Open Fields 2

OLIVER v. UNITED STATES United States Supreme Cow-t 466 U.S. 170 (1984) JUSTICE PowELL delivered the opinion of th .e Court. The "open fields" doctrine, first enunciated by this Court in Hester -u United States, 265 U.S. 57 (1924), permits police officers to enter and search a field without a warrant. We granted certiorari in these cases to clarify confusion that has arisen as to the continued vitality of the doctrine. I No. 82-15. Acting on reports that marijuana was being raised on the farm of petitioner Oliver, two narcotics agents of the Kentucky State Police went to the farm to investigate. Arriving at the farm, they drove past petitioner's house to a locked gate with a "No Trespassing'' sign. A foot-path led around one side of the gate. The agents walked around the gate and along the road for several hundred yards, passing a barn and a parked camper. At that point, someone standing in front of the camper shouted, "No hunting is allowed, come back here." The officers shouted back that they were Kentucky State Police officers, but found no one when they retw·necl to the camper. The officers resumed thei!· investigation of the f a rm and found a field of marijuana over a mile from petitioner's home. Petitioner was arrested and indicted for "manufacturing" a "controlled sub- stance." 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(l). After a pretrial hearing, the District Court sup- pressed evidence of the discovery of the marijuana fields. Applying Katz -u United States, . .. the court found that petitioner had a reasonable expectation that the fields would remain private because petitioner "had done all that could be expected of him to assert his privacy in the area of farm that was searched." He had posted no trespassing signs at regular intervals and had locked the gate at the entrance to the center of the farm. Further, the com·t noted that the fields themselves are highly secluded: they are bounded on all sides by woods, fences and embankments and cannot be seen from any point of public access. The court concluded that this was not an "open" field that invited casual intrusion. The Court of Appeals for the Si.>..-th Circuit, sitting en bane, reversed the district court. . . . The court concluded that Katz, upon which the District Court relied, had not impaired the vitality of the open fields doctrine of H este1·. Rather, the open fields doctrine was entirely compatible with Katz's emphasis on privacy. The court reasoned that the "human relations that create the need for privacy do not ordinarily take place" in open fields, and that the property owner's common law right to exclude trespassers is insufficiently Jinked to p1ivacy to wan-ant the Fourth Amendment's protection. No. 82-1278. After receiving an anonymous tip that marijuana was being grown in the woods behind respondent Thornton's residence, two police officers entered

§ 3.04 WARRANTLESS SEARCHES 3 41 the woods by a path between his residence and a neighboring house. They followed a footpath through the woods until they reached two marijuana patches fenced with chicken wire. Later, the officers determined that the patches were on the property of respondent, obtained a warrant to search the property and seized the marijuana. On the basis of this evidence, respondent was an·ested and indicted. The trial court granted respondent's motion to suppress the fruits of the second search. The warrant for this search was premised on information that the police had obtained during their previous warrantless search, that the court found to be unreasonable. "No Trespassing" signs and the secluded location of the marijuana patches evinced a reasonable expectation of privacy. Therefore, the court held, the "open fields" doctrine did not apply. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court afnrmed . ... It agreed with the trial court that the correct question was whether the search "is a violation of privacy on which the individual justifiably relied," id. . . . , and that the search violated respondent's privacy. The court also agreed that the "open fields" doctrine did not justify the search. That doctrine applies, according to the court, only when officers are lawfully present on property and observe "open and patent" activity. . . . In this case, the ofncers had trespassed upon defendant's property, and the respondent had made every effort to conceal his activity. II The ruie announced in Hester -u United States was founded upon the explicit language of the Fourth Amendment. That Amendment indicates with some precision the places and things encompassed by its protections. ,As Justice Holmes explained for the Court in his characteristically laconic style: "[T]he special protection accorded by the Fourth Amendment to the people in their 'persons, houses, papers, and effects,' is not extended to the open fields. The distinction between the latter and the house is as old as the common law." . . . Nor are the open fields' "effects" \vi thin the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. In this respect, it is suggestive that James Madison's proposed draft of what became the Fourth Amendment preserves "[t]he rights of the people to be secure in their persons, their houses, their papers, and their other property, from all unreasonable searches and seizures." See N. Lass on, 1.'he History and Development of the Fou1ih Amendment to the United States Constitution 100, n. 77 (1937). Although Congress' revisions of Madison's proposal broadened the scope of the Amendment in some respects, id., at 100-103, the term "effects" is less inclusive than "property" and cannot be said to encompass open fields. We conclude, as did the Court in deciding Hester -u United States, that the government's intrusion upon the open fields is not one of those "unreasonable searches" proscribed by the text of the Fourth Amendment. III This interpretation of the Fourth Amendment's language is consistent with the understanding of the right to privacy expressed in our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Since Katz -u United States, . . . the touchstone of Fourth Amend-