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Daniel Case (talk | contribs) →Rejections of doctrine by state courts: start section on Vermont case |
Daniel Case (talk | contribs) →State v. Kirchoff: start on the opinion |
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The sheriff called in two other officers to keep an eye on the marijuana while they got a [[search warrant]]. Kirchoff went out to tend them at this point, and admitted to the officers that he had been growing them. When the sheriff returned, he and the police seized the plants and other evidence of the grow operation from Kirchoff's house.<ref name="Kirchoff at 990" />
At trial, Kirchoff moved to have the evidence obtained from the search suppressed. It was denied, and he was convicted. He appealed to the state's Supreme Court.<ref name="Kirchoff at 990" />{{efn|Vermont has no intermediate appellate courts}} The case was not argued until 1989, and it took an additional two years for the court to decide.<ref name="Kirchoff at 999">''Kirchoff'', at 999</ref>
In early 1991 the Supreme Court issued its decision, holding 4–1 that the evidence should have been suppressed. After reviewing the facts of the case, Justice [[James L. Morse]] conceded that the search was lawful under ''Oliver''. However, the court went on to note that it had to consider whether the search complied with Article 11 of the [[Constitution of Vermont|state constitution]], which while substantially similar to the Fourth Amendment did have some differences in wording. Most significantly, it referred to a person's "possessions" as coming under its purview rather than just their "effects".<ref name="Kirchoff 991–92">''Kirchoff'', 991–92</ref>
Did that mean it applied to all a person's landholdings, Morse asked? The minimal records from the state's original constitutional debates did not offer much guidance, so he looked at how other states with similar language had addressed the issue. They had divided on the issue, yet at the same time states that used "effects" in their constitutions had held it applied more broadly than ''Oliver'' had held.<ref name="Kirchoff 991–92" />
"Our decision, however, need not rest on the drafters' choice of one word over another", Morse wrote. "Even if we cannot say with confidence that the scope of the term 'possessions' mandates a right of privacy in real estate, it certainly does not rule out such a right." He noted that this interpretation was at odds with ''Oliver'', and said the fault lay with the ''Oliver'' Court, which had "misinterpreted its own Fourth Amendment precedent."<ref name="Kirchoff 991–92" />
In ''Oliver'', the Supreme Court had seemed "to equate privacy with crime", which Morse considered flawed. "If one assumes at the outset that people will only seek privacy in the use of their land for criminal purposes," he wrote, "the conclusion that society will not recognize a claim to privacy in the land readily follows. But we cannot presume how an individual will employ private lands—that is the nature of privacy." ''Oliver''{{'}}s association of privacy and criminality, according to Morse, was an ''[[ipse dixit]]''.<ref name="Kirchoff 992–93">''Kirchoff'', 992–93</ref>
===''People v. Scott''===
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