers went to Hilliard and defendant’s room where they observed Hilliard’s body and performed a cursory search “to assist in finding anything that would help determine why the patient had died.” Cichoski was posted outside the room until Hilliard’s body was removed and his personal effects secured.
At approximately 12:30 p.m., Koslowsky interviewed Fisher, one of the patients on the ward. Fisher revealed that the previous evening he had been in and out of defendant’s room and that defendant attempted to sell Xanax pills to him. Fisher also informed Koslowsky that the pills were located in defendant’s room, in the hem of a curtain. Koslowsky and Human Services Officer Douglas went to the room and Douglas found four pills in the curtain hem.
On direct examination, Koslowsky was asked to identify his immediate concern when he was told of the presence of drugs in defendant’s room. Koslowsky responded:
The concern would be for the recovery of that knowing that they could have been removed because a substantial period of time had taken place with the interviews that were conducted. We searched the room at 1:00 p.m. and I arrived down there at 8:45 a.m. at the police headquarters, so that was about a four[ ]hour period of time that I had been on the scene and I realized that these drugs could have been removed by any me, and I wanted to get them out of there and get them in our possession because they could be removed and harm someone.
*375[ (emphasis added).]
Further, on cross-examination, Koslowsky also stated:
[The room] was secured originally upon my arrival, but after that I was in several different rooms conducting as you can see virtually a few hours worth of interviews. I can’t be sure that anything was secure after that.
The room had in a way been released. We had removed the body. We had done that the search as far as we were going to search for any drugs that might have been involved in the death of Mr. Hilliard. But during my interviews I would not at all ever say that the room was safe and secure.
Although Cichoski testified that the door remained locked, he left his post at 10:25 a.m., and those with a key had access to the room. Koslowsky noted that a number of people could have had access to the room during the time that he was interviewing patients or prior to the discovery of Hilliard’s body. Thus he was concerned not only about who had access to the room after he arrived on the scene, but also those with access prior to the discovery of Hilliard’s body. Significantly, Cichoski explained that although the patients were brought to the day room and not permitted in the dorm area during the questioning the morning of October 8th, patients normally are permitted to roam and visit other patients’ rooms in the dorm area, and would have been able to do so during the previous night and until the time Hilliard’s body was discovered the next morning. Indeed, Fisher had told Koslowsky that on the previous evening he had been in and out of defendant’s room.
The majority focuses on the fact that Koslowsky testified that after receiving Fisher’s statement nothing prevented him from securing the room while he obtained a warrant. That assumes that the drugs were present in the room at the time of Fisher’s statement and that securing the room would prevent removal. In hindsight that proved correct. But at the time that the Human Services representatives and the investigator from the Prosecutor’s Office heard that a controlled dangerous substance allegedly was present on the ward and allegedly was in defendant’s room, they did not know that the drugs were in fact there or elsewhere where other patients could get to and ingest them. In my view, Koslowsky reasonably was concerned and reasonably believed that *376the Xanax pills could have been removed by the time Fisher made his statement. The Human Services officer and Koslowsky acted with dual motives. They needed to ascertain whether the pills were still in the location described by Fisher and they needed to secure the drugs. As noted, in hindsight the majority is correct when it states that had the officer secured the room and obtained a warrant, the Xanax pills would not have been removed from the curtain hem. However, if the officers had to obtain a warrant in order to learn if the drugs were in the location described by Fisher, only to discover that they had. been moved, precious time would have been lost in securing the drugs and maintaining the safety of patients in the institution. In the context of administering to the needs of all patients committed to a psychiatric hospital, I would hold that exigency was present due to the need to lócate the unaccounted-for Xanax phis when confronted with the sudden death of a patient.1
Accordingly, for the reasons expressed in Judge Wefing’s well-reasoned opinion below, and as expressed here, I find ample support in the record for the Appellate Division’s conclusion that exigent circumstances justified the warrantless search. I respectfully disagree with the majority’s view that the evidence was too speculative to form a well-grounded or objectively reasonable basis on which to excuse the warrant requirement. I find that it was reasonable for personnel from Human Services and the Prosecutor’s Office to conclude that it was necessary to search the *377room immediately for the pills-because of the institutional setting, because patients and staff had access to defendant’s room prior to the discovery of Hilliard’s body, and because the room was not secured after Hilliard’s body and personal effects were removed. Indeed, Human Services Officer Douglas had an administrative responsibility to find and secure the controlled dangerous substance once he was told of its presence on the ward. The additional involvement of prosecutorial staff, because a death had occurred, does not vitiate the administrative and supervisory responsibilities of the Human Services personnel. That multiple interests may have converged does not eliminate the presence of exigent circumstances.
For the reasons expressed above, I dissent from that part of the majority’s holding that orders the suppression of the Xanax pills found in the curtain hem in defendant’s ward room. I concur in Section III of the majority’s holding that orders suppression of defendant’s statements made without the benefit of Miranda warnings.
For reversal — Justices COLEMAN, LONG, VERNIERO and ZAZZALI — 4.
For affirmance in part; reversal in part — Chief Justice PORITZ, and Justices STEIN and LaVECCHIA — 3.
Opposed — None.

 Cf. Byrnes, supra, § 11:4-1 (c) at 205-06. Commentator Byrnes’s analysis of exigency does not consider the need to determine whether the drugs were where they were alleged to be in the institution. Of course, if the officers knew that the pills were in the location described by Fisher, they simply could have secured the room and obtained a warrant. However, the officers were concerned not only that someone could have retrieved the pills during the period of their investigation, but also prior to their arrival and before they secured the room. The record established that patients had had access to the room between the time of Fisher’s nighttime visit and the discovery of Hilliard's body the next morning, and that the officers were concerned about that fact. Thus, exigent circumstances were present due to the urgent and practical need to find and secure the Xanax pills in order to accomplish patient safety.