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Search and Seizure – Reasonable expectation of privacy

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//January 6, 2015//

Search and Seizure – Reasonable expectation of privacy

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//January 6, 2015//

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U.S Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Search and Seizure – Reasonable expectation of privacy

Recording a conversation in the back of a squad car does not violate a suspect’s reasonable expectation of privacy.

“Instead, the insurmountable obstacle to his claim is in the objective portion of the test-whether the expectation is one that society accepts as reasonable. Although our circuit has not yet addressed this question, six circuits have done so over the last two decades and all have held that there is no objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in a conversation that occurs in a squad car. See United States v. Dunbar, 553 F.3d 48, 57 (1st Cir. 2009); United States v. Turner, 209 F.3d 1198, 1200-01 (10th Cir. 2000); United States v. Clark, 22 F.3d 799, 801-02 (8th Cir. 1994); United States v. McKinnon, 985 F.2d 525, 527-28 (11th Cir. 1993); United States v. Fridie, 442 Fed. Appx. 839, 841 (4th Cir. 2011)(unpublished); United States v. Carter, 117 F.3d 1418 (5th Cir. 1997)(unpublished). The reasoning of those courts are instructive. The Tenth Circuit in Turner based its holding on the distinct nature of a squad car, which is a place bristling with electronics in which the practical realities of the situation should be apparent to occupants. 209 F.3d at 1201. It noted that in addition to the microphones to a dispatcher, it is increasingly common for squad cars to possess video recording devices (and in fact one such device was used to record the conversation in this case,) and other electronic and recording devices. Id. Moreover, as a number of circuits have recognized, the squad car is in essence the mobile office of the patrol officer, and the back seat is often used as a temporary jail for housing and transporting arrestees and suspects. Clark, 22 F.3d at 801-02; McKinnon, 985 F.2d at 527. Given the nature of the vehicle and the visible presence of electronics capable of transmitting any internal conversations, the expectation that a conversation within the vehicle is private is not an expectation that society would recognize to be reasonable. We agree with those circuits, and hold that conversations in a squad car such as the one in this case are not entitled to a reasonable expectation of privacy, and therefore the recording of the conversation is not a violation of the Fourth Amendment.”

Affirmed.

13-1927 U.S. v. Webster

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, Miller, J., Rovner, J.

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