Court Opinion

ID: 9784431
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 20:44:38.661077+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:54.526857
License: Public Domain

BROWN, J.
I fully concur in the determination to affirm the Court of Appeal’s judgment reversing the denial of defendant’s suppression motion.
I write separately because although the “two threshold questions” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 830) derived from Justice Harlan’s concurring opinion in Katz v. United States (1967) 389 U.S. 347, 360 [88 S.Ct. 507, 516, 19 L.Ed.2d 576], may confirm that the majority reaches the correct result in this case, this reference should not be read to imply that Fourth Amendment analysis invariably proceeds from a determination “first [whether] a person [has] exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy and, second, [whether] the expectation be one that society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable.’ ” (Id. at p. 361 [88 S.Ct. at p. 516] (cone. opn. of Harlan, J.).) This formula does not serve as an all-purpose or universally applicable template for assessing every challenged search or seizure. (See Amsterdam, Perspectives on the Fourth Amendment (1974) 58 Minn. L.Rev. 349, 385.) Rather, its utility is generally limited to issues concerning whether the place searched or the manner in which police officers conducted the search gave rise to an infringement of the defendant’s right to be free of unreasonable governmental intrusions. (See, e.g., Bond v. United States (2000) 529 U.S. *839334, 338 [120 S.Ct. 1462, 1465, 146 L.Ed.2d 365] [manipulation of defendant’s carry-on luggage located in overhead storage space]; O’Connor v. Ortega (1987) 480 U.S. 709, 716 [107 S.Ct. 1492, 1497, 94 L.Ed.2d 714] [search of defendant’s workplace]; see also California v. Ciraolo (1986) 476 U.S. 207, 211 [106 S.Ct. 1809, 1811-1812, 90 L.Ed.2d 210] [plain view observation of defendant’s fenced backyard from airplane 1,000 feet overhead not search in constitutional sense]; Rakas v. Illinois (1978) 439 U.S. 128, 143 [99 S.Ct. 421, 430, 58 L.Ed.2d 387] [finding Katz “provides guidance in defining the scope of the interest protected by the Fourth Amendment” for purposes of determining whether defendant may contest search or seizure]; see generally 1 LaFave, Search and Seizure (3d ed. 1996) Protected Areas and Interests, § 2.1, pp. 375-395.)
Outside this context, the analytical framework articulated in Katz may not always yield results consistent with Fourth Amendment guarantees. For example, in In re Tyrell J. (1994) 8 Cal.4th 68 [32 Cal.Rptr.2d 33, 876 P.2d 519], involving a search of the defendant’s person, the majority’s invocation of the Katz two-part inquiry led to the conclusion that because the defendant was a juvenile probationer subject to a search condition, he therefore had no reasonable expectation of privacy. Thus, the officer’s ignorance of the condition when he searched was of no constitutional moment. {Id. at pp. 83-86; see also In re Marcellus L. (1991) 229 Cal.App.3d 134, 145 [279 Cal.Rptr. 901].) Whether, as characterized by Professor LaFave, this reasoning is “bizarre” (4 LaFave, Search and Seizure, supra, Inspections § 10.10(e), p. 792), it is certainly constitutionally suspect. (See In re Tyrell J., supra, 8 Cal.4th 69, 90-99 (dis. opn. of Kennard, J.); see generally People v. Woods (1999) 21 Cal.4th 668, 692-696 [88 Cal.Rptr.2d 88, 981 P.2d 1019] (dis. opn. of Brown, J.); see also Comment, Fourth Amendment Protection for Juvenile Probationers in California, Slim or None?: In re Tyrell J. (1995) 22 Hastings Const. L.Q. 893.)
Moreover, as this case illustrates, even when a case involves the search of a place, the Katz approach may be entirely unnecessary to determine whether it was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.. As the majority acknowledges, “We addressed this precise point in Lorenzana [v. Superior Court (1973)] 9 Cal.3d 626 [108 Cal.Rptr. 585, 511 P.2d 33].” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 832.) In Lorenzana, the court resolved the question on the well-established principle that the lawfulness of an officer’s plain view observations depends upon whether he made them from a place where he had the right to be.1 (Lorenzana, supra, 9 Cal.3d at pp. 631-636; see, e.g., Horton v. California *840(1990) 496 U.S. 128, 136 [110 S.Ct. 2301, 2307-2308, 110 L.Ed.2d 112]; California v. Ciraolo, supra, 476 U.S. at p. 213 [106 S.Ct. at pp. 1812-1813].) On the present facts, this analysis is more than adequate to determine whether the officers acted lawfully.

Only after this discussion did we note that our holding “conforms to the reasoning of the United States Supreme Court’s definitive decision in Katz v. United States[, supra,] 389 U.S. 347." (Lorenzana v. Superior Court, supra, 9 Cal.3d at p. 637.)