Court Opinion

ID: 9510948
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:00:34.291835+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:08:08.141748
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE LEAPHART
specially concurring.
¶45 I specially concur. As the Court states, fishing is not a right, it is a privilege granted by state license. The law, § 87-1-502(6), MCA, requires, and Boyer was on notice that upon request, he had to ‘... exhibit the same [any fish] and all thereof to the warden for such inspection.’ Had he asserted his right of privacy, denied the warden’s request and refused to open the well, the warden would have been confronted with a ‘search’ situation. Boyer, however, chose to open the well. Once Boyer chose to honor the warden’s request to exhibit his catch by first admitting that he had fish in the well and then voluntarily opening the live well, he had no more reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of the well; he was no longer seeking to preserve the contents as private. See, Katz v. United States (1967), 389 U.S. 347, 351, 88 S.Ct. 507, 511, 19 L.Ed.2d 576, 582. Section 87-1-502(6), MCA, which has not been challenged, does not give the fisherman the option of showing ‘some’ or ‘part’ of his catch. Rather, it requires that he exhibit ‘all’ fish in his possession. In the absence of a reasonable expectation of privacy, the warden’s observation was not a ‘search.’
¶46 The dissent posits that if a warden, without any probable cause, looks into a boat or live well, that constitutes a warrantless search. The dissent makes much ado about the fact that Jones, from his sitting position in his boat, could not see into Boyer’s live well. Is the ‘plain view’ doctrine so rigid that Warden Jones must remain seated; that he not look left or right or behind? If Warden Jones, instead of standing on the transom of Boyer’s boat, stood on the transom or seat of his own boat and observed the contents of the open well, would we hold that that was a ‘search’ for which there was no probable cause? I, for one, would not. The warden was merely observing that which had been knowingly exposed to the public; that which was in ‘plain view.’
¶47 If we in effect legally blindfold wardens so that they cannot look into an open live well or the bed of a pick-up truck at a game check point, we will have created a poacher’s haven where Montana’s treasured wildlife will eventually go the way of the ill-fated dodo bird.
CHIEF JUSTICE GRAY joins in the specially concurring opinion of JUSTICE LEAPHART.