Court Opinion

ID: 9479909
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:32:23.752287+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:21.601192
License: Public Domain

NATHANIEL R. JONES, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Although I believe the search conducted in this case was more intrusive than the search conducted in Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 104 S.Ct. 1735, 80 L.Ed.2d 214 (1984), I agree with the majority’s conclusion that the district court’s judgment should be affirmed. However, while the officers in this case and in Oliver both ignored “No Trespassing” signs while conducting an open fields search, I am unable to agree with the majority’s conclusion that the actions taken by the police in this case are indistinguishable from the officers’ acts in Oliver.
When the officers in Oliver arrived at Oliver’s farm, they saw a locked gate which had a “No Trespassing” sign attached to it. Next to the fence, however, was a “footpath [which] led around one side of the gate.” 466 U.S. at 173, 104 S.Ct. at 1738. The officers “walked around the gate and along the road” and then discovered a field of marijuana on Oliver’s farm. Id. In the instant case, the officers climbed over two fences before reaching a path which ultimately led to Burton’s marijuana plants. Although the Oliver Court stressed that the common law of trespass has little relevance to the search and seizure issues raised by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the *193type of police activity conducted in the instant case unnecessarily invites a potentially dangerous response by a landowner. Consequently, although the search conducted in this case may be constitutional, police should refrain from performing these types of searches because they create a risk of serious injury to undercover police officers. It is not unlikely that a fence-climbing undercover officer, mistaken by the landowner for an ordinary trespasser, will find himself staring down the barrel of the landowner’s shotgun.