Court Opinion

ID: 9724114
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:45:10.306897+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:56.048216
License: Public Domain

POCHÉ, J.
I concur in the result reached by the majority as to the constitutionality of the aerial surveillance of defendant’s pot garden. This result is compelled by the decision of the United States Supreme Court in California v. Ciraolo (1986) 476 U.S. 207 [90 L.Ed.2d 210, 106 S.Ct. 1809], Concluding that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy for views into *590a back yard from navigable airspace Ciraolo holds that the Fourth Amendment is not transgressed by police observation of an open air marijuana plot from a fixed wing aircraft flying at 1,000 feet. (476 U.S. at pp. 213-214 [90 L.Ed.2d at p. 217].) Ciraolo draws an analogy between the public thoroughfares and the public airways and notes that “[a]ny member of the public flying in this airspace who glanced down could have seen everything that these officers observed.” (Ibid.)
Navigable airspace is ‘“airspace above the minimum safe altitudes of flight prescribed by the Civil Aeronautics Authority.’ ” (United States v. Causby (1946) 328 U.S. 256, 263 [90 L.Ed. 1206, 66 S.Ct. 1062]; 49 U.S.C. App. § 1304.) A minimum altitude of 500 feet is required for fixed wing craft over uncongested areas. (14 C.F.R. § 91.79(c).)
Here the flight over defendant’s home was made by a helicopter which flew at “not less than five hundred feet (500’) above ground level.” Defendant’s home is located near the periphery of town in an area where city lots are interspersed with large open tracts. Officer Torres testified that while flying over that open land it was possible to look down into defendant’s yard with its open air marijuana patch. From these facts the trial court could have concluded that the helicopter overflight took place within navigable airspace and that the view of the marijuana was as available to the officers as it was to a traffic reporter or any other public passenger in an aircraft which happened to pass overhead.
Because I find Ciraolo to be controlling, I do not express any opinion as to the reasoning in People v. Sabo (1986) 185 Cal.App.3d 845 [230 Cal.Rptr. 170]. I emphasize, however, that unlike either Sabo or the preProposition 8 case of People v. Roberts (1987) 195 Cal.App.3d 479 [240 Cal.Rptr. 658], the helicopter here did not fly at an altitude below 500 feet nor was the marijuana growing within a covered enclosure, requiring the craft to hover and maneuver to obtain a view of the plants.
For these reasons I concur that the overflight of defendant’s yard does not offend the Fourth Amendment.
Appellants’ petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied April 27, 1988.