Undermining excessive privacy for police: Citizen tape recording to check police officers' power

Yale Law Journal

Volumn 117, Issue 7, 2008, Pages 1549-1558

  Mishra, Dina ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 44849129009     PISSN: 00440094     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/20454687     Document Type: Note

References (97)

1. 492 F.3d 24, 25 (1st Cir. 2007).
2. Id. at 25-26 & n.2;
3. see also MASS. GEN. LAWS ch. 272, § 99 (C) (1), (3) (2000).
4. Jean, 492 F.3d at 25-26.
5. Id. at 33.
6. Id. at 31 (stating that the tape was "recorded illegally" and "illegally intercepted").
7. See CAL. PENAL CODE § 632 (West 1999);
8. DEL. CODE ANN. tit. 11, § 1335(a) (2007);
9. FLA. STAT. ANN. § 934.03(2)(D) (West 2001);
10. HAW. REV. STAT. ANN. § 711-1111(1)(d)-(e) (Lexis Nexis 2007);
11. ILL. COMP. STAT. ANN. 5/14-2(a)(1) (West 2003);
12. KAN. STAT. ANN. § 21-4001(a) (Supp. 2006);
13. MD. CODE ANN., CTS. & JUD. PROC. § 10-402(c)(3) (West 2006);
14. MICH. COMP. LAWS. ANN. § 750.539c-d (West 2004);
15. MONT. CODE ANN. § 45-8-213(1) (c) (2007);
16. N.H. REV. STAT. ANN. § 570-A:2(I) (2003);
17. PA. CONS. STAT. ANN. § 5704(4) (West 2000);
18. WASH. REV. CODE ANN. § 9.73.030(1) (West 2003).
19. See, e.g., WASH. REV. CODE ANN. § 9.73.030(1) (West 2003) (protecting only "private" oral communication);
20. State v. Flora, 845 Pad 1355 (Wash. Ct. App. 1992) (holding mat police officers' conversations during arrests are not "private").
21. See, e.g., 720 III. COMP. STAT. ANN. 5/14-2(1) (West 2003);
22. MASS. GEN. LAWS ch. 272, § 99(C) (2000);
23. MONT. CODE ANN. S 45-8-213(1)(C) (2007).
24. But see 720 ILL. COMP. STAT. ANN. 5/14-3(0 (West 2003) (exempting recordings made with reasonable suspicion that another party to the conversation will commit a criminal offense).
25. See, e.g., People v. Beardsley, 503 N.E.2d 346 (Ill. 1986);
26. Flora, 845 P.2d 1355;
27. Matt Miller, He's Cleared in Police Taping, PATRIOT- NEWS (Harrisburg), June 21, 2007, at A1;
28. Sarasotan Charged with Taping Police, SARASOTA HERALD-TRIB. (Fla.), Sept. 1, 2000, at 4B;
29. Andrew Wolfe, Man Charged After Videotaping Police, NASHUA TELEGRAPH (N.H.), June 29, 2006, at 1.
30. See, e.g., State v. Bichsel, 790 Pad 1142 (Or. Ct. App. 1990).
31. MASS. GEN. LAWS ch. 272, § 99(B)(4), (C)(1) (2000) (emphasis added).
32. Commonwealth v. Hyde, 750 N.E3.2d 963, 964 (Mass. 2001).
33. 532 U.S. 514, 534 (2001).
34. Id. at 532 n.19. This holding is consistent with the many cases establishing that the First Amendment does not protect the media from liability for privacy-invasive torts or crimes committed in the process of newsgathering.
35. See, e.g., Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 684 (1972); Galella v. Onassis, 487 F.2d 986, 995-96 (2d Cir. 1973); Dietemann v. Time, Inc., 449 F.2d 245, 249 (9th Cir. 1971).
36. Dietemann, 449 F.2d at 249.
37. See Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S. 388, 392 (1971) ("An agent acting-albeit unconstitutionally-in the name of the United States possesses a far greater capacity for harm than an individual trespasser....").
38. See Malcolm Thorburn, Justifications, Powers, and Authority, 117 YALE L.J. 1070, 1104 (2008) ("[A] list of police functions looks like a list of serious criminal offenses.").
39. See, e.g., DAVID WEISBURD ET AL., NAT'L INST, OF JUSTICE, U.S. DEP'T OF JUSTICE, POLICE ATTITUDES TOWARD ABUSE OF AUTHORITY: FINDINGS FROM A NATIONAL STUDY 3 (2000), http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/ 181312.pdf (reporting that twenty-two percent of police officers claim their fellow officers sometimes, often, or always use excessive force).
40. See Joseph A Colquitt, Rethinking Entrapment, 41 AM. CRIM. L. REV. 1389, 1437 (2004) (referring to "the power of police to act on [the public's] behalf").
41. See, e.g., 3 WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES *288.
42. U.S. CONST, amend. IV (emphasis added);
43. see Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796, 810 (1984) ;
44. Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 589-90 (1980).
45. MASS. GEN. LAWS ch. 272, S 99(A) (2000) (emphasis added).
46. See, e.g., Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988, 29 U.S.C. § 2006 (2000) (protecting most private employees from employer-required lie detector tests, but excluding government employees, private security officers, and other private employees with responsibilities that resemble those of police officers);
47. Biehunik v. Felicetta, 441 F.2d 228, 231 (2d Cir. 1971). Massachusetts itself has recognized that police officers are entitled to less privacy than ordinary citizens.
48. See Guiney v. Police Comm'r, 582 N.E.2d 523, 528 (Mass. 1991) (listing specific Massachusetts statutes as well as First Circuit and Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court cases).
49. See Amati v. City of Woodstock, 176 F.3d 952, 955 (7th Cir. 1999) ;
50. John B. Wefing, Employer Drug Testing: Disparate Judicial and Legislative Responses, 63 ALB. L. REV. 799, 805-14 (2000).
51. See WEISBURD, supra note 18, at 3 (documenting that sixty-one percent of police officers claim fellow officers do not always report even serious criminal forms of police abuse).
52. Gabriel J. Chin & Scott C. Wells, The "Blue Wall of Silence" as Evidence of Bias and Motive To Lie: A New Approach to Police Perjury, 59 U. PITT. L. REV. 233, 237 (1998);
53. William C. Heffernan, Foreword: The Fourth Amendment Exclusionary Rule as a Constitutional Remedy, 88 GEO. L.J. 799, 868-69 (2000).
54. Christopher Slobogin, Testifying: Police Perjury and What To Do About It, 67 U. COLO. L. REV. 1037, 1052 (1996).
55. Cf. Christina Hall, Suspension Advised for Officer Who Erased Tape, BLADE (Toledo), July 12, 2007, at Bi (describing how a police officer purposely recorded over a videotape of an arrest).
56. See Kathleen M. O'Day, Comment, Pretextual Traffic Stops: Protecting Our Streets or Racist Police Tactics?, 23 U. DAYTON L. REV. 313, 328 (1998).
57. See Slobogin, supra note 27, at 1052.
58. See Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S. 388, 410 (1971) (Harlan, J., concurring);
59. Wesley G. Skogan & Tracey L. Meares, Lawful Policing, 593 ANNALS AM. ACAD. POL. & Soc. Sci. 66, 71 (2004).
60. Akhil Reed Amar, Fourth Amendment First Principles, 107 HARV. L. REV. 757, 799 (1994);
61. Guido Calabresi, The Exclusionary Rule, 26 HARV. J.L. & PUB. POL'Y 111, 112 (2002).
62. See Tom Barker & David Carter, "Fluffing Up the Evidence and Covering Your Ass": Some Conceptual Notes on Police Lying, 11 DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 61, 67 (1990) (suggesting that many police officers endorse an "ends justifies the means" approach and therefore feel morally justified in misleading the court in order to secure a conviction) ;
63. David N. Dorfman, Proving the Lie: Litigating Police Credibility, 26 AM. J. CRIM. L. 455, 461 (1999);
64. Myron W. Orfield, Jr., Deterrence, Perjury and the Heater Factor: An Exclusionary Rule in the Chicago Criminal Courts, 63 U. COLO. L. REV. 75, 107 (1992) (providing evidence that police perjury occurs in twenty to fifty-three percent of the city's suppression hearings);
65. Slobogin, supra note 27, at 1040.
66. See Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586, 610-11 (2006) (Breyer, J., dissenting); NAT'L RESEARCH COUNCIL OF THE NAT'L ACADS., FAIRNESS AND EFFECTIVENESS IN POLICING: THE EVIDENCE 276 (Wesley Skogan & Kathleen Frydl eds., 2004);
67. Potter Stewart, The Road to Mapp v. Ohio and Beyond: The Origins, Development and Future of the Exclusionary Rule in Search and Seizure Cases, 83 COLUM. L. REV. 1365, 1388-89 (1983).
68. Alison L. Patton, Note, The Endless Cycle of Abuse: Why 42 U.S.C. § 1983 Is Ineffective in Deterring Police Brutality, 44 HASTINGS L.J. 753, 753-54 (1993).
69. Jack M. Beermann, The Unhappy History of Civil Rights Legislation, Fifty Years Later, 34 CONN. L. REV. 981, 1010 (2002). Punitive damages are rarely awarded.
70. See Jack M. Beermann, A Critical Approach to Section 1983 with Special Attention to Sources of Law, 42 STAN. L. REV. 51, 78 (1989).
71. Stewart, supra note 34, at 1386-87; Patton, supra note 35, at 754.
72. See Patton, supra note 35, at 754 (emphasizing that plaintiffs rarely win in § 1983 actions without corroborating evidence) ;
73. Gina Barton, Man in Police Case Arrested in Drug Charge, MILWAUKEE J. SENTINEL, Apr. 25, 2007, at 3B (describing how a citizen's recording led to the conviction of a police officer).
74. See Commonwealth v. Hyde, 750 N.E.2d 963, 977 (Mass. 2001) (Marshall, C.J., dissenting) (referring to the media's "constitutional role of watchdog") ;
75. NAT'L RESEARCH COUNCIL OF THE NAT'L ACADS., supra note 34, at 280 (explaining that police departments are forced to respond to significant media attention).
76. See Erik Luna, Transparent Policing, 85 IOWAL. REV. 1107 (2000).
77. See supra notes 20-23 and accompanying text.
78. Florida and New Jersey adopt this approach for all communications, no matter who utters them, FLA. STAT. ANN. § 934.02(2) (West 2001);
79. N.J. STAT. ANN. § 2A:156A-2 to -3 (West 1985), but Massachusetts and similar states should not unnecessarily limit protection for citizen communications.
80. See Biehunik v. Felicetta, 441 F.2d 228, 231 (2d Cir. 1971);
81. Mason v. Stock, 869 F. Supp. 828, 833 (D. Kan. 1994);
82. Guiney v. Police Comm'r, 582 N.E.2d 523, 528 (Mass. 1991).
83. See, e.g., Migut v. Flynn, 131 F. App'x 262, 266 (11th Cir. 2005) (conversations with citizens) ;
84. Johnson v. Hawe, 388 F.3d 676, 685 (9th Cir. 2004) (communications over a police radio that commonly could be overheard by private citizens) ;
85. People v. Beardsley, 503 N.E.2d 346, 351 (Ill. 1986) (conversations within hearing of citizens).
86. See Hornberger v. Am. Broadcasting Cos., 799 A.2d 566 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 2002) (finding that police could not reasonably expect privacy for their conversations inside a citizen's car in his absence).
87. For example, courts have recognized that police officers have a reasonable expectation of privacy in at least some areas of their workplace. See, e.g., United States v. Speights, 557 F.2d 362, 363 (3d Cir. 1977).
88. See Brandon Payne, Estimating the Risk Premium of Law Enforcement Officers (Nov. 27, 2002) (unpublished manuscript), http://www.ecu.edu/econ/ecer/ payne.pdf. Unlike risks to physical safety, emotional discomfort about being recorded seems unlikely to significantly discourage potential law enforcement officers.
89. See Eddie Jimenez, Watching Cops May Help Clarify Situations, FRESNO BEE, Mar. 17, 2006, at Bi (reporting a local police chiefs comment that he "isn't opposed to [citizens] filming his officers in action so long as [they] keep[] a reasonable distance").
90. E.g., WASH. REV. CODE ANN. §9.73.030(1) (West 2003).
91. E.g., CAL. PENAL CODE § 632(a) (West 1999).
92. E.g., KAN. STAT. ANN. § 21-4001(a) (1995).
93. E.g., FLA. STAT. ANN. § 934.02(2) (West 2001);
94. N.J. STAT. § 2A:156A-2(b) (West 1985).
95. See Hornberger v. Am. Broadcasting Cos., 799 A.2d 566 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 2002) (suggesting that the New Jersey recording law would prohibit citizen recording of police within the citizen's own car but for the law's additional stipulation that it protects only communications uttered with the justifiable expectation that they would not be recorded).
96. E.g., KAN. STAT. ANN. § 21-4001(a) (1995).
97. See 720 ILL. COMP. STAT. 5/14-3(1) (West 2003).