Court Opinion

ID: 9784432
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 20:44:38.664863+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:54.531781
License: Public Domain

GEORGE, C. J.
I respectfully dissent.
This case presents the question whether the Fourth Amendment mandates the suppression of evidence obtained when law enforcement officers, in responding to a late-night complaint of unduly loud noise at a residence and attempting to ascertain the location from which the noise emanated, entered a shallow, unenclosed side yard adjacent to the residence and observed— through a large, completely uncovered first-story window—criminal activity within the residence. The trial court determined that the evidence should not be suppressed, but a majority of this court disagrees, concluding that because there was no sidewalk or pathway implicitly inviting the public to enter the side yard, the police officers observed defendant’s activity from a place where they assertedly “had no legal right to be” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 828) and, as a consequence, that the actions of the police constituted an unlawful search.
Although the majority insists that its determination that the officers’ conduct violated defendant’s constitutional rights is not based “merely [on the circumstance that the officers] were trespassing on defendant’s private property” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 836), the majority’s holding can be rationalized only through an inflexible application of trespass doctrine rather than under the “reasonable expectation of privacy” standard that properly governs the application of the Fourth Amendment’s proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures. In view of the location and configuration of defendant’s residence, the open and easily accessible nature of the side yard, the large (eight-by-four-foot) uncovered window facing the side yard, and defendant’s failure to take even minimal measures—such as shielding the window with curtains, blinds, or even a makeshift cover—that would have been taken by a reasonable person concerned with protecting his or her privacy, I believe the trial court properly found that defendant lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to activities that were plainly visible through the uncovered window. Further, in view of the factual circumstances of the present case, I believe that the trial court properly concluded that the brief time spent by the officers in the open side yard of the residence, not for the purpose of surveillance but simply to attempt to identify the location of the noise that had prompted the complaint to the police, was not unreasonable under the circumstances.
In resting its conclusion largely on the circumstance that the police officers observed defendant’s criminal conduct from “a place they had no *841legal right to be” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 828), the majority ignores the teaching of a number of recent federal decisions that have recognized that “legitimate police business may occasionally take officers to parts of the premises not ordinarily used by visitors” (1 LaFave, Search and Seizure (3d ed. 1996) Protected Areas and Interests, § 2.3(f), p. 509, citing cases), and that “[t]he ultimate focus of Fourth Amendment analysis [is not whether police conduct amounts to a trespass, but] whether the defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the place searched.” (U.S. v. Fields (2d Cir. 1997) 113 F.3d 313, 322.) As these cases demonstrate, because defendant failed to take even minimal steps to shield his actions from being viewed from an area where he could reasonably anticipate that a neighbor or other member of the public might venture, the police conduct here did not infringe upon a reasonable expectation of privacy and, consequently, suppression of the evidence is not warranted.
Thus, in light of the straightforward nature of the factual setting presented, this case might well provide the United States Supreme Court with an appropriate opportunity to clarify the proper relationship between trespass principles and the reasonable-expectation-of-privacy test under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
I.
In considering whether challenged police conduct violates the Fourth Amendment, the threshold question a court must address is whether the police conduct amounted to a search or seizure, because not every observation made by a law enforcement officer constitutes a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. (Illinois v. Andreas (1983) 463 U.S. 765, 771 [103 S.Ct. 3319, 3324, 77 L.Ed.2d 1003].) As the United States Supreme Court has explained: “A ‘search’ occurs when an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to consider reasonable is infringed.” (United States v. Jacobsen (1984) 466 U.S. 109, 113 [104 S.Ct. 1652, 1656, 80 L.Ed.2d 85]; see also Illinois v. Andreas, supra, 463 U.S. at p. 771 [103 S.Ct. at p. 3324] [“If the inspection by police does not intrude upon a legitimate expectation of privacy, there is no ‘search’ . . . .”].)
As the majority correctly observes, individuals ordinarily possess the highest expectation of privacy within their homes, an area that typically is “afforded the most stringent Fourth Amendment protection.” (United States v. Martinez-Fuerte (1976) 428 U.S. 543, 561 [96 S.Ct. 3074, 3084, 49 L.Ed.2d 1116].) But the circumstance that defendant was located within his residence when the police officers observed him is not itself sufficient to render the observation a search for Fourth Amendment purposes, because, as *842the United States Supreme Court has noted, “[w]hat a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection.” (Katz v. United States (1967) 389 U.S. 347, 351 [88 S.Ct. 507, 511, 19 L.Ed.2d 576], italics added; see also California v. Greenwood (1988) 486 U.S. 35, 41 [108 S.Ct. 1625, 1629, 100 L.Ed.2d 30] [“the police cannot reasonably be expected to avert their eyes from evidence of criminal activity that could have been observed by any member of the public”]; U.S. v. Garcia (9th Cir. 1993) 997 F.2d 1273, 1279 [there is “no search, and hence no Fourth Amendment violation, . . . when officers observed criminal activity with the naked eye from a vantage point accessible to the general public”].)
Recently, in Bond v. United States (2000) 529 U.S. 334, 338 [120 S.Ct. 1462, 1465, 146 L.Ed.2d 365], the United States Supreme Court held: “Our Fourth Amendment analysis embraces two questions. First, we ask whether the individual, by his conduct, has exhibited an actual expectation of privacy; that is, whether he has shown that ‘he [sought] to preserve [something] as private.’ [Citation.] . . . Second, we inquire whether the individual’s expectation of privacy is ‘one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable.’ [Citation, fn. omitted.]”
In the present case, defendant is unable to satisfy either prong of the Bond analysis. By engaging in criminal activity behind a large, completely uncovered window that was located on the ground floor of his residence and that faced a shallow side yard open to, and easily accessible from, the public sidewalk and street, his conduct failed to exhibit an actual expectation of privacy. The photographs contained in the record (and attached as an appendix to this opinion) make clear that the side yard in question was not designed to, and did not in fact, provide any significant degree of privacy. There were no fences, bushes, or other shrubbery to hinder or deter entry from the sidewalk or street. Nor was defendant’s expectation of privacy a reasonable one. Because of the location and openness of the yard, one reasonably could anticipate that neighbors or other members of the public occasionally would enter the yard, for example to retrieve a ball, toy, bicycle, or pet. In view of the urban setting and the configuration of the side yard and the window, I believe the trial court properly found that defendant lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to activities that could be viewed through the window, either by a neighbor who happened to enter the yard briefly for such a common purpose or by police who might enter the yard briefly to investigate a complaint.
Although the United States Supreme Court has yet to render a decision directly on point regarding a factual situation similar to the one presented *843here, a number of lower federal court decisions addressing analogous circumstances have concluded that when a defendant has conducted activities in plain view of an area to which other persons (e.g., cotenants or members of the public) have access and reasonably can be expected to visit at least occasionally, without the defendant’s taking reasonable steps to shield his or her activities from such view, police observations of the defendant’s activities do not infringe upon a reasonable expectation of privacy and therefore do not violate the Fourth Amendment. Although we are not bound by the decisions of the lower federal courts, “they are persuasive and entitled to great weight.” (People v. Bradley (1969) 1 Cal.Sd 80, 86 [81 Cal.Rptr. 457, 460 P.2d 129].) Inexplicably, however, the majority pays scant attention to these decisions. (See, e.g., U.S. v. Fields, supra, 113 F.3d 313 [no search where police officers entered fenced-in side yard of apartment house and looked through five- to six-inch gap below Venetian blinds into defendant’s illuminated bedroom, because defendant’s activity was deemed to be in plain view of a common area accessible to other tenants]; U.S. v. Taylor (4th Cir. 1996) 90 F.3d 903, 908-909 [not a search for officer to look through picture window located on front porch of defendant’s residence]; U.S. v. James (7th Cir. 1994) 40 F.3d 850, 861-862 [no search where police officer used a paved walkway along the side of the duplex leading to the rear side door, observing contraband on the table through the dining room window]; U.S. v. Evans (7th Cir. 1994) 27 F.3d 1219, 1228-1229 [looking into the defendant’s house from driveway did not constitute a search, because there was no evidence that the public’s access to the defendant’s driveway was limited]; U.S. v. Garcia, supra, 997 F.2d at pp. 1279-1280 [upholding entrance onto back porch of apartment]; U.S. v. Daoust (1st Cir. 1990) 916 F.2d 757, 758 [police officers, who found the front door of the defendant’s house inaccessible, did not violate the Fourth Amendment when they proceeded to the rear, in search of another entrance]; United States v. Vending (8th Cir. 1982) 678 F.2d 63, 66 [no reasonable expectation of privacy in driveway and area around front porch, where observations were made in public view]; United States v. Wheeler (9th Cir. 1981) 641 F.2d 1321, 1327 [defendant “diminished his legitimate expectation of privacy” by failing to cover a gap of one inch between a solid six-foot wooden fence and garage wall]; United States v. Johnson (D.C. Cir. 1977) 561 F.2d 832, 835 [182 App. D.C. 383] [acting upon an anonymous tip regarding the presence of illegal narcotics within a residence, a police officer veered a few feet from the walkway that led to the front door, and peered from the adjacent grassy area through an unobstructed window]; United States v. Anderson (8th Cir. 1977) 552 F.2d 1296, 12981-300 [following the unanswered knock of federal agents at the front door, the agents walked along the side of the house and, glancing through a partially covered basement window, discovered numerous stolen television sets]; United States v. Conner (7th Cir. 1973) 478 F.2d 1320, 1323 [emphasizing that even if the police officer’s observations were made from the *844concrete apron outside the rear door of the defendant’s garage, the apron abutted a public alley and therefore the defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy]; see also 1 LaFave, Search and Seizure, supra, Protected Areas and Interests, § 2.3(f), p. 509 [“[L]legitímate police business may occasionally take officers to parts of the premises not ordinarily used by visitors.” (Fn. omitted, italics added.)]; but see State of Texas v. Gonzales (5th Cir. 1968) 388 F.2d 145, 147 [police have no right to look through window simply to see if drug activity is taking place]; People of State of California v. Hurst (9th Cir. 1963) 325 F.2d 891, 893, 898 [in response to an anonymous tip regarding the illegal possession of marijuana, police officer who “peered through” a bathroom window on the side of the defendant’s residence held to have unlawfully invaded the defendant’s privacy]; Brock v. United States (5th Cir. 1955) 223 F.2d 681, 685 [in the course of investigating an illicit still, federal revenue agents improperly appeared outside the defendant’s bedroom window]; United States v. Johnson, supra, 561 F.2d 832, 847 (cone. opn. of Leventhal, J.) [“In my view while Fourth Amendment protection would not extend to observations by persons using the paved way from the sidewalk to the door of the house, it would likely extend to evidence obtained by walking onto the lawn around the house and then peering into windows” (fn. omitted)].)
Many of the federal court decisions cited above involve observations from front or back porches or paved paths to which the public had been implicitly invited (see, e.g., U.S. v. Taylor, supra, 90 F.3d 903 [front porch]; U.S. v. James, supra, 40 F.3d 850 [paved walkway]; U.S. v. Garcia, supra, 997 F.2d 1273 [back porch]; and U.S. v. Daoust, supra, 916 F.2d 757 [back of the house]), but in other instances the observations were made from other areas of the premises that were not implicitly open to the public but as to which cotenants or other members of the public foreseeably might enter. (See, e.g., U.S. v. Fields, supra, 113 F.3d 313 [observation made from fenced-in side yard accessible to cotenants]; U.S. v. Evans, supra, 27 F.3d 1219 [observation made from driveway]; United States v. Johnson, supra, 561 F.2d 832 [observation made from a location a short distance from walkway]; United States v. Anderson, supra, 552 F.2d 1296 [observation made from side of house]; United States v. Conner, supra, 478 F.2d 1320 [observation made from unfenced “apron” adjoining public alley]; United States v. Wheeler, supra, 641 F.2d 1321 [observations made through and over yard fence].) These cases conclude that when a defendant has not taken reasonable steps to shield his or her conduct from observation from a location where the defendant reasonably could anticipate that others might be present, the defendant does not harbor a reasonable expectation of privacy, and that police discovery of illegal conduct from such a location does not constitute an unconstitutional search or seizure even if the police entry into the location *845amounts to a technical trespass. (See, e.g., U.S. v. Fields, supra, 113 F.3d 313.)
The reasoning in U.S. v. Fields, supra, 113 F.3d 313, is particularly instructive. In that case, the defendants used a ground-floor apartment to prepare crack cocaine. A known and reliable informant contacted the police to inform them of the defendants’ activities. Believing that there was insufficient time to obtain a search warrant, the police officer who received the tip assembled a team of investigators to visit the apartment. Upon their arrival, the officers were unable to see into the windows of the apartment from the public sidewalk or street. The officers therefore entered a fenced-in rear yard and then a fenced-in side yard in order to facilitate their view into the building. At the rear of the side yard, the officers found a window covered with Venetian blinds, save for a five- to six-inch gap beneath the blinds. Upon looking in, the officers saw the defendants packaging what appeared to be crack cocaine. The officers ultimately forced open the locked back door with a battering ram and arrested the men. After obtaining a search warrant, the officers seized more than 400 grams of crack cocaine from the apartment.
In rejecting the defendants’ contention that the evidence should have been suppressed, the Second Circuit observed in Fields: “In the case at hand defendants conducted their illegal activities in plain view of a bedroom window facing onto the side yard—a common area accessible to the other tenants in the multi-family apartment building—in which they had no legitimate expectation of privacy. [Citation.] Although there was a plainly visible five-to six-inch gap beneath the Venetian blinds, defendants took no steps to close it. Their illegal activities, conducted in a well-lit room after dark, could therefore readily be seen by anyone standing in the side yard, [ft] . . . Although police observations made when trespassing are usually improper, it is not the trespass itself which renders them unlawful. Instead, such observations generally violate Fourth Amendment rights simply because those observed cannot reasonably anticipate observation from vantage points obtained by trespassing. In such circumstances, society frequently respects as reasonable the expectation that such observations will not occur. The ultimate focus of Fourth Amendment analysis remains whether the defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the place searched. [(Katz v. United States, supra, 389 U.S. 347, 360 [88 S.Ct. 507, 516] (cone. opn. of, Harlan, J.).)] Here, by conducting their activities in plain view of an area where others were free to come and go, defendants failed to demonstrate such an expectation, [ft . . . [ft
“In sum, although the defendants could easily have shielded their activities from public view, they failed to take the simple and obvious steps *846necessary to do so. By exposing their illicit cocaine activities to the side yard—a place where they should have anticipated that other persons might have a right to be—defendants failed to exhibit a subjective expectation that they intended their dealings in the bedroom to be private. Hence, the police observations did not violate defendants’ Fourth Amendment rights. . . .” (U.S. v. Fields, supra, 113 F.3d at pp. 321-322; see also United States v. Conner, supra, 478 F.2d 1320, 1323 [emphasizing that even if the police officer’s observations were made from the concrete apron outside the rear door of the defendant’s garage, the apron abutted a public alley and therefore the defendant lacked any reasonable expectation of privacy].)
The foregoing cases, determining that police conduct does not necessarily violate the Fourth Amendment even if such conduct constitutes a trespass, are consistent with numerous United States Supreme Court decisions that have “emphatically rejected the notion that ‘arcane’ concepts of property law ought to control... the protections of the Fourth Amendment.” (Rawlings v. Kentucky (1980) 448 U.S. 98, 105 [100 S.Ct. 2556, 2562, 65 L.Ed.2d 633], italics added; Katz v. United States, supra, 389 U.S. 347; accord, United States v. Conner, supra, 478 F.2d 1320, 1323 [“Even if the officers were on the apron, which was not fenced off from the alley, we think that a mere ‘technical trespass’ did not transform an otherwise reasonable investigation into an unreasonable search.”]; People v. Bradley, supra, 1 Cal.3d at p. 84 [observing that the Katz analysis is superior to those cases in which a conclusion is reached based upon whether the place was a constitutionally protected area].) Instead, the critical inquiry is whether the police conduct improperly intrudes upon an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to consider as reasonable. (Bond v. United States, supra, 529 U.S. at p. 338 [120 S.Ct. at p. 1465].) I believe the relevant precedents establish that when, as here, a person fails to take even minimal measures to shield his or her activities from casual observation from a location so open to, and readily accessible by, the public, police observation from such a location does not intrude upon a reasonable expectation of privacy and thus does not violate the Fourth Amendment. (Accord, State v. Smith (1962) 37 N.J. 481, 496 [181 A.2d 761, 769] [“[W]e cannot say that in striking a balance between the rights of the individual and the needs of law enforcement, the Fourth Amendment itself draws the blinds the occupant could have drawn but did not”].)
II.
The Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures is echoed in article I, section 13, of our state Constitution. Prior to the California electorate’s passage of Proposition 8 in June of 1982, the *847validity of a government search could be determined on independent state grounds. Proposition 8 added section 28, subdivision (d), to article I of the California Constitution. That section states, in part: “Except as provided by statute hereafter enacted by a two-thirds vote of the membership in each house of the Legislature, relevant evidence shall not be excluded in any criminal proceeding . . . .” Proposition 8 thus abrogated a defendant’s right to object to, and move to suppress, evidence seized in violation of the California, but not the federal, Constitution. (In re Lance W. (1985) 37 Cal.3d 873, 879 [210 Cal.Rptr. 631, 694 P.2d 744].) As a result, state and federal claims relating to the exclusion of evidence on the basis of unreasonable search and seizure now are reviewed under the same standard, and a court may exclude evidence challenged on the basis that it was obtained as a result of an unreasonable search or seizure “only if exclusion is also mandated by the federal exclusionary rule applicable to evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment.” (Id. at pp. 886-887, 896.) As stated by the majority, “ ‘Our state Constitution thus forbids the courts to order the exclusion of evidence at trial as a remedy for an unreasonable search and seizure unless that remedy is required by the federal Constitution as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court.’ ” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 830.)
Unfortunately, the United States Supreme Court has yet to address the precise sort of factual scenario presented here, involving a routine, nonexigent investigation conducted by law enforcement officers in response to a legitimate request for assistance. Accordingly, in the wake of Proposition 8, the proper alternative for this court is to look to the lower federal courts for guidance. (See People v. Luttenberger (1990) 50 Cal.3d 1, 9 [265 Cal.Rptr. 690, 784 P.2d 633] [“Thus, California courts now must follow federal exclusionary principles in resolving motions to suppress evidence in criminal trials” (italics added)].) As noted previously, although the decisions rendered by the lower federal courts are not binding upon this court, “they are persuasive and entitled to great weight.” (People v. Bradley, supra, 1 Cal.3d at p. 86.) Rather than look to these federal decisions, however, the majority relies heavily on this court’s pre-Proposition 8 decision in Lorenzana v. Superior Court (1973) 9 Cal.3d 626 [108 Cal.Rptr. 585, 511 P.2d 33] (Lorenzana). Even Lorenzana, however, is clearly distinguishable from this case.
In Lorenzana, law enforcement officers received information from a confidential reliable informant that an individual was selling heroin from a residence located in Los Angeles. An officer was dispatched to investigate the allegation, traversed a grassy area adjacent to the residence, and stationed himself within a few inches of a side window. The window was closed and the window shade drawn, but a gap of approximately two inches *848remained between the bottom of the shade and the windowsill. Standing there for approximately 15 minutes, the officer overheard an incriminating telephone conversation emanate from within the residence, and observed the defendant empty the powdery contents of a balloon onto a newspaper. Subsequently, in reliance upon the information so obtained, law enforcement officers arrested the defendant and a buyer. (Lorenzana, supra, 9 Cal.3d at pp. 629-631.)
These two suspects in Lorenzana moved to suppress the evidence on the grounds that the arresting officers had not obtained a warrant, that no exception to the warrant requirement applied, and that the officers did not make their observations from a position to which they were explicitly or implicitly invited. We framed the issue presented as follows: “The crucial question we face here is whether a citizen may properly be subjected to the peering of the policeman who, without a search warrant, walks over ground to which the public has not been invited but which has been reserved for private enjoyment, stands by a window on the side of a house and peeks through a two-inch gap between the drawn window shade and the sill, and thus manages to observe the conduct of those within the residence.” (Lorenzana:, supra, 9 Cal.3d at p. 629.)
In answering the foregoing inquiry in the negative, we emphasized in Lorenzana that “[t]he fact that apertures existed in the window, so that an unlawfully intruding individual so motivated could spy into the residence, does not dispel the reasonableness of the occupants’ expectation of privacy. [Citations.] To the contrary, the facts of this case demonstrate that by drawing the window shade petitioner Lorenzana exhibited a reasonable expectation to be free from surveillance conducted from a vantage point in the surrounding property not open to public or common use. Surely our state and federal Constitutions and the cases interpreting them foreclose a regression into an Orwellian society in which a citizen, in order to preserve a modicum of privacy, would be compelled to encase himself in a light-tight, air-proof box. The shadow of 1984 has fortunately not yet fallen upon us.” (Lorenzana, supra, 9 Cal.3d at pp. 636-637, italics added.)
The court in Lorenzana concluded: “In sum, the prying policeman, clandestinely peering through a two-inch aperture between drawn blinds and windowsill, standing upon trespassed property over which the public has not been expressly or impliedly invited, portrays a sorry figure who violates his subject’s right of privacy—a right protected by the California and United States Constitutions and precious to a free and open society.” (Lorenzana, supra, 9 Cal.3d at p. 641; accord, U.S. v. Blount (5th Cir. 1996) 98 F.3d 1489, 1495 [“We conclude and hold that when a police officer walks into the *849partially fenced backyard of a residential dwelling, using a passage not open to the general public, and places his face within inches of a small opening in an almost completely covered rear window to look into the house and at the inhabitants, that officer has performed a ‘search’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” (Italics added.)].)
In contrast to the defendant’s conduct in Lorenzana—drawing the blinds to cover the window—which allowed the police officer to make his observations only by peering through a small aperture between the bottom of the blinds and the windowsill, here defendant left a large window completely uncovered. Because the window was located on a small side yard that was open to, and easily accessible from, the public sidewalk (with no fences, shrubbery, or signs to deter entry), the trial court properly found that defendant here, unlike the defendant in Lorenzana, supra, 9 Cal.3d 626, lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to activities that readily could be viewed through the window by a neighbor or other member of the public who happened to enter the yard briefly for an innocuous purpose. (See, e.g., U.S. v. Taylor, supra, 90 F.3d at p. 909 [noting that the absence of a fence or signage prohibiting trespassing could be considered in determining whether the defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy]; U.S. v. Evans, supra, 27 F.3d at p. 1229 [in the absence of evidence that the public had limited access to the driveway of the residence, the defendant had no reasonable expectation that members of the public or law enforcement agents would refrain from entering the driveway area]; compare California v. Ciraolo (1986) 476 U.S. 207, 211 [106 S.Ct. 1809, 1811-1812, 90 L.Ed.2d 210] [observing that the placement of a 10-foot fence concealing a marijuana crop from “normal sidewalk traffic” indicated that the defendant “took normal precautions to maintain his privacy”].)
Furthermore, I note that in Lorenzana, the police entered the defendant’s property for the purpose of surveillance and remained at the suspect’s window for 15 minutes, observing and listening to activities conducted within the residence. Under those circumstances, which this court described as involving “the prying policeman, clandestinely peering through a two-inch aperture between drawn blinds and windowsill” (Lorenzana, supra, 9 Cal.3d at p. 641), the infringement upon the defendant’s expectation of privacy was significantly greater than that presented here. By contrast, in the case now before us, the police, responding to a complaint of unduly loud noise, simply entered the side yard briefly to ascertain the source of the noise, and not for the purpose of conducting the sort of extended surveillance activities seen in Lorenzana. Bearing in mind the lateness of the nighttime hour (approximately 11:00 p.m.) and the concomitant reduction in the ability of the police officers to discern potential risks, their actions *850appear to exhibit prudence rather than a predisposition to pry. After the officers arrived, they heard “noise coming from the side of the house or to the rear of the house” and decided briefly to ascertain its source. The testifying officer stated that he did not knock on the front door, because “We were trying to determine at that point where the music was coming from.” As a precaution, the officers refrained from remaining together during their investigation: “It was a safety decision at that time [for one officer] to stay at the front of the house while [the other officer] walked towards the side.” (Italics added.)
As in several of the federal cases noted above, the trial court properly could characterize as reasonable the police officers’ action in remaining briefly in the yard under these circumstances, notwithstanding the absence of a warrant or the failure of the officers initially to knock at the front door. (See U.S. v. James, supra, 40 F.3d at p. 862, fn. 4 [rejecting the notion that “police officers seeking to interview a person are always required to knock on the front door of a residence before they may approach any other public means of access to the dwelling”].) The circumstance that, while so engaged, the officers happened to observe criminal activity occurring within the residence was primarily a consequence of defendant’s decision not to take any protective steps directed toward ensuring the privacy of his illegal activities.
The majority’s conclusion, relying heavily upon Lorenzana, that the police officers’ conduct in this case was illegal (because the officers “were standing in a place to which neither they nor the public had been invited” [maj. opn., ante, at p. 837]), readily may lead to unintended, illogical results in other cases similar to this one. For example, if the side yard had been marked with a walkway, but that path was obstructed by a motor vehicle, compelling the officers to traverse the yard, should we uphold the officers’ conduct in that scenario, simply because the current or previous owner had, at one time, constructed a pathway of some sort? Similarly, if a pathway existed but could not be discerned because it was overgrown with weeds (as is the side yard depicted in the photographic exhibits attached as an appendix to this opinion), should we uphold the officers’ conduct even though the appearance of the side yard generally was similar to that encountered by the investigating officers here? If such a path existed, and could be discerned, but was blocked by a gate, would the analysis turn on whether the gate was locked or unlocked, tall or short, open or shut? Should there be one rule for daylight visits by the police, and another for investigations conducted after dark when pathways might be difficult, if not impossible to see?
These questions are not merely rhetorical; they suggest that arbitrary factual variables—such as a resident’s laziness in failing to mow a lawn or *851close a gate—might alter the result under the analysis favored by the majority. The application of a rule of constitutional dimension should not depend upon such fortuitous circumstances. Yet, the majority explains, without providing meaningful guidance to police officers, that “if the facts were different, perhaps only slightly so, we might conclude the officers were entitled to enter defendant’s yard, thereby validating the lawfulness of their observations of defendant through his bedroom window.” (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 837-838.)
I believe that in view of the circumstances encountered by the summoned officers, the trial court properly found that the present case is distinguishable from Lorenzana, and that the conduct of the police did not amount to an unconstitutional search under the Fourth Amendment.
III.
In the wake of Proposition 8, discussed earlier in this dissenting opinion, California courts are required to follow federal exclusionary principles in resolving motions to suppress evidence in criminal trials. (People v. Luttenberger, supra, 50 Cal.3d 1, 9.) The overwhelming weight of authority makes clear that law enforcement officers who respond to an informant’s tip or a neighbor’s call for assistance are not required by the federal Constitution to limit their observations to the front entranceway of the residence being investigated, and that police conduct of the sort involved here does not violate the Fourth Amendment when the defendant has failed to take even •minimal measures to shield his or her activities from public view from a location where other persons reasonably may be anticipated to be present. In departing from this view, the majority imposes a narrow and rigid restraint upon police conduct that elevates notions of trespass to a controlling role and fails to give proper application to the reasonable-expectation-of-privacy standard enunciated by the decisions of the United States Supreme Court.
I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
Baxter, J., and Chin, J., concurred.
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