Court Opinion

ID: 9741487
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:56:33.148659+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:24.386229
License: Public Domain

Nolan, J.
(dissenting). Once again a majority of this court has found some hidden meaning within article 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights to deviate from a decision of the United States Supreme Court in a question concerning the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. See Commonwealth v. Amendola, 406 Mass. 592 (1990); Commonwealth v. Blood, 400 Mass. 61 (1987). My disagreement with this approach has been made clear. See Commonwealth v. Amendola, supra at 602 (Nolan, J., dissenting); Commonwealth v. Blood, supra at 78 (Nolan, J., dissenting).
What is of paramount concern today is that the majority opinion is totally devoid of any standard used to deviate from the position of the Supreme Court. This court has characterized that area where art. 14 and the Fourth Amendment diverge as a “special category,” and one that should apply to a particular situation only if there is some “compelling reason” to do so. Commonwealth v. Cast, 407 Mass. 891, 907 (1990). In this case, the plaintiff failed to present any coherent rationale for this court to disagree with the Supreme Court.1 If *336we are to allow such a divergence, surely we should insist on a “compelling reason” to do so.
Also conspicuous by its absence in the majority opinion is any reference to the history of art. 14. It is well-established that the Fourth Amendment derives from our own art. 14. Harris v. United States, 331 U.S. 145, 161 (1947) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting); N.B. Lasson, The History and Development of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution 82 (1937). It is also well-established that Massachusetts adopted art. 14, as a result of the colonists’ experiences with British officials, to protect the public from public officials. Commonwealth v. Blood, 400 Mass. 61, 71 (1987). It is doubly ironic, therefore, that the majority today reaches a conclusion which not only is at odds with the Fourth Amendment but also undermines an effort by the public to protect itself once again from the abuses of public authorities.
Even if it were expedient for this court to ignore the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Fourth Amendment and decide this case purely on art. 14 grounds, the majority’s reasoning is unpersuasive. In assessing the reasonableness of any search or seizure, “we must balance the public interest against ‘the individual’s right to personal security free from arbitrary interference by law officers.’ ” Commonwealth v. Trumble, 396 Mass. 81, 86 (1985), quoting United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 878 (1975). In performing this balancing test, it is implicit that each situation should be judged on its own merits, and that there are instances in which a reasonable expectation of privacy, which would normally outweigh the public interest, has less weight.
That is the case in the present action where it is without question that police officers, as police officers, have an expectation of privacy that is less than that of private citizens. Our General Laws contain numerous provisions that reflect the unique status of police officers within our Commonwealth. *337See G. L. c. 31, § 58 (age and height requirements); c. 41, § 96 (appointment of police officers); c. 41, § 108L (career incentive pay program); c. 41 § 111F (leave without loss of pay); c. 147, §§ 14-17G (days off for police officers); St. 1987, c. 589 (collective bargaining binding arbitration for police). The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has recognized a lessened expectation of privacy for police officers. See O’Brien v. DiGrazia, 544 F.2d 543, 546 (1st Cir. 1976) (public interest in honest police force outweighs Boston police officers’ privacy expectations concerning their financial affairs and the financial affairs of their households), cert. denied, 431 U.S. 914 (1977). This court, too, has recognized a limitation on police officers’ privacy expectations. See Broderick v. Police Comm’r of Boston, 368 Mass. 33, 42 (1975), quoting Gardner v. Broderick, 392 U.S. 273, 277-278 (1968) (“police officer ‘is directly, immediately, and entirely responsible to the city or State which is his employer. ... He is the trustee of the public interest, bearing the burden of great and total responsibility to his public employer’ ”), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 1048 (1976). The majority opinion, while recognizing that the police cadet in O’Connor v. Police Comm’r of Boston, 408 Mass. 324 (1990), had little or no reasonable expectation of privacy, fails to examine or consider any limitation on the expectation of privacy of the police officers in this case.
What is reasonable in terms of an expectation of privacy may also change over time. Not so long ago, many people might have been appalled, as is the majority, by the specter of drug testing, but the times have changed. It is now estimated that sixty percent of our country’s largest private employers have drug testing programs. Comment, “Reasonable Searches Absent Individualized Suspicion: Is There a Drug-Testing Exception to the Fourth Amendment Warrant Requirement After Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Association? 12 U. Haw. L. Rev. 345, 349 (1990). “[W]hat is occurring generally outside government is some indication of what expectations of privacy ‘society is prepared to accept as reasonable’ . . . .” Willner v. Thornburgh, 928 F.2d 1185, *3381192 (D.C. Cir. 1991), quoting Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 361 (1967), petition for cert. filed, 60 U.S.L.W. 3302 (1991) (No. 91-448). Additionally, I have found no court decision since decisions of the Supreme Court on drug testing, National Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656 (1989), Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Ass’n, 489 U.S. 602 (1989), that supports the majority opinion. See McCloskey v. Honolulu Police Dep’t, 71 Haw. 568, n.l (1990), and cases cited.
The majority opinion apparently considers only the other side of the balancing test, the alleged lack of facts within the record to support a compelling governmental interest. In Commonwealth v. Trumble, 396 Mass. 81 (1985), however, we recognized that this court can take notice of “a strong public interest.” Id. at 86. In Trumble, that public interest was “reducing the ‘carnage caused by drunk drivers.’ ” Id. at 86-87, quoting South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U.S. 553, 558 (1983). This court has also recently taken notice of the public interest in stemming drug use by police: “[Djrug use by police officers has the obvious potential, inimical to public safety, and the safety of fellow officers, to impair the perception, judgment, physical fitness, and integrity of the users. Furthermore, the unlawful obtaining, possession, and use of drugs cannot be reconciled with respect for the law. Surely, the public interest requires that those charged with responsibility to enforce the law respect it. Surely, too, public confidence in the police is a social necessity and is enhanced by procedures that deter drug use. . . .” O’Connor v. Police Comm’r of Boston, 408 Mass. 324, 328-329 (1990). It is nearly impossible to reconcile the reasoning in O’Connor with today’s majority’s opinion. The majority now appears to accept the conclusion of the concurring opinion in O’Connor, id. at 332 (Greaney, J., concurring), that it was the consent of the police cadet that made that drug test reasonable. The majority, apparently, would limit drug testing by the State to situations in which the individual consents to the test, and would restrain the State from protecting the public from the *339dangers of drug abuse by police officers until the damage is done, until the public is harmed, and until it is too late.
For all these reasons, I dissent.

 In making his argument on this point, it is noteworthy that the plaintiff argued in these terms: “[Sjociety is no more willing now, than it was when the Fourth Amendment and Article 14 were written and adopted,” to accept random drug testing of police officers. The plaintiff failed to articulate *336any special circumstances that differentiate art. 14 from the Fourth Amendment in this case.