Court Opinion

ID: 9578352
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:44:25.572186+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:31.101574
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION OF
NAKAMURA, J.
WITH WHOM RICHARDSON, C.J., JOINS
In affirming the conviction of Defendant-appellant Donald Lester, the court holds that an electronically recorded conversation between Lester and a co-defendant, who unbeknownst to Lester was then acting as a government agent, was properly admitted as evidence. It approves the warrantless electronic surveillance on the ground that “Lester’s taped conversation ... [was] without reasonable expectation of privacy ... and is not protected conversation under Hawaii’s constitution.” But the delegates to the Constitutional Convention of Hawaii of 1968, in my opinion, meant to shield individuals from such incursions into ostensibly private conversations, and I respectfully dissent.
I.
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States commands that:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Article I, § 5 of the fundamental law adopted by the people of the State of Hawaii in 1959 provided security against unreasonable searches and seizures in like terms. When the Constitutional Convention of Hawaii of 1968 reviewed these provisions, it found a need *677for additional protection against undue governmental encroachment upon the private lives of persons. And the relevant section, now designated as Article I, § 7, was amended to read:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches, seizures and invasions of privacy shall not be violated; and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized or the communications sought to be intercepted.
(Emphasis supplied). Construing the foregoing provisions “in light of the language of Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967), regarding reasonable expectation of privacy,” the court arrives at a conclusion that the conversation in question was not subject to protection. Reading the amended language in the light of its history as recorded in the Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of Hawaii of 1968, Berger v. New York, 388 U.S. 41 (1967), and Katz, I would conclude the conversation was within the ambit of protection extended by Article I, § 7 of the State Constitution.
A.
In the court’s view, what we are confronted with is an instance of “consensual eavesdropping or participant monitoring,” which has been sanctioned by the Supreme Court in On Lee v. United States, 343 U.S. 747, 753-54 (1952); Lopez v. United States, 373 U.S. 427, 439 (1963); United States v. White, 401 U.S. 745, 751 (1971);1 and United States v. Caceres, 440 U.S. 741, 750 (1979).2 “On Lee and Lopez are of a vintage opposed to Berger and Katz. However they may be explained, they are products of the old common-law notions of trespass.” United States v. White, supra, at 760-61 (Douglas, J., dissenting). But as the *678court correctly observes, Article I, § 7 must be considered with Katz and the concept of privacy, as well as trespassory notions, in mind. For “the fundamental principle in construing a constitutional provision is to give effect to the intention of the framers and the people adopting it." HGEA v. County of Maui, 59 Haw. 65, 80-81, 576 P.2d 1029, 1039 (1978).
1.
The protections afforded by the search and seizure provisions of the State Constitution were expanded in 1968 to include “[t]he right ... to be secure .. . against unreasonable . . . invasions of privacy.” The proposal to broaden the scope of Article I, § 7 (then designated as § 5) was part of the recommendations for amendments to the Hawaii Bill of Rights offered by the 1968 Convention’s Committee on Bill of Rights, Suffrage and Elections. Committee Proposal No. 11, in Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of Hawaii of 1968 (hereafter Proceedings), Vol. 1,236. Its proposal was to amend Article I, § 5 to read:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches, seizures, and invasions of privacy, shall not be violated; and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.
Id. (Emphasis added). The rationale given for the proffered textual change was:
Your Committee recognizes the need for certain protections of the individual’s right to privacy in the context of today’s society. The tremendous growth of electronic communications technology along with a corresponding growth of electronic surveillance techniques make possible the ready encroachment upon a person’s private conduct and communication. The recently enacted Hawaii statute prohibiting wiretapping and eavesdropping by private persons as well as law enforcement officials protects the individual’s communications from interception, and your Committee recognizes that the legislature took proper initiative to legislate protection in that area under our existing constitutional provision. Recent United States Supreme Court *679decisions have also enlarged and delineated the individual’s protection against wiretapping and eavesdropping. Your Committee believes that a specific protection against communications interception in the Constitution may be somewhat narrow and limiting and therefore recommends a broader protection in terms of right of privacy.
Stand. Comm. Rep. No. 55, in Proceedings, Vol. I, 233. And the purpose and intent of the suggested change was stated in these terms:
Your Committee is of the opinion that inclusion of the term “invasions of privacy” will effectively protect the individual’s wishes for privacy as a legitimate social interest. The proposed amendment is intended to include protection against indiscriminate wiretapping as well as undue government inquiry into and regulation of those areas of a person’s life which are defined as necessary to insure “man’s individuality and human dignity.”
Id. at 233-34.
Thus, the proposal was advanced to fulfill a recognized “need for certain [constitutional] protections of the individual’s right to privacy in the context of today’s society.” Id. at 233. The Committee also acknowledged with approval a contemporaneous legislative effort to provide security in the area of concern by referring to the “recently enacted Hawaii statute prohibiting wiretapping and eavesdropping.” Id. The reference was to Act 209, S.L.H. 1967, which on its face did not countenance wiretapping and eavesdropping, consensual or otherwise, even by law enforcement officers.3
*680When the proposal was brought before the members of the Convention acting as a Committee of the Whole, Delegate Rhoda Lewis offered an amendment to add “or the communications sought to be intercepted” at the end of Article I, § 5. Proceedings, Vol. II, 5. The inclusion therein of security against unreasonable “invasions of privacy,” in her opinion, rendered it necessary for the language covering the issuance of warrants to be broadened too.4 Her sugges*681tion was accepted, but only after lengthy debate that provides a clear insight into “the intention of the framers.” HGEA v. County of Maui, supra, 59 Haw. at 80-81, 576 P.2d at 1039.
The discussion was opened by a proponent of the amendment, Delegate Yoshio Hasegawa, then a high-ranking officer in the Honolulu Police Department. His reason for supporting the amendment offered by Delegate Lewis was:
Our existing statute prohibits any form of wiretapping or eavesdropping on a telephone. This was specified by a member of the Attorney General’s office at the committee hearing. We cannot even monitor a telephone call on the extension telephone. I feel this is a necessity for police investigational technique.
Proceedings, Vol. II, 5. Debate on the statute, the Committee proposal, and the Lewis amendment followed; opinions pro and con on both the proposal and the amendment were voiced. Noteworthy are the views expressed by two members of the Committee on Bill of Rights, Suffrage and Elections, Delegate Jack Mizuha and Delegate George Noguchi. For their statements and those of Delegates Lewis and Hasegawa unequivocally reiterate what the language of Article I, § 7 already tells us, that “invasions of privacy” in search of evidence are unreasonable unless they are judicially authorized or fall into well-defined exceptional situations. One such situation is, of course, where there is probable cause to believe a crime has been committed but time constraints make it impractical to seek court approval for the quest. The statements of Delegates Mizuha and Noguchi are reproduced in the margin.5
*6822.
Though Article I, § 7 expressly deems a warrantless interception of communications an unreasonable invasion of privacy, the court nonetheless concludes no infringement of a right occurred because the communications in question were not subject to constitutional protection. Lester, it finds, had no reasonable expectation of privacy while engaged in a conversation with his co-defendant. Viewing the interception in the light of the concerns and expectations of the framers of the language at issue, I would conclude Article I, § 7 was breached.
Berger v. New York, supra, was cited during the relevant convention debate as the case where “the Supreme Court. . . laid down the *683rules under which . . . warrants to eavesdrop or wiretap” could be secured. Proceedings, Vol. 11, 6. The committee report accompanying the proposal for the expansion of protections also directed the Convention’s attention to “[r]ecent United States. Supreme Court decisions [that] have .. . enlarged and delineated the individual’s protection against wiretapping and eavesdropping.” Proceedings, Vol. I, 233. The decisions influencing the Committee on Bill of Rights, Suffrage and Elections unquestionably wereBerger and Katz.
Berger, which was decided in 1967, served to bring “wiretapping and other electronic eavesdropping fully within the purview of the Fourth Amendment.” 388 U.S. at 64 (Douglas, J., concurring). For the Court’s holdings there were that a “ ‘conversation’ was within the Fourth. Amendment’s protections, and . . . the use of electronic devices to capture it was a ‘search’ within the meaning of the Amendment.” Berger v. New York, supra, 388 U.S. at 51. Katz v. United States, supra, “a watershed in fourth amendment jurisprudence,”6 followed shortly thereafter.7
The petitioner there phrased the questions posed for decision in terms of whether the electronic eavesdropping had penetrated “a constitutionally protected area ." Katz v. United States, supra, 389 U.S. at 349-50. His formulation of the issues was rejected, as “the correct solution of Fourth, Amendment problems is not necessarily promoted by incantation of the phrase ‘constitutionally protected area.’ ” Id. at 350. And the Court enunciated what has since been regarded as the polestar in determining the scope of protections bestowed by the Amendment:
For the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. . . . But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected.
Id. at 351-52 (citations omitted). The fact that the “bug” did not penetrate the wall of the telephone booth from which the intercepted calls were made was considered of no .constitutional signi*684ficance, and the defendant’s conviction was reversed.
That the authors of our privacy provisions contemplated the conferral of security more expansive than the specific protections covered by the Supreme Court’s opinions is evident. The pertinent committee report acknowledged the salutary impact of Berger and Katz in the areas of wiretapping and eavesdropping; it declared a further belief “that a specific protection against communications interception .. . may be somewhat narrow and limiting.” Stand. Comm. Rep. No. 55, supra, Proceedings, Vol. I, at 233. The framers thus recommended “a broader protection” to “effectively protect the individual’s wishes for privacy as a legitimate social interest.” Id. at 233-34. And the social interest they sought to promote included security against “undue government inquiry into. . . those areas of a person’s life . . . necessary to insure ‘man’s individuality and human dignity.’ ”Id. at 234. Privacy, then, attained constitutional dimension in Hawaii in even a broader sense than that declared in Katz.8
What the Supreme Court so boldly proclaimed in Nate, however, has since been transmuted to a “reasonable expectation of privacy” formula, Amsterdam, supra, at 404, and it is this test that the court purports to have applied. Implicit in the denial of constitutional protection here is a belief that no one should reasonably expert that another party to a conversation will not repeat its content, a proposition I would not seriously question. But the interest Article I, § 7 seeks to further is not protection against the foibles of one’s acquaintances or the dire possibility that they may be agents of the police. What the framers expressly provided was security for the individual against unreasonable invasions of privacy by the government, and the history of Article I, § 7 manifests that this covers security against “indiscriminate electronic surveillance.” The history also indicates that “electronic eavesdropping” carried out without authorization, in a situation not judicially recognized as an exceptional one.where a warrant for a search may be forgone, is unreasonable. Of course, we are not dealing with such exceptional circumstances.
The meeting between Lester and his co-defendant and the recording of their conversation were arranged under the aegis of *685the police; there is every reason to conclude he was then suspected of involvement in the killing of his wife. It is. axiomatic that “[t]he legitimate and substantial public interest in law enforcement may prevail over an individual’s interest in privacy in given situations.” State v. Kealoha, 62 Haw. 166, 178, 613 P.2d 645, 652 (1980). Both the Fourth Amendment and Article I, § 7 sanction “a temporary and limited incursion” into his privacy “[w]here his probable involvement in crime and a likelihood that incriminating evidence may be . . . [obtained through electronic surveillance can be] demonstrated to a judicial officer.” Id. Yet the government ignored “ ‘the procedure of antecedent justification . . . that is central to the Fourth Amendment’ [and Article I, § 7], a procedure that. . . [is] a constitutional precondition of the kind of electronic surveillance involved in this case.” Katz v. United States, supra, 389 U.S. at 359 (footnote omitted).
I would reverse Donald Lester’s conviction and remand his case for retrial. For “if the particular form of surveillance practiced by the police is permitted to go unregulated by constitutional restraints, the amount of privacy and freedom remaining to citizens would be diminished to a compass inconsistent with the aims of a free and open^&ciety.” Amsterdam, supra, at 403. Such a consequence could not have been envisioned by the delegates to the Constitutional Convention of Hawaii of 1968 who intended that “[w]herever a man may be, he is entitled to know that he will remain free from unreasonable searches and seizures” and unreasonable invasions of privacy. Katz v. United States, supra, 389 U.S. at 359.

 White’s precedential value here is diminished by the fact that it was issued after the crucial amendment to the State Constitution had been approved.

 Caceres involved the recording of an offer of a bribe to an agent of the Internal Revenue Service who was conducting an audit of the defendant’s income tax returns. There was no basis for holding an invasion of privacy had occurred. The case actually involved an alleged failure of the IRS to follow regulations covering the monitoring of conversations between taxpayers and IRS agents.

 Section 2 of S.L.H. 1967, c. 209, read as follows:
Wiretapping and wire interception prohibited; penalty, (a) Any person who within this State, whether acting under color of law or otherwise:
(1) willfully intercepts, or attempts to intercept, any wire communication without.the consent of both the sender and the receiver of such communication; or
(2) willfully discloses or attempts to disclose, or uses or attempts to use, any information, knowing or having reason to know that such information was obtained in violation of paragraph (1) of this subsection, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
(b) It shall be unlawful under this section for an operator of a switchboard, or an officer, employee or agent of any communications common carrier or public utility whose facilities are used in this State in the transmission of wire communications, to intercept, disclose, or use that communication in any way in the course of *680his employment except while engaged in an activity which is a necessary incident of the rendition of service, which shall include investigation of complaints of users of the service.
(c) It shall not be unlawful under this section for an officer, employee, or agent of the Federal Communications Commission, in any way in the course of his employment and in discharge of the monitoring responsibilities exercised by the Commission in the enforcement of the Federal Communications Act, to intercept a wire communication while it is being transmitted by radio, or to disclose or use the information thereby obtained,
and § 3 of S.L.H. 1967, c. 209, read as follows:
Eavesdropping; penalty. Any person who, in this State, whether acting under color of law or otherwise:
(1) willfully uses or attempts to use any electronic, mechanical or other device for the purpose of eavesdropping, without the consent of the parties to the conversation; or
(2) willfully discloses or attempts to disclose, or uses or attempts to use, any information, knowing or having reason to know that such information was obtained in violation of paragraph (1) of this section, shall be fined not more than $10,000, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
The provisions of S.L.H. 1967, c. 209, subsequently codified as HRS §§ 275-1 to -5, were repealed by S.L.H. 1972, c. 9, ch. 13, the Penal Code. The Code provision covering wiretapping and eavesdropping, HRS § 711-1111, permits “consensual eavesdropping”.

 Delegate Lewis served with distinction as a member of this court from 1959 to 1967, and was certainly knowledgeable in the field of constitutional law. Her rationale for offering the amendment to add “or the communications sought to be intercepted” was stated as follows:
Now those last words I think require some expansion in order to keep up with the addition made in the first part of the section. In the first part of the section, we’re adding “invasion of privacy” with reference to wiretapping among other things. Now the question is, if the legislature provided for it, and I’m aware that it is not provided for now, would the constitutional language be broad enough so that a warrant might issue upon probable cause, upon observing all necessary safeguards to intercept a communication.
I submit that the language, the archaic language, “describing the place to be searched,” is not apt. The language “and the persons or things to be seized” is not apt. Therefore, we should, as was done by the Maryland convention, add the words “or the communications sought to be intercepted,” merely indicating that *681under a procedure prescribed by the legislature if it sees fit to do so and upon probable cause duly shown a warrant may issue in this area. The federal law specifically provides that if authorized by state statute, the principal prosecuting attorney of the state may obtain from a judge of competent jurisdiction an order authorizing interception of wire or communication. It’s a paraphrase. Therefore, this would all be in conformity with the present state of the law.
Proceedings, Vol. II, 5.

 Like Delegate Lewis, Delegate Mizuha had just retired from this court after eight years of distinguished service. His statement reads:
At the present time, New York State has a law against wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping similar to the statute that was passed by our state legislature a few sessions ago. In the now famous case of Burger v. New York, [sic] the Supreme Court of the United States laid down the rules under which the police *682department of any of the cities and counties of New York can secure warrants to eavesdrop or wiretap and they are a stringent set of rules. And that is the only guideline we have at the present time for securing warrants for wiretapping and eavesdropping. If this amendment passes, it’s nothing new. At the present time, under our state statutes we have provisions laid down by law and if any of the police organizations desire to get warrants to secure evidence by wiretapping and eavesdropping, they must go to the courts. I’m a bit confused by Delegate Hasegawa’s statement to the effect that they can’t even get a warrant to do it or that they’re absolutely prohibited. On that point I disagree.
This is a matter for the courts to decide as to what evidence the police must have before they can get a warrant-to tap a wire or to put in a device known as the “bug.” And I believe there shouldn’t be any objection at the present time because this merely elaborates the status of the law in this State by virtue of the statute passed by the legislature.
Proceedings, Vol. II, 6.
Delegate Noguchi was a member of the legislature when Act 209 was passed in 1967. He was one of the thirty-six legislators who served in that session and also served as delegates to the 1968 Constitutional Convention. His statement reads:
I would just like to make a comment here that this particular amendment was discussed in the committee and although the chairman expressed his sentiments here on the floor that it might be all right, I’d like to point out that it was discussed in committee and the thing — one of the things I would like to point out is that we felt that this language was broad enough to cover the situation as even Delegate Hasegawa brought out. It states, “unreasonable searches and seizures and invasions of privacy.” In other words, the invasions here must be unreasonable. And if and when the state legislature sees fit that the police may issue warrants to interrupt communications or to wiretap for certain reasons then that would come under the purview of reasonable. And as the present law here prevents the police from wiretapping, and as Delegate Dyer pointed out, this particular language would then permit the police to wiretap the citizenry of the State, with a warrant and I think we should leave this to our state legislature.

Id.

 Amsterdam, Perspectives on the Fourth Amendment, 58 Minn. L. Rev. 349, 382 (1974).

 Berger was decided on June 12, 1967. Katz was decided on December 18, 1967.

 In this case, however, it is not necessary for us to determine what the limits of the protected interest may be.