Court Opinion

ID: 9475635
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:33:28.077637+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:49.812075
License: Public Domain

McKAY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The majority’s opinion is a threat to those who fish in the Wind River mountains, those who enjoy survivalist expeditions, and those senior citizens in their recreational vehicles in Bryce Canyon National Park who hold “Golden Eagle” or “Golden Age” Passports. Under the majority’s sweeping language, they could be found at any time to be “trespassing” on federal lands and be stripped of any legitimate expectation of privacy in their temporary dwellings, since those dwellings fail to constitute “houses.” The majority, in effect, holds that the right of anyone who is on public lands to be free from warrantless searches turns on whether they have overstayed their permit. Failing, presumably even on technical grounds, to have a “legal right” to occupy land prevents any reasonable expectation of privacy in a dwelling on such land from arising, even if one owns the structure searched on the illegally occupied land.1
I.
In 1985, a state bench warrant for the arrest of Frank William Ruckman was issued in Washington County, Utah, for failure to appear with respect to a misdemean- or charge. After receiving information that Mr. Ruckman was living in a natural cave on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) property approximately twenty-four miles northeast of St. George, Utah, six heavily armed officers, both local sheriff’s officers and federal law enforcement officers, proceeded to the cave site. When they arrived, they found a cave “that had wood and other articles placed in its opening so as to form some kind of living quarters. There was a wooden door that was closed but not locked and no one was in the vicinity.” Brief of United States at 2. Without a search warrant, the officers entered the cave and seized three weapons. Mr. Ruckman, who arrived approximately one hour later and was arrested, informed the officers of a fourth weapon in the cave, which was then also seized.2
*1475Approximately eight days later, after Mr. Ruckman was incarcerated, BLM officers and local authorities returned to the cave, again without a warrant, “in an effort to clean it out and remove all this stuff that was in there, the door and everything else.” Statement of Attorney for the Government, Transcript of Hearing on Motions at 20. While there, they found and seized the booby-trap devices that supported the fifth count of the indictment against Mr. Ruckman. He was subsequently convicted under this count of possession of an unregistered firearm in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d) (1982).3
II.
The court reaches its expansive result by first articulating the issue at hand as “whether the cave comes within the ambit of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches of ‘houses.’ ” Maj. op. at 1472. That Mr. Ruckman lived in the cave for eight months, constructed a wall and door to the cave with wooden boards and other material, and installed the rudimentary comforts of home (including a bed, camp stove, and lantern) is not enough, says the court, to raise the fourth amendment priority that has always attached to one’s residence, Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 590, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 1382, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980), since he was “just camping out there for an extended period of time.” Maj. op. at 1473. This conclusion is at odds with the multiple concessions on the part of the Government that Mr. Ruck-man was “living” in the cave. See Statement of Attorney for the Government, Transcript of Hearing on Motions at 21-22 (“the Government searched that place which he was clearly using as a dwelling and they did that without a warrant”); record, vol. 1, document 11, at 2 (“Inside the dwelling was clear evidence that a person was living in and occupying that space.”); id. at 4 (Government conceding that defendant “moved in”); Brief of United States at 5 (referring to cave “he was living in”); id. at 6 (referring to cave “in which he was living”). Moreover, although phrasing the issue as whether the cave constitutes a “house,” much of the court’s reasoning immediately following fails to analyze the characteristics of a house, but rather focuses on the fact that Mr. Ruck-man was a “trespasser” on federal lands and, as such, could not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his wilderness home. Viewing these as separate grounds for the court’s holding, I find both fundamentally flawed and must respectfully dissent.
III.
First, a finding that the cave fails to qualify as a “house” does not automatically mean that no legitimate expectation of privacy can attach to the cave for fourth amendment purposes. Even if Mr. Ruck-man was “just camping out there for an extended period of time,” it is not clear to me at all that a camper has no legitimate expectation of privacy in his temporary dwelling.
*1476After declining to equate the cave with a house, the court jumps to the conclusion that Mr. Ruckman can have no legitimate expectation of privacy in the cave. This analysis implicitly assumes that only homes and houses are accorded fourth amendment protection. This is simply untrue. The Supreme Court acknowledged as much when it recognized “the unremarkable proposition that a person can have a legally sufficient interest in a place other than his own home so that the Fourth Amendment protects him from unreasonable governmental intrusion into that place.” Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 142, 99 S.Ct. 421, 429, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978) (citing Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697 (1960)). In ending the analysis after the myopic inquiry as to whether a cave is a house, the court fails to appreciate both the underlying, broader concerns of the fourth amendment and the ramifications its opinion will have in other contexts. Such inquiries as the court’s are, of course, relevant as helpful guides, but should not be undertaken mechanistically. They are not ends in themselves; they merely aid in evaluating the ultimate question in all fourth amendment cases — whether the defendant had a legitimate expectation of privacy, in the eyes of our society, in the area searched.
Second, that Mr. Ruckman may have been a “trespasser” on federal lands should not be dispositive — either in good sense or in keeping with the evolution of fourth amendment theory. Such a position can lead to absurd results. Take, for example, the camper whose “Golden Eagle Passport,” see 36 C.F.R. § 71.5 (1985), has expired but yet who nevertheless remains on federal land an extra day. Is he suddenly stripped at midnight of any reasonable expectation of privacy in his tent or recreational vehicle? 4 The court includes privately owned structures in its sweep. Can they now be searched at will by Government authorities, even though at a minute before midnight, such a search would violate the camper’s fourth amendment rights? A right as fundamental as the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures should not turn on the mere happenstance of a permit’s expiration date. Yet, that is the effect of the majority’s holding.
Moreover, what of those BLM lands that are not “Designated Entrance Fee Areas” under 36 C.F.R. § 71.3 (1985), as is likely the case here? Regulations issued by the Secretary of the Interior to control the “use, occupancy and development of the public lands through leases, permits and easements,” 43 C.F.R. § 2920.0-3 (1985), pursuant to the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, 43 U.S.C. §§ 1732, 1740 (1982), create some doubt whether Mr. Ruckman was, indeed, using federal land in an unauthorized manner. The Secretary’s regulations state that “[n]o land use authorization is required under the regulations of this part for casual use of the public lands.” 43 C.F.R. § 2920.1(d) (1985). “Casual use” is defined as “any short term non-commercial activity which does not cause appreciable damage or disturbance to the public lands, their resources or improvements, and which is not prohibited by closure of the lands to such activities.” 43 C.F.R. § 2920.0-5(k) (1985). The Government has made no showing that the land encompassing the cave here was “prohibited by closure.” Whether an eight-month residency in this cave constitutes “short term” activity is admittedly subject to debate. The Government, however, has not carried its burden of showing that Mr. Ruckman was a trespasser, other than to repeatedly refer to the cave as “the government cave.” Brief of Plaintiff-Appellee at 3, 6; record, vol. 1, document 11, at 4.
More fundamental and worrisome than these observations, however, is that the court takes a giant step backward in fourth *1477amendment analysis when it hinges its determination of whether Mr. Ruckman had a legitimate expectation of privacy in his dwelling on whether or not he was a “trespasser.” In the early days of fourth amendment doctrine, property interests were not only a central tenet of search and seizure analysis, they were determinative. Persons aggrieved by searches and seizures needed to prove a property interest in the place searched or item seized superi- or to that of the Government’s in order to gain redress through an action for trespass or replevin. So strong was the notion of property interests to search and seizure doctrine that “[n]o separate governmental interest in seizing evidence to apprehend and convict criminals was recognized; it was required that some property interest be asserted” — a rule better known as the “mere evidence” rule. Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 303, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 1648, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967). Similarly, no fourth amendment violation was deemed to occur without a trespass by the Government upon property of the defendant — a rule better known as the “trespass doctrine.” Goldman v. United States, 316 U.S. 129, 134-36, 62 S.Ct. 993, 995-96, 86 L.Ed. 1322 (1942); Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 457, 464, 466, 48 S.Ct. 564, 565, 567, 568, 72 L.Ed. 944 (1928). However, as our society evolved, the emphasis of the protection we enjoy from unreasonable governmental searches and seizures also evolved. Nearly twenty years ago, the Supreme Court recognized this evolution:
The premise that property interests control the right of the Government to search and seize has been discredited. Searches and seizures may be “unreasonable” within the Fourth Amendment even though the Government asserts a superi- or property interest at common law. We have recognized that the principal object of the Fourth Amendment is the protection of privacy rather than property, and have increasingly discarded fictional and procedural barriers rested on property concepts.
Warden, 387 U.S. at 304, 87 S.Ct. at 1648.
The landmark case of Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967), cemented this privacy perspective when it disregarded the “trespass doctrine” enunciated in Olmstead and Goldman. Recognizing that, in our modern society, the fourth amendment “protects people, not places,” the Court declared that what a person “seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected. Id. at 351-52, 88 S.Ct. at 511 (emphasis added). Replacing the outmoded property-interest test was one articulated in Justice Harlan’s concurrence: “first that a person have exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy and, second, that the expectation be one that society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable.’ ” Id. at 361, 88 S.Ct. at 516.
This focus on the expectation of privacy rather than on legal property interests in the place searched or items seized has not diminished since Katz; it has grown stronger. In Rakas, the Court stated that
arcane distinctions developed in property and tort law between guests, licensees, invitees, and the like, ought not to con-trol____
... Katz held that capacity to claim the protection of the Fourth Amendment depends not upon a property right in the invaded place but upon whether the person who claims the protection of the Amendment has a legitimate expectation of privacy in the invaded place.
439 U.S. at 143, 99 S.Ct. at 430 (emphasis added). In other words, failing to have a legal property right in the invaded place does not, ipso facto, mean that no legitimate expectation of privacy can attach to that place. If it did, the above-quoted sentence describing Katz would be nonsensical, for fourth amendment protection would then, indeed, turn on a property right in the invaded place. Yet, this archaic analysis is the very analysis to which the majority subscribes. In Rakas, the Court reiterated that “[e]xpectations of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment, of course, need not be based on a common-law interest in real or personal property, or on the inva*1478sion of such an interest.” Id. at 144 n. 12, 99 S.Ct. at 431 n. 12; see also United States v. Salvucci, 448 U.S. 83, 91, 100 S.Ct. 2547, 2552, 65 L.Ed.2d 619 (1980) (“This Court has repeatedly repudiated the notion that ‘arcane distinctions developed in property and tort law’ ought to control our Fourth Amendment inquiry.” (citing Rakas)); Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98, 105, 100 S.Ct. 2556, 2561, 65 L.Ed.2d 633 (1980) (“Rakas emphatically rejected the notion that ‘arcane’ concepts of property law ought to control the ability to claim the protections of the Fourth Amendment.”). To reach its result, the majority in this case, by reverting to discredited notions and obsolete fourth amendment analysis, flies in the face of this evolutionary precedent and of what the fourth amendment attempts to protect for us all.
So, at bottom, the critical inquiry here should be whether Mr. Ruckman had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the cave, so that he should be free, not from all searches, but from unreasonable searches — those undertaken without a warrant, as in this case, and without justification to forego a warrant.5 Discussions concerning whether Mr. Ruckman was a “trespasser” or whether the cave was a “house” are merely red herrings when they mask this essential inquiry.
The court assumes that Mr. Ruckman entertained a subjective expectation of privacy and states that the “real issue is whether such subjective expectation is reasonable.” Maj. op. at 1472. I believe his expectation of privacy in his wilderness home was both reasonable and legitimate. It was perfectly legitimate for him to expect to be free from a warrantless search of the dwelling in which he lived continuously for eight months. He “took normal precautions to maintain his privacy,” Rawl-ings, 448 U.S. at 105, 100 S.Ct. at 2561, by building a wall with a door of wooden boards and other materials, thereby sealing off the entrance to the cave. All his personal belongings were located therein. The cave was his sole living quarters in every sense, furnished with a bed and other crude furniture.
This finding does not mean that Mr. Ruckman was entitled to live in this cave. It does not mean that the Government has no recourse to remove him; the Government is free to prosecute him for any laws he may have violated. It simply means that the Government may not search his dwelling without a search warrant, as prescribed by the fourth amendment, or without sufficient justification excusing the warrant. The fact that Mr. Ruckman may have violated a federal law by living in this cave (a fact not established by this record) simply does not strip him of all his constitutional rights — just as the camper who overstays his Golden Eagle Passport, and thus trespasses on federal land, does not thereby forfeit his right to be free from war-rantless searches of his tent or recreational vehicle in the absence of an exception to the warrant requirement. If anything, I would expect the legitimacy of “trespassing” Mr. Ruckman’s expectation of privacy to be more clear-cut than that of the trespassing camper. The camper’s residency in his tent would usually be extremely *1479short term, unlike the eight months Mr. Ruckman spent living in the cave. Moreover, the camper concededly has another, primary residency, whereas Mr. Ruckman’s sole living quarters were this cave.
I would, therefore, reverse.

. "Where the plaintiffs had no legal right to occupy the land and build structures on it, those faits accomplis could give rise to no reasonable expectation of privacy even if the plaintiffs did own the resulting structures." Maj. op. at 1474 (quoting and adopting Amezquita v. Hernandez-Colon, 518 F.2d 8, 12 (1st Cir.1975)).

. These four weapons constituted the evidence supporting the first four of the five counts of the federal indictment instituted against Mr. Ruck-*1475man. He was charged with violating 18 U.S.C. app. § 1202(a)(1) (1982), which provides in pertinent part:
Any person who — (1) has been convicted by a court of the United States or of a State or any political subdivision thereof of a felony ... and who receives, possesses, or transports in commerce ... any firearm shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned for not more than two years, or both.
In 1952, Mr. Ruckman was convicted in Illinois of being an accessory after the fact of armed robbery, and it was this felony that served as the underlying crime for purposes of § 1202(a)(1). These first four counts of the indictment were dismissed during trial for reasons not related to the search at issue.

. 26 U.S.C. § 5861 provides in pertinent part: "It shall be unlawful for any person — (d) to receive or possess a firearm which is not registered to him in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record____”
The penalty for violating this provision is found in 26 U.S.C. § 5871 which provides: “Any person who violates or fails to comply with any provisions of this chapter shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $10,000, or be imprisoned not more than ten years, or both, and shall become eligible for parole as the Board of Parole shall determine."

. Although the Supreme Court has extended the so-called automobile exception to mobile homes in California v. Carney, 471 U.S. 386, 105 S.Ct. 2066, 85 L.Ed.2d 406 (1985), it did not do away with the threshold requirement that there be sufficient probable cause to search. No such showing was made in this case.

. The court asserts that the Government has plenary authority over federal land, but fails to relate the significance of this authority to this case. Rather, the court then immediately states in the next sentence that ‘‘[t]he Fourth Amendment itself proscribes, inter alia, an unreasonable search of ‘houses.’ ” Maj. op. at 1473.
I readily concede that the Federal Government’s regulatory power "over lands within the public domain [gives it the] power to control their occupancy and use, to protect them from trespass and injury and to prescribe the conditions upon which others may obtain rights____’’ Id. (quoting Utah Power & Light Co. v. United States, 243 U.S. 389, 405, 37 S.Ct. 387, 389, 61 L.Ed. 791 (1917)). The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 and the regulations promulgated thereunder that I cited earlier in this opinion attest to this authority. However, in light of the fourth amendment cases discussed above, I fail to see how the Government’s regulatory power automatically strips Mr. Ruck-man of any legitimate expectation of privacy in this case. Furthermore, I certainly fail to understand how this authority strips “trespassing" campers of any legitimate expectation of privacy in the tents and recreational vehicles which they own; yet such trespassers with their privately owned "structures” are within the court’s broad sweep. See supra note 1.