Court Opinion

ID: 9593721
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:24:26.129962+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:53:40.420434
License: Public Domain

ROSSMAN, J.,
dissenting.
Whether defendant’s Article I, section 9, privacy interests were invaded is a question of “right, not expectation.” State v. Tanner, 304 Or 312, 321 n 7, 745 P2d 757 (1987). Because I do not believe defendant had a cognizable privacy right to engage in sexual acts in the common area of a public restroom, I dissent.
We can all agree on the inviolability of the toilet by the government. Police surveillance of restroom stalls is an unwarranted intrusion on “ ‘the people’s freedom from scrutiny * * *.’ ” State v. Campbell, 306 Or 157, 171, 759 P2d 1040 (1988). At the same time, no search occurs where
“[p]ersons * * * conduct themselves in otherwise protected areas in such a way that their words or acts can plainly be seen or heard outside without any special effort. * * * [A] person’s conduct within private premises may be such as to sacrifice the ‘expectation of privacy.’ ” State v. Louis, 296 Or 57, 61, 672 P2d 708 (1983).
That is the case here. Defendant did not engage in a sexual act in the privacy of his restroom stall. On the contrary, he masturbated while standing in the common area of the restroom in front of a stall occupied by another. Defendant himself described this area as “very open to the public.” He knew that his actions in the common area could be seen by *505anyone entering the restroom.1 Had defendant performed his acts on the 50 yard line of a Seahawks game during halftime, he could not successfully contend that he had a right not to be videotaped. I see little difference between that and performing sexual acts in front of another, knowing that a member of the public could walk in at any moment. Both are fundamentally inconsistent with a claim that one’s “privacy rights” have been violated.2
“What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection.” Katz v. United States, 389 US 347, 351-52, 88 S Ct 507, 19 L Ed 2d 576 (1967) (cited with approval in State v. Campbell, supra, 306 Or at 169). Because I believe the same is true of Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution, I respectfully dissent.

 This case differs from State v. Campbell, supra, 306 Or at 157, in at least two respects. First, in Campbell, technological enhancements were required to see the defendant’s conduct. Here, the officer monitoring the restroom used the videotape to record what he himself saw. As the Campbell court observed:
“A court has never held * * * that a police officer engages in a search by making unaided observations from a public place, and an individual therefore cannot be said to have a constitutionally protected interest in freedom from such scrutiny.” State v. Campbell, supra, 306 Or at 170.
Moreover,
“whether the public in fact would have the same view that was captured on film * * * concerns the weight of the photographic evidence, not whether it resulted from an unlawful ‘search.’ ” State v. Louis, supra, 296 Or at 61 n 2.
Second, in Campbell, the object of the police surveillance was Campbell’s own car. By contrast, the bathroom here did not belong to defendant, but to the public.

 Defendant did not recover his privacy interest by darting back into his own stall when a third person entered the restroom. A desire for secrecy cannot be equated with a right to privacy. See State v. Tanner, supra, 304 Or at 322 n 7. It is not reasonable to use the “public area of a restroom to do things one wishes hidden from the eyes of others.” State v. Holt, 291 Or 343, 350, 630 P2d 854 (1981).