Washington court rules that even if your home is a tent, you have a right to privacy inside it
Every
person has the right to privacy in their home, regardless of whether
that home is a lean-to on a roadside or a mansion on a mountain.
By ruling that a homeless man camping on public land has the same right
to privacy inside his tent as others have in their homes—and that police
can’t enter without a warrant— the Washington Court of Appeals this
month affirmed this right.
The case, State of Washington v. Pippin, involves William
Pippin, who was living in a shelter he’d fashioned by draping a tarp
over a fence and a guardrail in Vancouver, Washington, when he was
visited one morning by police. When officers rapped on the tarp, Pippin
told them he was just waking up and would come out shortly.
Instead of waiting for Pippin to emerge, officers lifted the tarp,
revealing Pippin sitting up in his makeshift bed; as Pippin got out of
bed, officers saw a bag containing methamphetamine. By entering Pippin’s
tent without permission, police conducted an unlawful warrantless
search of his home, the ACLU-WA said in friend of the court brief in the
case. The State Court of Appeals agreed: Pippin’s rights were violated
under Article I, section 7 of the Washington constitution, which
mandates that “[n]o person shall be disturbed in his private affairs, or
his home invaded, without authority of law.”
One’s home has throughout history been seen as the ultimate bulwark
against government intrusion, the court said in its decision. Because a
person’s home is likely to contain intimate details of their life that
must not be revealed against their will, the law protects homes from
warrantless searches.
But one need not occupy a traditional home to have this privacy right.
Courts have also found that, for people who are homeless, closed baggage
and containers are protected areas.
Pippin lived in a lean-to, but that a home is temporary does not
diminish the right to privacy within it, “nor does the flimsy and
vulnerable nature of an improvised structure. For the homeless, those
may often be the only refuge for the private in the world as it is,” the
court said.
The court rebuked the State’s assertion that Pippin’s homelessness was a
choice: “To call homelessness voluntary, and thus unworthy of basic
privacy protection is to walk blind among the realities around us.”
Such an argument would wrongly penalize people for being poor by
stripping from them the privacy rights the law guarantees everyone else.
“Our Constitution means something better,” the court said.
To illustrate what that might look like, the court quoted “King Lear,” who, in Act 3, Scene 4, has been stripped of his power and wealth, and faces a raging storm.
At last Lear sees how poor and homeless people in his Kingdom suffer as
they struggle to endure the elements. Remorseful for his blindness to
their plight, Lear implores those in power not to follow his lead, but
to instead, “Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, That thou mayst .
. . show the heavens more just.”
The lessons learned by Shakespeare’s tragic hero should not be lost on
us. The law exists, the court said, not only to prevent anarchy and
grease the wheels of our economy, but also to “bring signs of justice
amid our thirsts and furies and, in doing so, remind us of our
humanity.”
Doug Klunder and Nancy Talner of the ACLU of Washington wrote the brief,
which was also signed by Homeless Rights Advocacy Project, Outsiders
Inn, and Real Change.
https://www.riddelllaw.com/search-tent-campsite-trespassing/
No Expectation of Privacy for Trespassers
The pivotal question was whether the defendant had an expectation of privacy in the area searched.
Answer: Because he was trespassing – the area was fair game for a warrantless search.
When you intentionally or voluntarily put your property in a place where you have no legitimate expectation of privacy, such as an abandoned shack or as a trespasser upon another’s property, you have no legitimate reasonable expectation that your stuff will remain undisturbed. So, under the law, there is no standing or right to contest a search.
In fact, if you are trespassing, you have no more expectation of privacy than if you had placed the items in plain view.
As the items were voluntarily left in an area in which the defendant did not have an expectation of privacy, he lacked standing to challenge the seizure and search.
well-being of a person. These situations typically arise when an individual is having a hard time getting ahold of a family member, friend, or neighbor and they believe something is wrong with the person. The most common type of welfare check is checking on an elderly person. However, welfare checks can be utilized for a wide variety of reasons, including but not limited to, potential suicide, drug overdose, and child endangerment.
In order to request a welfare check, an individual must first get in contact with law enforcement, whether that be through 911 or a non-emergency number. Prior to contacting law enforcement, an individual must be certain that the person they are concerned about is in danger. If the individual lives in the same area as the person they are concerned about, he or she may accompany authorities to that person’s residence. Additionally, no court order is required for police to conduct a welfare check. As long as the officer has reasonable grounds to believe that an inhabitant in a residence is endangered, they can legally enter the premises. Law enforcement is given this power under the Community Caretaking Doctrine, a judicially created exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment.
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