Court Opinion

ID: 9605791
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:42:04.058765+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:21:27.126711
License: Public Domain

SHEPARD, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I regret that I must disagree not only with the legal conclusions expressed by the majority opinion but also with what appears to me to be only a brief summary and gloss of the facts.
To put more meat on the bones, I offer the following. The plaintiff in this case insists that he had worked on the day in question and returned home at approximately 4:30 p. m. Thereafter he lay in his chair in a nude condition in the company of another man and “his intended,” (a woman with whom the plaintiff lived). The sister of “his intended” in the company of several other people, including a 12 year old girl, arrived at the house. The sister knocked at the door, inquiring about her sister. Plaintiff arose from his chair still in nude condition, obtained his fully loaded shotgun, opened the door disclosing himself to the sister and the other persons, stuck the shotgun in the sister’s nose, and told her to “get the hell out of” there. She promptly left and notified the police. Shortly thereafter a police officer arrived, knocked at the door, and was greeted by plaintiff in a similar fashion and in similar dress, or lack thereof. That officer retreated and called for reinforcements.
Thereafter dozens of law enforcement officers from various agencies converged upon the scene. With those officers came a TV news cameraman. After the scene was sufficiently set, the camera began to roll and the action started. The Sheriff of Ada County stood to one side of the door and began “knocking” by beating'a hole in the door with a shovel. In a stentorian tone, the Sheriff ordered the plaintiff out of the house. Plaintiff stepped out of the *207house, onto the porch, and into the hard light of publicity. We are not told if he was minus his shotgun, but he was certainly minus his clothes. For only a fleeting fraction of one second were the genitals and buttocks of the plaintiff preserved on the film of the camera because immediately thereafter the officers manacled and covered plaintiff with a blanket.
A clip from the film was displayed on the evening news show the following evening, depicting the fearless exploit of the law enforcement officers and for less than one second the arrest of plaintiff in a state of nudity. Plaintiff tells us only that the public advertising and viewing of his nudity embarrassed and humiliated him. The jury viewed the videotape but this court has not, and we are thus unable to determine whether the embarrassment and humiliation which allegedly resulted to the plaintiff came about from what was there for the public to see or the lack thereof.
Following plaintiff’s arrest he was charged with a criminal offense, tried and found guilty. Members of the defendant’s press corps testified that they believed the incident of plaintiff’s arrest to be newsworthy but also believed that the inclusion of that portion displaying and showing plaintiff’s actual nudity was in poor taste and should not have been shown. Shortly after the newscast defendant’s staff member who actually assembled the film for the newscast and included the brief display of plaintiff’s nudity was terminated from employment. That termination resulted from his including the nudity sequence in the newscast. Thus ended, probably for all time, the onset of X-rated television newscasts in the Boise Valley.
The majority tells us that “merely because one has been involved in an arrest, the news media should not be given the right to exploit the details of such an arrest for the purpose of holding the arrestee up to public ridicule and humiliation. Neither should there be a privilege to make reports using obviously embarrassing private facts about the arrestee when no thought has been given to the consequences of such a detailed description of the arrest.”
First, I am unable to ascertain in what way there was any exploitation of the plaintiff herein. The defendant merely filmed what was to be seen and displayed it on its news program. Secondly, I am unable to agree that what had been made available to public view by the plaintiff himself could constitute private facts. I entertain doubts that the decisions of the United States Supreme Court cited by the majority support its opinion. Those cases, in my judgment, stem from factual patterns bearing no similarity to the case at bar.
Under the fact situation presented herein where the plaintiff has voluntarily displayed himself in the nude while in the course of committing criminal offenses and while he was being placed under arrest, I would hold that he has waived any privilege he might have had to the privacy of his privates. In my judgment, any arrest is or can be argued to be embarrassing and humiliating. Even the most veteran felon is undoubtedly embarrassed, if nothing else, at being apprehended.
Criminal behavior and its consequences, while perhaps involving elements of privacy of victims, cannot be said to be beyond the legitimate interest of society in general since the conduct is offensive to and prescribed by society in general. I discern no standard by which our lower courts can be guided in the future when faced with such cases. I will await with much interest the development of future fact patterns in this area of the law and the ability of this court to deal with them.
In my opinion, there was no invasion of privacy here and therefore the cases dealing with the press and privacy invasion are irrelevant. I would reverse the judgment and remand the case for granting of defendant’s motion n. o. v. and the entry of judgment for defendant.