Court Opinion

ID: 9614469
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:25:49.333982+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:12:54.686398
License: Public Domain

ERICKSON, Justice,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. In my view, the employment of an ultraviolet light to determine the presence of fluorescent materials on the hands of a suspect does not constitute an invasion of a protected privacy interest or a search under the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution or article II, section 7 of the Colorado Constitution. I would therefore hold, along with *797the majority of other courts, that illumination by ultraviolet light is not a search.
To determine what constitutes a “search,” we look first to the privacy interest defined in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). In Katz, telephone conversations by the defendant were overheard by police officers who had attached an electronic listening device (a detectaphone) to the exteri- or of a public telephone booth used by the defendant. In holding that electronic surveillance by the officers constituted a fourth amendment search, the Court abandoned the traditional view that a search requires a physical intrusion into a constitutionally protected area. The Court declared that “the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places,” and concluded:
The Government’s activities in electronically listening to and recording the petitioner’s words violated the privacy upon which he justifiably relied while using the telephone booth and thus constituted a “search and seizure” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The fact that the electronic device employed to achieve that end did not happen to penetrate the wall of the booth can have no constitutional significance.
389 U.S. at 353, 88 S.Ct. at 512. The test that emerged from Katz for determining the existence of a search was whether the intrusion violated a reasonable expectation of privacy possessed by the aggrieved party. Id. at 360, 88 S.Ct. at 516 (Harlan, J., concurring); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). We have employed the Katz test to determine whether a search occurred under the United States or Colorado Constitution in a long line of cases. See, e.g., People v. Unruh, 713 P.2d 370 (Colo.1986); People v. Oates, 698 P.2d 811 (Colo.1985); People v. Carlson, 677 P.2d 310 (Colo.1984); People v. Sporleder, 666 P.2d 135 (Colo.1983).
It is well established that an observation by a lawfully positioned officer using his natural senses of sight, smell, and hearing does not constitute a search. Nor does the use of artificial illumination to enable the officer to see that which he would otherwise be unable to detect because of darkness amount to a search. Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. 730, 103 S.Ct. 1535, 75 L.Ed.2d 502 (1983); People v. Shriver, 186 Colo. 405, 528 P.2d 242 (1974). The rationale underlying these principles is that a person can have no reasonable expectation of privacy in something he knowingly exposes to public view. Katz, 389 U.S. at 347, 88 S.Ct. at 507. The same type of reasoning has caused the Supreme Court to conclude that the observation of a person’s physical characteristics is not a search. United States v. Dionisio, 410 U.S. 1, 93 S.Ct. 764, 35 L.Ed.2d 67 (1973) (defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the sound of his voice); United States v. Mara, 410 U.S. 19, 93 S.Ct. 774, 35 L.Ed.2d 99 (1973) (defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the physical characteristics of his handwriting).
In Commonwealth v. DeWitt, 226 Pa.Super. 372, 314 A.2d 27 (1973), the leading case on the issue before us, the court relied on the similarity between physical characteristics and the presence of fluorescent material on a suspect’s hand in holding that illumination by ultraviolet light does not constitute a search. The court said:
[Defendants had no reasonable expectation of privacy as to the presence of foreign matter on their hands independent of the expectation of the privacy of their premises, which had been legitimately invaded by the police. The [fluorescent] grease may be compared to a fingerprint or one’s voice, which is “constantly exposed to the public.” United States v. Dionisio.... The Fourth Amendment provides no protection for what “a person knowingly exposes to the public.” Katz v. United States .... It is true that the grease could not be detected with the naked eye, but then, neither may a fingerprint be examined until there has been an application of ink.
314 A.2d at 30-31. All but one of the courts to have addressed the issue have agreed that illumination by ultraviolet light does not constitute a search. See United
*798States v. Richardson, 388 F.2d 842 (6th Cir.1968); United States v. DeMarsh, 360 F.Supp. 132 (E.D.Wis.1973); United States v. Millen, 338 F.Supp. 747 (E.D.Wis.1972); but see United States v. Kenaan, 496 F.2d 181 (1st Cir.1974).
The majority rejects the prevailing view, relying on Cupp v. Murphy, 412 U.S. 291, 93 S.Ct. 2000, 36 L.Ed.2d 900 (1969). In Cupp, the defendant’s wife was found strangled to death in her home. When the defendant voluntarily went to the police station for questioning, the police, suspecting that a dark spot on the defendant’s finger might be the victim’s dried blood, took a scraping from his fingernail under his protest. The Supreme Court held that the scraping constituted a search, stating:
Unlike the fingerprinting in Davis [v. Mississippi, 394 U.S. 721, 89 S.Ct. 1394, 22 L.Ed.2d 676 (1969) ], the voice exemplar obtained in United States v. Dionisio ... or the handwriting exemplar obtained in United State v. Mara ... the search of respondent’s fingernails went beyond mere ‘physical characteristics ... constantly exposed to the public,’ ... and constituted the type of ‘severe, though brief, intrusion upon cherished personal security’ that is subject to constitutional scrutiny.
412 U.S. at 295, 93 S.Ct. at 2003 (citations omitted). The majority suggests that Cupp stands for the proposition that an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the material on his hands which is not incriminating to the naked eye. The majority therefore concludes that illumination of a person’s hand by an ultraviolet light constitutes a search because the fluorescent material is invisible to the naked eye.
In my view, relying on Cupp to conclude that the use of an ultraviolet light is a search ignores more recent decisions of the Supreme Court holding that the employment of various forms of sense-enhancing devices in the investigation of criminal activity does not constitute a search. In Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. at 730, 103 S.Ct. at 1535, the Court held that the use of a flashlight to illuminate a darkened area is not a search. The same term the Court declared that subjecting luggage to a “canine sniff” by a trained narcotics detection dog at an airport does not constitute a search. United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983); but cf. People v. Unruh, 713 P.2d 370 (Colo.1986) (canine sniff of safe being held at police station as .evidence in burglary case violated owner’s reasonable expectation of privacy). The Court in Place reasoned that “the manner in which information is obtained through this investigative technique is much less intrusive than a typical search. Moreover, the sniff discloses only the presence or absence of narcotics, a contraband item.” 462 U.S. at 707, 103 S.Ct. at 2644. The Court relied on Place in United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 104 S.Ct. 1652, 80 L.Ed.2d 85 (1984), to conclude that the use of a chemical field test to determine whether a suspected substance was cocaine was not a search. The Court observed that the field test, like the canine sniff, could only disclose the presence or absence of contraband. No other information was obtained by virtue of the test.
I believe that the decisions in Brown, Place, and Jacobsen support the general principle that “[njothing in the Fourth Amendment prohibit[s] the police from augmenting the sensory faculties bestowed upon them at birth with such enhancement as science and technology afford[ ] them.... ” United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276, 282, 103 S.Ct. 1081, 1085, 75 L.Ed.2d 55 (1983). The intrusion in this case was no greater than that occasioned by the use of a flashlight by a lawfully positioned officer. See DeWitt, 314 A.2d at 31. Furthermore, illumination by ultraviolet light is not significantly different than a canine sniff or a chemical field test. Each device reveals extremely limited information about the suspect or his possessions. The canine sniff and the chemical field test can only disclose the presence of contraband, and the ultraviolet light can only reveal that the suspect has handled items treated with fluorescent materials. Investigating officers learn no other private facts about the suspect by using these devices. Thus, contrary to the reasoning of *799the majority, by no stretch of the imagination does illumination by ultraviolet light amount to “ ‘a detailed inspection, by special instrument, of one’s skin.’ ” Maj. op. at 795, quoting United States v. Kenaan, 496 F.2d 181, 182 (1st Cir.1974) (the only case holding that illumination by ultraviolet light constitutes a search). It certainly cannot be said that an individual has a protected privacy interest in preventing the police from discovering incriminating evidence. See United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 122, 104 S.Ct. at 1661 (“The concept of an interest in privacy that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable is, by its very nature, critically different from the mere expectation, however well justified, that certain facts will not come to the attention of the authorities.”) (footnote omitted).
Accordingly, I would hold that the investigative procedure employed in this case was not a search and that the consent of the defendant was irrelevant. I would therefore reverse the suppression order of the district court and remand the case for further proceedings.
I am authorized to say that Justice RO-VIRA and Justice VOLLACK join in this dissent.