Court Opinion

ID: 9575526
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:14:33.352375+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:48:19.257201
License: Public Domain

Shepherd, J.
(concurring). I agree with the majority opinion in its entirety but write separately to indicate that there is another reason why the motion to quash the information and to suppress evidence should have been granted. In this case approximately twenty innocent people were not only observed by the police using the toilets but their activities were recorded on video tape. The recordings were made from a vantage point unavailable to the general public. In Bielicki v Superior Court of Los Angeles Co, 21 Cal Rep 552; 371 P2d 288 (1962), the owner of an amusement park authorized the police to view, from the roof, through a pipe, allegedly homosexual activities carried on in a group of pay toilets. Petitioners were arrested as the result of the police surveillance. The court held that the officers’ search was unreasonable because it was conducted without probable cause. The court condemned the officers’ general exploratory search, during which both the *55guilty and innocent were viewed. The court also noted that the observations made by the officers could not have been made by the general public.
It is one thing for police to set up surveillance cameras in areas open to the general public; it is quite another to surreptitiously view innocent members of the general public using toilet facilities where these innocent citizens obviously had a more than reasonable expectation of privacy. The conduct of the police constituted an unreasonable interference with the most intimate private activities of innocent members of the public.
It should be noted that the illegal conduct complained of took place between the floor and the bottom of the panels separating the stalls. This area is observable by the public and had the police somehow installed cameras that would have observed nothing more than the lower portion of the stalls so that the identity of innocent users of the toilets would have been kept anonymous, my concerns would not be so great. Such police activity, if otherwise supported by probable cause, might conceivably be sustainable. Under the circumstances of this case there is no justification for using such intrusive methods of investigation.
In cases such as this courts must balance the need to prosecute criminal activity against the need to preserve the rights of innocent members of the public. While I condemn the activity of the defendant, society must forego the ability to prosecute him with the aid of videotaped evidence in exchange for preserving the right of innocent citizens to use toilet facilities without fear of being videotaped, particularly when alternative methods of surveillance were clearly available to the police. This opinion is limited to the specific facts of this case, i.e., where the criminal activity is between consenting adults, where the invasion of the pri*56vacy of innocent citizens is great, and where alternative methods of surveillance are available. Each case must be reviewed on its own merits and a change in facts might alter the balance.
On remand, if there is other untainted evidence against defendant, he may still be prosecuted.