Court Opinion

ID: 9686627
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:59:17.490739+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:20.967534
License: Public Domain

J. H. Gillis, P.J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent from the majority’s view of this case. In rejecting the defendant’s argument that his Fourth Amendment rights had been violated, the trial court stated as follows:
"There is an old adage that a secret is no longer a secret when more than one person knows it. A person’s secret and his privacy in regards thereto can be made public by his own voluntary actions.
"Now, when a person voluntarily allows another person into his home, he waives secrecy and his privacy so far as what that person may observe within the scope of the permission given. He takes that person for what he or she actually is; a 'gossip’, a 'snitch’, or in this case, an undercover agent. At that point, of course, upon entry, the plain view doctrine applies.
"However, in the case before us, based on the record, the marijuana was not originally in plain view, but it was later voluntarily placed in plain view by Mr. Catania as a part of his hospitality. There is no evidence that at any time the undercover agent in anyway exceeded this scope of the permission given her, such as going into another room, opening a drawer or some similar action, or that she took anything out of the house.
"Likewise, this is not a case where entry was ob*769tained by use of some governmental force, such as the undercover agent posing and claiming right to entry as a building inspector. In fact, there was no assertion of right, contractual, governmental or otherwise, to entry by the undercover agent.”
I agree with the trial court’s reasoning and thus would vote to affirm the conviction.