Court Opinion

ID: 9546523
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:31:24.27945+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:34.196754
License: Public Domain

CONNOR, Justice
(concurring).
I concur in the majority opinion and the separate concurring opinion of Justice BOOCHEVER, but wish to add some observations.
The decision today properly leaves unanswered the question of how far the right to privacy, in connection with the possession of marijuana, extends outside the home. Such a determination can be made only when we are presented with specific facts against which the individual’s claim of privacy can be measured, as opposed to the state’s assertion of power to control the possession of marijuana. Under the test we have employed in determining the scope of the right to privacy, it is necessary to balance these conflicting claims and determine whether the state’s prohibition bears a direct and substantial relationship to effectuating a legitimate state interest.
The record in the case before us does not contain facts about the particular circumstances in which appellant possessed marijuana. Accordingly, we must remand the case for further elucidation of the facts.
It is certain that the right to privacy does not vanish when one leaves the home.1 There are certain aspects of personal autonomy which one carries with him even when he ventures out of the home, though the claim to privacy diminishes in proportion to the extent that one’s person and one’s activities impinge upon other persons. But, in order to trace the contours of the right to privacy, it will be necessary to engage in a critical analysis of the facts of each case which presents itself for decision. Only in this fashion can the right to privacy, outside the home, be determined on a reasoned, coherent basis so as to furnish the courts and the public with reliable rules of action. Much definitional work, therefore, remains to be done in the cases yet to be determined.

. The right to privacy which received protection in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973), has nothing to do with the locus of the home and, for the most part, is concerned with matters occurring outside the home.