Court Opinion

ID: 9665352
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:45:48.417084+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:15.025304
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON APPELLANTS’ MOTION FOR REHEARING
McCORMICK, Judge.
On original submission, a panel of this Court affirmed appellants’ convictions for the possession of more than four ounces of marihuana. The cases were consolidated for trial; punishment in each case was assessed at imprisonment for four years.
The sole ground of error advanced by appellants is that the trial court erred in overruling a motion to suppress the evidence, seized under authority of a search warrant acquired on the basis of an affidavit containing information gathered by an unlawful warrantless search. Appellants contend that various police officers, over a month long period, from diverse vantage points in the air and on the ground, surv-eilled appellants’ opaque greenhouse with *389telescopes and lenses of increasing magnitude before finally observing marihuana plants. The ultimate observation was made through a five-inch opening in the exhaust fan louvres of the greenhouse.
The majority opinion of the panel concluded that no “search” under the Fourth Amendment occurred through telescopic observation of the greenhouse and that no legitimate expectation of privacy had been invaded because appellants did not manifest a “reasonable” expectation that the contents of the greenhouse would remain private, citing Long v. State, 532 S.W.2d 591 (Tex.Cr.App.1975); Turner v. State, 499 S.W.2d 182 (Tex.Cr.App.1973); and Johnson v. State, 469 S.W.2d 581 (Tex.Cr.App.1971). Much of the Court’s analysis was devoted to the fact that the technological “visual aids” employed by the police in their surveillance of the greenhouse did not change the otherwise lawful character of their observation to a search under the Fourth Amendment, citing Fullbright v. United States, 392 F.2d 432 (10th Cir.1968), cert, denied 393 U.S. 830, 89 S.Ct. 97, 21 L.Ed.2d 101 (1968); Commonwealth v. Hemley, 216 Pa.Super. 177, 263 A.2d 904, 48 A.L.R.3d 1172, cert, denied 401 U.S. 914,91 S.Ct. 886, 27 L.Ed.2d 813 (1971), and United States v. Allen, 633 F.2d 1282 (9th Cir.1980).
While we agree with the panel opinion’s reasoning that police use of binoculars and other visual aids is generally acceptable, the true focus of the question presented by this case is not whether police use of technological sensory enhancements is per se a search under the Fourth Amendment. There may or may not be a “search”, but the answer does not depend on the type of device. Rather, the answer depends on the purpose and employment of the device under the facts presented; i.e., whether it invades a “legitimate expectation of privacy.” See Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 740, 99 S.Ct. 2577, 2580, 61 L.Ed.2d 220 (1979); Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347,88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967).
This approach to the problem was reinforced as recently as United States v. Knotts,-U.S.-, 103 S.Ct. 1081, 75 L.Ed.2d 55 (1983), wherein Mr. Justice Rehnquist employed the Smith/Katz analysis of the facts to determine whether police monitoring of a beeper was a “search”; despite generally opining that “[njothing in the Fourth Amendment prohibited the police from augmenting the sensory facilities bestowed upon them at birth with such enhancement as science and technology afforded them in this case.” The concurring opinion of Justices Stevens, Brennan and Marshall disavows the augmentation comment as dicta, finding that the Court “held to the contrary in Katz....” “[Although augmentation in this case was unobjectionable, it by no means follows that the use of electronic detection techniques does not implicate especially sensitive concerns.” - U.S. at-, 103 S.Ct. at 1089. Clearly, the impact of technology on Fourth Amendment concerns is by no means a settled question. On that basis, we renew the analysis.
The Supreme Court of the United States has stated that whether a legitimate expectation of privacy has been invaded
“... normally embraces two discreet questions. The first is whether the individual, by his conduct, has exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy, ‘... whether ... the individual has shown that’ he seeks to preserve (something) as private ... the second question is whether the individual’s subjective expectation of privacy is ‘one that society is prepared to recognize as “reasonable”’ ... whether ... the individual’s expectation, viewed objectively, is ‘justifiable’ under the circumstances.” Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 740, 99 S.Ct. 2577, 2580, 61 L.Ed.2d 220 (1979).
This is essentially a restatement of Justice Harlan’s concurring opinion in Katz v. United States, supra, explaining how “the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places”: “[Gjenerally, as here, the answer to that question requires reference to a ‘place.’ ” Id. at 389 U.S. 361, 88 S.Ct. 516. Under the Katz expectation of privacy test, particular attention must be given to the nature of the place at which the observed *390objects or activities are located, for this will bear directly upon whether there was a justified expectation of privacy as to those objects or activities. 1 LaFave, Search & Seizure, Section 2.2 (1978), at pages 257-58. Moreover, in Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 143, 99 S.Ct. 421, 430, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978), the Court noted that the “capacity to claim the protection of the Fourth Amendment depends ... upon whether the person who claims the protection of the Amendment has a legitimate expectation of privacy in the invaded place.”
This record contains ample evidence that appellants sought to preserve the greenhouse, and its contents, as private. They located their greenhouse on brushy, rural property in Lampasas County, one mile from the nearest public road, and at least 100 yards from the nearest vantage point on the neighboring property. The greenhouse itself was opaque, with ventilation provided for by a four-foot exhaust fan covered with slat-like louvres. There was a fence around the greenhouse and another fence around the entire tract of land. The outer fence was locked and posted with signs. These are numerous manifestations of an “actual (subjective) expectation of privacy.” Smith v. Maryland, supra.
As to the second prong of Smith and Katz analysis, the State maintains that appellants lost their subjective expectation of privacy by exposing “activities and things thereon to public view,” relying on the assertion in Katz that
“[W]hat a person knowingly exposes to the public even in his home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection.” Katz, at 389 U.S. 347, 351, 88 S.Ct. 507, 514, 19 L:Ed.2d 576.
On the facts of this case, such reliance is misplaced. In fact, it was appellants’ very well manifest expectation of privacy which raised suspicion to begin with. The only thing that was in “plain sight” of the officer’s initial observation, aided by a telescope, was an opaque greenhouse with “green growing plants.” Later, an officer with a night vision telescope, and still later aerial surveillance, observed nothing in plain sight, or out of the ordinary. Despite this, the investigation continued specifically to observe the contents of the greenhouse until the affiant, armed with a 600 millimeter lens, caught a glimpse through the fan louvres of what he observed to be growing marihuana plants.
Here, the technology employed, its purpose, together with the concerted effort to view what had tenaciously been protected as private, constitutes a search. As we stated in Long:
“A search means, of necessity, a quest for, a looking for, or a seeking out of that which offends the law. This implies a prying into hidden places for that which is concealed. It is simply not a search to observe that which is open to view.” 532 S.W.2d at 593.
The crucial difference between the instant case and Long, Turner, and Johnson is the manifestation of privacy exhibited by appellants, and the efforts undertaken to overcome that privacy. This is simply not a case of open curtains inviting observation, or of an initial aided or unaided investigatory observation. See Fullbright v. United States, supra, (“we do not mean to say that surveillance ... under no circumstances could constitute an illegal search in view of the teachings of Katz.... ”); United States v. Bifield, 498 F.Supp. 497 (D.Conn.1980, aff’d 659 F.2d 1063 (2d Cir.1980), cert, denied 454 U.S. 821, 102 S.Ct. 105, 70 L.Ed.2d 93 (holding that it is no search to use binoculars to see display of weapons in lighted office of gas station located on major thoroughfare in commercial district). The protracted focus on delving into the contents of the greenhouse belies such a claim and is easily distinguishable from mere surveillance.
Clearly, what a person knowingly exposes to public view is not protected by the Fourth Amendment, Katz v. United States, supra. However, the Constitution does not require that one erect a stone bastion, or retreat to the cellar to exhibit a reasonable expectation of privacy. State v. Carter, 54 Or.App. 852, 636 P.2d 460, 461 (1981). See Dow Chemical Company v. *391United States, 536 F.Supp. 1355, 1365 (E.D. Mich.1982); State v. Ward, 62 Haw. 509, 617 P.2d 568, 573 (1980) (constitution does not require person to shut himself off from “fresh air, sunlight and scenery”); Amsterdam, Perspectives on the Fourth Amendment, 58 Minn.L.Rev. 349, 402 (1974).
Under the facts presented by this record, the trial courts erred in overruling appellants’ motion to suppress. The motion for rehearing is granted and the judgments herGn are reversed and remanded.
W.C. DAVIS, J., dissents.