Court Opinion

ID: 9725106
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:30:29.784658+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:10.521140
License: Public Domain

HALVONIK, J.
I concur in the result but only in the result.
People v. Privitera (1979) 23 Cal.3d 697 [153 Cal.Rptr. 431, 591 P.2d 919] settles the matter and this case should be disposed of with a simple citation to it. Everything else in the majority’s opinion is dicta. The *262review of the trial court’s “findings” is all wasted motion. If the findings were otherwise would we come to a different result? I do not see how we could but we should then at least be put to the task of fashioning proper standards for reviewing a determination of “constitutional fact.” That we are not reviewing a conventional record is obvious and we should be mindful of Professor Karst’s caution that, in these circumstances, “The broad generalization and the unconsidered or unexplained decisión tend to substitute judicial fiat not only for the rule of a democratic majority but also for the rule of law.” (Karst, Legislative Facts in Constitutional Litigation, 1960 Sup.Ct.Rev. 75, 75-76.) (Fns. omitted.)
Some of the majority’s dicta confuses me and some of it distresses me. I am confused by the notion of “psychological addiction.” What can that mean? That one will be inclined to repeat an experience that he or she enjoys? If so, can we speak of people being psychologically addicted to the music of Bach or Lester Young? How does this peculiar usage enhance our understanding of the world? And, in a free society, what is the state’s interest in such things?
I am distressed by the implication in Justice Scott’s opinion that the right to privacy guaranteed by article I, section 1 of the California Constitution is essentially directed at data gathering. Justice Scott, and the court in Privitera, cite White v. Davis (1975) 13 Cal.3d 757 [120 Cal.Rptr. 94, 533 P.2d 222] for this proposition. White was a surveillance case and the court noted that the bulk of the argument contained in the election brochure circulated when the privacy amendment was submitted to the people dealt with surveillance and data gathering. But, for purposes of construing the privacy guarantee, White did not invite us to concentrate on the single set of facts there under consideration but to look to the brochure. (13 Cal.3d at pp. 774-775.) The argument contained in that brochure incorporates the conceptual structure of Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) 381 U.S. 479 [14 L.Ed.2d 510, 85 S.Ct. 1678] and the dissent of Justice Brandeis in Olmstead v. United States (1928) 277 U.S. 438, 471-488 [72 L.Ed. 944, 953-961, 48 S.Ct. 564, 66 A.L.R. 376], When the brochure urged the electorate to adopt the “right to be left alone” it borrowed directly from the Olmstead dissent. The entire passage is worth recalling: “The protection guaranteed by the Amendments is much broader in scope. The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man’s spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in *263their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone—the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.” (277 U.S. at p. 478 [72 L.Ed. at p. 956].)
“The most comprehensive of rights,” it should go without saying, is profoundly concerned with more than surveillance and data gathering.