Court Opinion

ID: 9849947
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:50:04.780362+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:29.494731
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION OF
NAKAMURA, J.,
WITH WHOM WAKATSUKI, J., JOINS
Mindful that “[t]he 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 Constitutional Convention of Hawaii of 1968 proposed an expansion of the protections afforded by the search and seizure provisions of the State Constitution. Stand. Comm. Rep. No. 55, in Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of Hawaii of 1968, Vol. I, at 233. Thus, Article I, § 7 of the Constitution now provides:
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). What the convention proposed and the people of Hawaii accepted is set to naught by the majority of the court in summary fashion; but “I cannot believe that the framers in 1968 amended section 7 to accomplish nothing,” State v. Okubo, 3 *201Haw. App. 396, 414, 651 P.2d 494, 507 (1982) (Tanaka, J., concurring).
I.
The issue here is not whether Article I, § 7 outlaws electronic eavesdropping — there unquestionably is room for electronic technology in criminal law enforcement. “The critical question . . . is whether ... we should impose on our citizens the risks of the electronic listener or observer without at least the protection of a warrant requirement.” United States v. White, 401 U.S. 745, 786 (1971) (Harlan, J., dissenting). The majority of this court relies on the reasoning of the plurality in State v. Lester, 64 Haw. 659, 649 P.2d 346 (1982), in concluding Article I, § 7 does not afford such protection where the surveillance is conducted with the consent or cooperation of a participant in the conversation. The plurality there like the Intermediate Court of Appeals in this case reasoned such surveillance is of no constitutional consequence since society has displayed no inclination to treat as reasonable the subjective expectation of a person engaged in a private conversation that it will not be repeated. Id. at 668, 649 P.2d at 353; State v. Okubo, 3 Haw. App. at 409, 651 P.2d at 504.
Still, “it is one thing to subject the average citizen to the risk that participants in a conversation with him will subsequently divulge its contents to another, but quite a different matter to foist upon him the risk that unknown third parties may be simultaneously listening in” qr recording the conversation. United States v. White, 401 U.S. at 777 (Harlan, J., dissenting). “The latter risk is not yet rooted in [our] common. . . experience,” Holmes v. Burr, 486 F.2d 55, 72 (9th Cir.) (Hufstedler, J., dissenting), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1116 (1973), and the framers of the crucial language of Article I, § 7 intended it should not be thrust upon us without limitation. By imposing the requirement of a warrant “describing the communications sought to be intercepted,” they limited the risk of one’s conversation being monitored to situations where his conduct provides a judge with cause to suspect his probable involvement in crime.1 The majority, *202however, embraces “a rule of law that permits official monitoring of private discourse limited only by the need to locate a willing assistant.” United States v. White, 401 U.S. at 789 (Harlan, J., dissenting).
II.
The warrant requirement, despite protestations to the contrary, is not designed “to protect those who would engage in illegal activity.” People v. Beavers, 393 Mich. 554, 566, 227 N.W.2d 511, 515, cert. denied, 423 U.S. 878 (1975). The interposition of the requirement would not have shielded the criminal activities of the defendants here or in State v. Lester, supra. The “bugged” meetings were arranged beforehand by the police, as electronically aided forays for evidence are likely to be.2
I find the decision that “consensual monitoring” is not subject to constitutional regulation unacceptable because it does not “give effect to the intention of the framers and the people [who] adopt[ed]” the crucial language of Article I, § 7. HGEA v. County of Maui, 59 Haw. 65, 80-81, 576 P.2d 1029, 1039 (1978). The ruling “does not simply mandate that criminals must daily run the risk of unknown eavesdroppers prying into their private affairs; it subjects each and every law-abiding member of society to that risk.” United States v. White, 401 U.S. at 789 (Harlan, J., dissenting). But knowledge that government must justify its need to engage in electronic eavesdropping would definitely “secure a measure of privacy and a sense of personal security throughout our society” as intended by the framers. Id. at 790 (Harlan, J., dissenting).

 This is confirmed by the history of the 1968 addition to the search and seizure provisions of the Hawaii Constitution as oudined in the dissenting opinion in State v. Lester, supra.

 In State v. Lo, 66 Haw. 653, 655, 675.P.2d 754, 756 (1983), law enforcement officers also “monitor[ed] and electronically record[ed] the event they had arranged.”