Court Opinion

ID: 9451122
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:07:09.590374+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:34.843500
License: Public Domain

POPE, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
In my view Judge Duniway’s opinion that there was probable cause for the viewing that the officers made, and that there was here no unreasonable search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, is a correct one. I am not prepared to agree that appellants waived any right they may have had, but it is unnecessary that I do so.
I wish to note several things about this case which I believe to be unique and without precedent. In the first place, there was no “actual intrusion into a constitutionally protected area.” 1 The ceiling where the windows were cut was, as the exhibits show, at least three feet above the highest portion of the toilet stall, and above an open area unconnected with the stalls. Assuming that the occupied portions of the stalls were properly treated as a part of the “persons, houses, papers, and effects” to be protected against unreasonable searches, those who viewed what was happening in the stalls made no “actual intrusion” herein.
Again, the record shows that the viewing windows were installed by a private concern, the Yosemite Park and Curry Company. Mr. Whiteman, the manager of the Company, stated “I suggested it.” and that he had company carpenters cut the holes.
Plainly enough, up to that point there had been no violation of Fourth Amendment rights. Such an act, or even a completed search by a private individual, is not within the Amendment’s prohibitions. Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U.S. 465, 41 S.Ct. 574, 65 L.Ed. 1048.2
The Camp Curry management had initially provided these toilet facilities to care for the needs of the ordinary camper. Then it discovered that these facilities were being used for lewd and unlawful purposes. The cutting of the holes in the partitions pointed to their use for “homosexual acts.” The manager knew of one complaint to his social hostess based on an eye witness account of such an incident which occurred there. The report was of “an oral thing that he had observed through another hole in the stall.” Writings on the walls of *258other restrooms had pointed to this particular building as a place for homosexual activity. Unexplained loitering about the place by male persons, whose appearance suggested homosexuals, especially late at night, the turning out of the light over the stalls, the attack, apparently by a homosexual person, upon a camp employee in his tent in this vicinity, indicated the same thing. These, and other circumstances related in Judge Duniway’s opinion, which he holds, rightly I think, constituted reasonably trustworthy information sufficient to constitute probable cause for believing a crime was about to be committed, all gave the camp manager a justified determination not longer to continue to maintain, at company expense, a hangout for lechery and debauchery in the form of homosexuality, sodomy and pederasty. Anything which the manager, as manager, did to stop this sort of thing would not call for judgment under the Fourth Amendment.
Let me suggest a less bizarre instance of such a thing. A rooming house keeper suspects that the occupants of a downstairs front bedroom are engaging in criminal activities. He surreptitiously alters the angle of the Venetian blinds on the front windows so as to permit a view of the room from the front sidewalk. Then he asks the police to stand on the walk and look in.
In that case there could not possibly be any objection to the officer’s testimony as to the unlawful acts he observed. An officer, standing in a place where he has a right to be, may look and observe what is in plain sight. He may use field glasses or a searchlight. United States v. Lee, 274 U.S. 559, 563, 47 S.Ct. 746, 71 L.Ed. 1202. He may make observations of evidence of crime through an open door. Ker v. State of California, 374 U.S. 23, 36-37, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 10 L.Ed.2d 726; Fisher v. United States, 92 U.S.App.D.C. 247, 205 F.2d 702; United States v. Barone, 2 cir., 330 F.2d 543, 544; or by looking through a car window with a flashlight, Petteway v. United States, 4 cir., 261 F.2d 53, or into an open car trunk, United States v. Williams, 6 cir., 314 F.2d 795, 799, or into the window of a house, People v. Martin, 45 Cal.2d 755, 762, 290 P.2d 855, 858, and cases there cited. In the hypothetical case I have mentioned, the officer on the sidewalk could properly view the interior of the bedroom — it was wide open to his view. And the fact that the occupants of the room did not notice or know that the Venetian blinds had been changed to permit a view would be immaterial.
So here, the defendants’ lack of knowledge that the holes above the stalls were view windows is immaterial. I know of no rule of law that a person committing a crime must be alerted or warned that he is being watched. This is plain from Goldman v. United States, 316 U.S. 129, 62 S.Ct. 993, and On Lee v. United States, 343 U.S. 747, 72 S.Ct. 967. The term “right of privacy” which appears in the dissenting opinion, when used in connection with facts involving unlawful entry and seizure, is a useful slogan; but I know of no “right of privacy” per se.3 Many crimes, perhaps the most of them, are committed in stealth and in the dark. To say that the police, though standing in a place where they have a right to be, cannot peek or spy upon such activities because of a supposed “right of privacy” appears to me to be absurd.
Thus the cutting of the holes in the ceiling by the company carpenters is something of which these defendants cannot complain, for it was the act of a private company and of its manager. That the manager consulted with the Park Ranger in planning his operations is immaterial. The changes were those of the manager.
*259And the looking through the windows was no different than looking through any other window, — in a house or in an automobile, where no trespass was involved. So wholly apart from the question of reasonable and probable cause, there was no act in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment here.
The existence of probable cause is not affected by the fact that much of the information acted upon was hearsay. Ker v. State of California, supra, 374 U.S. at p. 36, 83 S.Ct. 1623. Nor is it material that there was no evidence to point at these particular defendants as the ones who cut the holes or turned out the lights. In many, perhaps most, lawful police inquiries and searches for crime, where there is probable cause to anticipate an offense, the identity of the anticipated wrongdoer is unknown.
Reference to the common requirement of a warrant is misplaced here. The special facts of this case make it plain that a search warrant would serve no useful purpose. The management had plenty of opportunity to examine the stalls. A search warrant for that purpose was not required.
A warrant was not only not needed, but would accomplish nothing in apprehending the unknown deviates who were plainly operating in this area. Does this mean that such persons may not be apprehended or prosecuted because a warrant is out of the question? Obviously not. What it does mean, I submit, is that a somewhat less strict view of what is adequate proof of probable cause for search must be taken. By any known test, however, I think there was reasonable and probable cause for action by the Rangers.
Finally, I think the court which decided Bielicki v. Superior Court, 57 Cal.2d 602, 21 Cal.Rptr. 552, 371 P.2d 288, would reach a different result in a case like this. In such case the California court would hold applicable its rule in People v. Gorg, 45 Cal.2d 776, 783, 291 P.2d 469, described in Bielicki as a rule “to the effect that a search is not unreasonable if made with the permission of one who, by virtue of his relationship to the defendant or other circumstances, the officers reasonably and in good faith believed had authority to consent to their entry.”

. The quoted language is from Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505 at 512, 81 S.Ct. 679 at 683, 5 L.Ed.2d 734.

. “Private detectives may use methods to obtain evidence not open to officers of the law.” Irvine v. People of State of California, 347 U.S. 128, 136, 74 S.Ct. 381, 385, 98 L.Ed. 561, and cases there cited.

. Griswold v. State of Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, spoke of a marital right of privacy, noting that various constitutional guarantees create “zones of privacy”. But the decision is based on the Court’s abhorrence of allowing “the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms.” Nothing in the present case resembles a “right of privacy in marriage.”