Reasonable expectation of privacy - Essay Example

The concept of “reasonable expectations of privacy” is an enshrined legal principle whose meaning continues to evolve. Nonetheless, it is important to arrive at a clear consensus as to what it means, particularly in contemporary times. To quote McArthur, “by understanding what reasonable expectations of privacy might be, we can gain a clearer sense of where our concerns that privacy is slipping away are justified and where they are mere expressions of nostalgia for a time of heightened respect for privacy that has long ago passed from any reality.

” (McArthur, 2001). It is also the starting point of analysis in determining whether or not a violation of the Fourth Amendment has occurred (Jones, 1997). The Constitutional principle reposed in the Fourth Amendment that protects the right to privacy of a citizen against unreasonable searches and seizures is triggered when (1) the citizen has a manifested subjective expectation of privacy, (2) and one that society is willing to accept as objectively reasonable. California v. Greenwood (486 U.S. 35 [1988]).

However, the Supreme Court has come up with a long line of cases carving out exceptions to the rule and stating the circumstances where no search occurred as there is no violation of reasonable expectation of privacy. One of the first circumstances is that of “false friends”. This is embodied in the case of Hoffa v. United States (385 U.S. 293 [1966]), where the defendant had made some disclosures to a person he thought to be a union official, but was in fact a government agent. Hoffa claimed that it was an illegal search and claimed his reasonable expectation of privacy.

The argument did not hold, however, as the Supreme Court found that the government agent “was in the suite by invitation and every conversation which he heard was either directed to him or knowingly carried on in his presence.” (page 302). The second circumstance given by the Supreme Court is abandoned property, meaning that there can be no reasonable expectation of privacy where the evidence has been dumped in a public place and law enforcement agents have managed to retrieve it. A good example is a gun that has been thrown in a garbage bin, and thus leaving it exposed to the general public or to a definite third party.

That evidence can be rightly used against him.The third circumstance is physical attributes on display. The courts have held that there cannot possibly be an expectation of privacy when what is sought to be excluded as evidence is physical characteristics that are regularly exposed to the public at large. For example, the police can compel someone under custodial investigation to render handwriting samples (United States v. Dionisio 410 U.S. 1 [1973]), but cannot compel blood or urine "they intrude upon expectations of privacy as to medical information".

Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives Association (489 U.S. 602 [1989]).The last is with respect to open fields and curtilage. Clearly, open fields are beyond the coverage of 4th Amendment Protection, and residences are within the pale of these protections. The main question is the nebulous area between the residences and open fields. As Worrall asked, “if the outside is protected, how far beyond the residence can the strictures of the Fourth Amendment be expected to apply?” (Worrall, 2011).

The Supreme Court characterized this area outside the residence but cannot quite be considered as open fields as “curtilage” and defined it as “the area to which extends the intimate activity associated with the sanctity of a man’s home and the privacies of life”. (Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170 [1984]). The unwieldiness of this definition only demonstrates the fluidity of the doctrine of Reasonable Expectation to privacy. CitationStephen Jones, Reasonable Expectations of Privacy: Searches, Seizures and the Concept of Fourth Amendment Standing, University of Memphis Law Review, 27, (1997).

Robert McArthur, Reasonable Expectations of Privacy, Ethics and Information Techonology,123, (2001).John Worrall, Criminal Procedure: From First Contact to Appeal, 82, (4th ed, 2011).