Open-fields doctrine: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 09:48, 6 January 2024

Revision as of 19:03, 6 January 2024

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== Distinguishing open fields from curtilage ==

While open fields are not protected by the Fourth Amendment, the [[curtilage]], or outdoor area immediately surrounding the home, may be protected. Courts have treated this area as an extension of the house, and as such, is subject to all the privacy protections afforded a person's home (unlike a person's open fields) under the Fourth Amendment.

An area is curtilage if it "harbors the intimate activity associated with the sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life."<ref>''[[United States v. Dunn]]'', {{Ussc|480|294|1987|pin=300}}.</ref> Courts make this determination by examining "the proximity of the area claimed to be curtilage to the home, whether the area is included within an enclosure surrounding the home, the nature of the uses to which the area is put, and the steps taken by the resident to protect the area from observation by people passing by."<ref>''Dunn'', 480 U.S. at 301.</ref> Theoretically, many structures might extend the curtilage protection to the areas immediately surrounding them. The courts have gone so far as to treat a tent as a home for Fourth Amendment purposes in the past.<ref>''[https://casetext.com/case/us-v-gooch-7 United States v. Gooch]'', 6 F.3d 673 (9th Cir. 1993).</ref><ref>''[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=17867362683417409777&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr LaDuke v. Nelson]'', 762 F.2d 1318 (9th Cir. 1985)'</ref><ref>''[https://casetext.com/case/laduke-v-castillo LaDuke v. Castillo]'', 455 F.Supp. (E.D. Wash. 1978).</ref>

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==Rejections of doctrine by state courts==

Since ''Oliver'', the highest courts of [[Montana]], [[New York (state)|New York]], [[Oregon]] and [[Vermont]], as well as a [[Washington (state)|Washington]] state appeals court, have held that the open-fields doctrine does not apply in those states due to their state constitutions granting greater protections to citizens (under [[dual sovereignty]] a state may grant its citizens more rights than those guaranteed in the federal constitution). Since ''Katz'' grounded privacy in persons rather than places, they argue, landowners who have taken affirmative steps to exclude the public, such as fencing or posting the [[boundary (real estate)|boundariesbounds]], are thereby assertingassert a privacy interest sufficient to prevail over any warrantless search of the property where common exceptions such as [[hot pursuit]] and plain view do not apply. Some of those opinions have been critical of not only ''Oliver'' but ''Hester''.

In a 2017 [[concurring opinion]] where the doctrine did not come into play in overturning a [[Wisconsin]] farmer's convictions for threatening two state game wardens he believed had been illegal hunters trespassing on his land, Justice [[Rebecca Bradley]] of [[Wisconsin Supreme Court|that state's Supreme Court]] was highly critical of it.<ref name="State v. Stietz">{{cite court |litigants=State v. Stietz|vol=895|reporter=[[North Western Reporter|N.W. 2d]]|opinion=796|court=[[Wisconsin Supreme Court|Wisc.]]|date=2017|pinpoint=812–815|url=https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15612653012475974548|access-date=September 17, 2019}}</ref>