Court Opinion

ID: 9785552
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 22:11:34.103199+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:29.088667
License: Public Domain

LUMPKIN, Presiding Judge,
dissent.
T1 The Court's decision today not only misconstrues the intent of the Legislature, but also ignores the duty of the State to protect its citizens from the criminal activity of others. The United States Supreme Court, this Court, and courts all over this nation have perceived expectation of privacy as an individual right. When the Legislature amended this statute in 2001 to include subsection B, it was doing so to protect this individual right. The language of the statute reads in part:
Every person who uses photographic, electronic or video equipment in a clandestine manner for any illegal, illegitimate, prurient, lewd or lascivious purpose with the unlawful and willful intent to view, watch, gaze or look upon any person without the knowledge and consent of such person when the person viewed is in a place where there is a right to a reasonable expectation of privacy ...
21 0.8.2001 § 1171(B). In reviewing the plain language of the statute, the Legislature made it clear the offense occurs when one takes these photographs in a clandestine manner with the intent to "view, watch or gaze upon any person without the knowledge and consent of such person." The offense is not determinative on where the photographs were taken, but occurs with the taking of the pictures which violate the individual's expectation of privacy. The Court is interpreting this statute to apply only to an expectation of privacy in a place. The majority opinion states it must consider the examples set forth in subsection A of the statute as interpretative aids to what the Legislature intended as the kinds of places the statute applies to. What the Court fails to do here is realize Subsection B is a distinctly separate and different crime than that set out in Subsection A of the statute. The purpose of Subsection B is to protect an individual's expectation of privacy. If the Court is strictly construing the statute, is it telling us our expectation of privacy is only protected in the places set out in Subsection A?
T2 By interpreting the statute as the Court does in this case, it is overlooking the fact that the expectation of privacy is in one's covered body. Many eriminals do not take photographs of people's faces, hands, or other areas of the body not typically clothed and continually visible in public places. An individual would not have a reasonable expectation of privacy to these unelothed places on their body, no matter where they were. However, one clothes the parts of their body they want to keep private. One expects to have an expectation of privacy in the covered parts of their body regardless of whether they are in a private or public place.
*196T3 The Court cites to language in State v. Young, 1999 OK CR 14, ¶ 27, 989 P.2d 949, 955, which held, "[It is not our place to interpret a statute to address a matter the Legislature chose not to address, even if we think that interpretation might produce a reasonable result." However, this is exactly what the Court is doing in this case. The Court today is interpreting the Legislative intent to be contradictory of the Legislature's continual passage of laws for the protection of its citizens from this type of activity. The Court references a recent amendment to Section 1171 to add a subsection C which specifically addresses the conduct in this case. The potential problem, if the Court is consistent in the future, will be the Court continuing to interpret Subsections B and C as being restricted by the places enumerated in Subsection A, since that is the methodology the Court used to deny applicability of Subsection B in this case. Hopefully, that will not happen and the intent of the Legislature will finally be followed.
T4 I previously stated that the unpublished decision in State v. Ferrante, 31 (March 7, 2008), informed women who desire to wear dresses that they have no expectation of privacy as to what they have covered with the dress. This decision states the same thing, and tells those individuals who desire to take these photographs to go ahead and do so because there is no avenue for you to be prosecuted. This was clearly not the intent of the Legislature when it amended this statute in 2001. Now, the Legislature has confirmed that intent with the enactment of Subsection C to Section 1171.