Court Opinion

ID: 9716092
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:26:23.441215+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:41.625932
License: Public Domain

OLSZEWSKI, J.,
Concurring.
¶ 1 In this difficult case, I agree with the result reached by the majority. Appellant did not have a legitimate expectation of privacy in the entryway or stairwell of his apartment building. Therefore, he did not have the right to actively obstruct Officer McFarland’s progress while the officer was engaged in legitimate police business.4 Yet, I must differ with how the majority comes to find that appellant had no legitimate expectation of privacy in this area.
¶ 2 As the majority states:
The crucial distinction between protected and unprotected areas, as set forth in the above cited cases, is whether an unrelated person has unfettered access to the area. If even one unrelated person has an unfettered right to access an area, the area is not protected in Pennsylvania from government searches and seizures.
Majority Opinion at 962.
¶ 3 It is true that in circumstances similar to the one before us, both the Eight and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals have declared “[a]n expectation of privacy necessarily implies an expectation that one will be free of any intrusion, not merely unwarranted intrusions.” United States v. Eisler, 567 F.2d 814, 816 (8th Cir.1977); United States v. Nohara, 3 F.3d 1239, 1242 (9th Cir.1993). It is also true, however, that these statements are not at all consis*965tent with the precedent set down by the United States Supreme Court.
¶ 4 First, and most noticeably, there is Stoner v. California, 376 U.S. 483, 84 S.Ct. 889, 11 L.Ed.2d 856 (1964). In Stoner, the police suspected that an armed robbery suspect was staying at a certain hotel. Upon arriving at the hotel, the night desk clerk informed the police that the suspect was indeed staying there, but that he had temporarily gone out. The reason why the clerk knew that Stoner was not in his room was because all hotel guests had to give the desk clerk their room key before leaving the hotel. The police then asked the clerk whether he would unlock the hotel room door and allow them to enter. The clerk complied. After entering the room, the police proceeded to thoroughly search and inventory the contents of the room, doing so without either a search or arrest warrant. The search turned up several pieces of incriminating evidence, all of which were introduced at trial and which led to Stoner’s conviction. Stoner appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the warrantless police search of his room violated his Fourth Amendment rights.
¶ 5 Had the Supreme Court said “[t]he crucial distinction between protected and unprotected areas... is whether an unrelated person has unfettered access to the area,” Mr. Stoner probably would not have stood a chance. Not only did he surrender his room key to the front desk clerk, but, as the Supreme Court recognized, by staying in a hotel Mr. Stoner “undoubtedly [gave] ‘implied or express permission’ to ‘such persons as maids, janitors or repairmen’ to enter his room ‘in the performance of their duties.’ ” Id. at 489, 84 S.Ct. 889 (quoting from United States v. Jeffers, 342 U.S. 48, 51, 72 S.Ct. 93, 96 L.Ed. 59 (1951)). These facts, however, did not stop the Court from finding that Mr. Stoner had a constitutional right to be free from governmental intrusion in his hotel room.
¶ 6 In holding as it did, the Supreme Court showed that what mattered was the violation, by government hands, of Mr. Stoner’s privacy interest. Importantly, this privacy interest survived even though other “unrelated” individuals had “unfettered access” to Mr. Stoner’s hotel room. This was made clear in Mancusi v. DeForte,5 392 U.S. 364, 88 S.Ct. 2120, 20 L.Ed.2d 1154 (1968).
¶ 7 In DeForte, the government was investigating Frank DeForte, a union official, for various offenses. Without a warrant and over the objections of DeForte, government officials entered and searched the office in which Mr. DeForte worked; they then seized books and records that belonged to the union and used these papers to prosecute Mr. DeForte. This office, the Supreme Court explained, was “one large room, which [Mr. DeForte] shared with several other union officials.” Id. at 368, 88 S.Ct. 2120. Further, Mr. DeForte never claimed that any part of the office was “reserved for his exclusive personal use.” Id. With these specifics in mind, the Court had to determine “whether, in light of all the circumstances, De-Forte’s office...was one in which there was a reasonable expectation of freedom from governmental intrusion.” Id.
¶ 8 As Justice Harlan stated, the fact that other union officials and their invitees *966could enter the office did not “fundamentally change[].. .the situation.” Id. at 369, 88 S.Ct. 2120. In other words, even though Mr. DeForte could not stop his office mates or the various people they brought into the office from entering, it did not vitiate the privacy interest he had in his office. What mattered to the Court was that “DeForte still could reasonably have expected that only those persons and their personal or business guests would enter the office, and that records would not be touched except with their permission or that of union higher-ups.” Id. The Court then held that Mr. DeForte had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the office.
¶ 9 In the post-Nate era, Stoner and DeForte continue to be good law — this is made apparent by O’Connor v. Ortega, which asked whether a public employee had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his “office, desk, and file cabinets at his place of work.” 480 U.S. 709, 107 S.Ct. 1492, 94 L.Ed.2d 714 (1987). Here, management at a California-operated hospital believed that one of their doctors, Dr. Magno Ortega, had committed various offenses while at work. In order to facilitate the hospital’s investigation, Dr. Ortega was placed on administrative leave and asked to stay off hospital grounds while the investigation was ongoing. State employees then thoroughly searched Dr. Ortega’s office, looking through his desk and file cabinets and inventorying the official, as well as personal, effects they found. Some of the items the investigators found were then used against the doctor in administrative disciplinary proceedings, eventually resulting in the termination of his employment. Dr. Ortega commenced action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and alleged that the search of his office violated his Fourth Amendment rights.
¶ 10 This case revolved around whether the hospital officials infringed an “expectation of privacy that society is prepared to consider reasonable”: an extremely fact-specific determination. Id. at 715, 107 S.Ct. 1492. Everything depends on “context” and, in this case, the “employee’s expectation of privacy must be assessed in the context of the employment relation.” Id. As Justice O’Connor explained:
An office is seldom a private enclave free from entry by supervisors, other employees, and business and personal invitees. Instead, in many cases offices are continually entered by fellow employees and other visitors during the workday for conferences, consultations, and other work-related visits. Simply put, it is the nature of government offices that others — such as fellow employees, supervisors, consensual visitors, and the general public — may have frequent access to an individual’s office.
Id. at 717,107 S.Ct. 1492.
¶ 11 These factors, however, do not automatically show that the employee has no legitimate expectation of privacy in their office. While the majority recognized that “some government offices may be so open to fellow employees or the public that no expectation of .privacy is reasonable”, every situation must be “addressed on a case-by-case basis.” Id. at 718, 107 S.Ct. 1492. Here, the district court never determined the “extent to which Hospital officials may have had work-related reasons to enter Dr. Ortega’s office”; the Supreme Court thus remanded the case in order to determine whether Dr. Ortega’s expectation of privacy in his office was reasonable. Id. With respect to his desk and file cabinets, however, the Court had a much easier job; as the Court stated: the “undisputed evidence discloses that Dr. Ortega did not share his desk or file cabinets with any other employees”; apparently, the only *967materials he kept in these areas were private and those private effects were the only things the state seized for use in the administrative hearings. Dr. Ortega thus had a reasonable expectation of privacy within his desk and file cabinets. Id.
¶ 12 The above review' shows that it cannot be the law that “if even one unrelated person has an unfettered right to access an area, the area is not protected in Pennsylvania from government searches and seizures.” Determining whether an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in a certain area is just not that simple. Rather, we must look at all of the facts surrounding the controversy before we can say whether an individual’s expectation of privacy is reasonable.
¶ 13 Viewing everything in context, I believe that even if it could be said that Mr. Reed had a subjective expectation of privacy in the entryway and stairwell of his apartment building, that expectation was not reasonable. First, friends, relatives, acquaintances, and delivery persons of every tenant in the building may legitimately pass through the entryway and traverse the stairwell; Mr. Reed has no ability to exclude any of these people. Second, both areas are merely places of ingress and egress and do not lead into any dwelling. Third, and in following with the preceding point, these are not sleeping places nor are they areas in which personal effects are placed.
¶ 14 Mr. Reed argues that the door is locked for a reason: to provide some solace from the outside world. While I disagree with the Eighth Circuit’s overly broad statement of the law concerning when individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy, I believe that the court hit the nail on the head when it declared that the “locks on the doors to the entrances of the apartment complex were to provide security to the occupants, not privacy in common hallways.” Eisler, 567 F.2d at 816. Security is different from privacy. While Mr. Reed has the ability to call the police and have a trespasser removed from the common areas, it is not because that person invaded Mr. Reed’s privacy interest. Rather, principles of property and criminal law intersect to exclude this individual from the premises. Principles of property law do not carry the day anymore when we examine the reasonableness of an individual’s expectation of privacy.
¶ 15 Viewing the facts in their totality, the inevitable conclusion is that the entryway and stairwell of Mr. Reed’s apartment building are areas which are simply too “open to fellow [tenants] or the public that no expectation of privacy is reasonable.” O’Connor, 480 U.S. at 718, 107 S.Ct. 1492. As appellant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the entryway or stairwell of his apartment building, he had no right to intentionally and actively obstruct Officer McFarland while the officer was engaged in legitimate police business. I thus concur in the result reached by the able majority.

. Appellant was convicted of violating 18 Pa. C.S. §5101. This section states:
§ 5101. Obstructing administration of law or other governmental function A person commits a misdemeanor of the second degree if he intentionally obstructs, impairs or perverts the administration of law or other govern-mental function by force, violence, physical interference or obstacle, breach of official duty, or any other unlawful act, except that this section does not apply to flight by a person charged with crime, refusal to submit to arrest, failure to perform a legal duty other than an official duty, or any other means of avoiding compliance with the law without affirmative interference with governmental functions.
Like the majority, I believe that if appellant had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the entryway and stairwell of his apartment building, his. action of standing in the officer's way — even to the point where the officer walked him chest-to-chest up the stairs— would not have been unlawful. If he did have a legitimate expectation of privacy in these areas, his non-violent physical interference could not amount to obstruction of justice; he simply would have been protecting, in a nonviolent manner, what is at the "very core” of the Fourth Amendment: the right to "be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.” Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 31, 121 S.Ct. 2038, 150 L.Ed.2d 94 (2001). The broad language of 18 Pa.C.S. § 5101 cannot be read to subvert one of the keystones of our society.

. Although DeForte was decided the year after Katz and the language the DeForte Court uses does resemble that used in Katz, DeForte did not (at least explicitly) apply the Katz balancing test. DeForte was a habeas proceeding. As the Supreme Court explained in Desist v. United States, since Katz made a “clear break with the past,” Katz’s application was limited to searches conducted after the decision was handed down. 394 U.S. 244, 89 S.Ct. 1030, 22 L.Ed.2d 248 (1969).