LaFollette v. Commonwealth

915 S.W.2d 747, 1996 Ky. LEXIS 11, 1996 WL 83170
CourtKentucky Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 22, 1996
Docket94-SC-1018-DG
StatusPublished
Cited by48 cases

This text of 915 S.W.2d 747 (LaFollette v. Commonwealth) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Kentucky Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
LaFollette v. Commonwealth, 915 S.W.2d 747, 1996 Ky. LEXIS 11, 1996 WL 83170 (Ky. 1996).

Opinions

REYNOLDS, Justice.

Danny LaFollette entered a conditional guilty plea to a felony charge of cultivating marijuana and appeals from a judgment and sentence of one-year imprisonment.

The appellant has been a grower of marijuana by utilizing an indoor grow operation located on his property. He was the subject of an informant’s recent Crimestoppers’ tip and his property, without a search warrant, was the target of a helicopter fly-over which used a Forward Looking Infrared Radar (FLIR) to survey heat emissions from appellant’s residence.

The trial court held the FLIR over-flight was not a search and overruled appellant’s request for suppression of the marijuana evidence subsequently seized during execution of the search warrant. The search warrant was based upon the informant’s tip and collected data from the flyover.

Appellant maintains use of the FLIR constitutes an illegal search of his residence which is violative of Section 10 of the Kentucky Constitution and the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Examination of Section 10 and the Fourth Amendment reflects a pronounced similarity with little textual difference. Crayton v. Commonwealth, Ky., 846 S.W.2d 684 (1992). While no requirement exists to follow the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States as we interpret the Constitution of Kentucky, we certainly shall not ignore either the logic or scholarship of that Court. Rooker v. Commonwealth, Ky., 508 S.W.2d 570 (1974). Stated otherwise, Section 10 of the Kentucky Constitution provides no greater protection than does the federal Fourth Amendment. Estep v. Commonwealth, Ky., 663 S.W.2d 213 (1983).

FLIR is described as a “passive, nonintru-sive instrument which detects differences in temperature on the surface of objects being observed. It does not send any beams or rays into the area on which it is fixed or in any way penetrate structures within that area.” United States v. Penny-Feeney, 773 F.Supp. 220, 223 (D.Hawaii 1991) aff'd on other grounds, 984 F.2d 1053 (9th Cir.1993). Through thermal imagery, the FLIR essentially measures “heat waste” emanating from a structure and displays the differences in temperatures through a viewfinder in vary[749]*749ing shades of color. The FLIR is used to affirm indoor grow operations since:

[A] structure being used for the purpose of cultivating marijuana under artificial lighting would produce and show a significant amount of heat due to the large amounts of heat grow-lights or artificial lights generate.... [T]his heat would also cause the structure to register as warmer on the FLIR than similar types of structures without any internal sources of heat.

Penny-Feeney, at 224.

This Court’s opinion is furthered with a determination that the use of a FLIR unit does not constitute a search. Such holding is developed by a consideration of whether the instrument infringed upon appellant’s legitimate expectation of privacy. United States v. Kyllo, 809 F.Supp. 787, 792 (D.Oregon 1992), provides:

Under Katz [v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967) ], an expectation of privacy is only reasonable where (1) the individual manifests a subjective expectation of privacy in the object of the challenged search; and (2) society is willing to recognize that subjective expectation as reasonable. Id. 389 U.S. at 361, 88 S.Ct. at 516. The second element turns on “whether the government’s intrusion infringes upon the personal and societal values protected by the Fourth Amendment.” Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 182-83, 104 S.Ct. 1735, 1743, 80 L.Ed.2d 214 (1984).

The party seeking suppression must not only exhibit an expectation of privacy in the area, but the expectation must be one society is willing to acknowledge as reasonable. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 361, 88 S.Ct. 507, 516, 19 L.Ed.2d 576, 587-588 (1967), (Harlan, J., concurring). The mission was simply to detect differences of temperature on the surface of an object, which is described as thermal imaging, and at most, is a gauge to reflect the amount of heat emitted by an object. We would add that in most instances helicopters are permitted to fly at any altitude if their operation is conducted without hazards to persons or property on the surface and, therefore, all airspace is navigable to them. Commonwealth v. Oglialoro, 525 Pa. 250, 579 A.2d 1288 (1990). The condition of appellant’s structure lacked any features related to heat containment and had he expected privacy, society would find no reasonable expectation thereof. See California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35, 108 S.Ct. 1625, 100 L.Ed.2d 30 (1987), (wherein garbage left for collection found no protection under the Fourth Amendment).

A suppression hearing requires the moving party to carry the burden of establishing the evidence was secured by an unlawful search. United States v. Blakeney, 942 F.2d 1001 (6th Cir.1991), cert. denied 502 U.S. 1035, 112 S.Ct. 881, 116 L.Ed.2d 785 (1992); Strong v. Commonwealth, 297 Ky. 591, 180 S.W.2d 560 (1944). The sheer condition of appellant’s residence offered no expectation of privacy as to heat emission. United States v. Myers, 46 F.3d 668 (7th Cir.1995). “What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection.” Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. at 351, 88 S.Ct. at 511, 19 L.Ed.2d at 582.

Had appellant made such a privacy claim and satisfied the first prong of Katz, the subjective expectations would fail for it is not a “reasonable” privacy interest nor one society would deem as acceptable. Defendants do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy “in the inculpatory items that they discarded.” California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. at 41, 108 S.Ct. at 1629, 100 L.Ed.2d at 37. Unlike telephone taps or electronic devices that penetrate the walls of a home, heat waste does not disclose any fact intimate or personal about the occupant. Penny-Fee-ney, 773 F.Supp. at 228. “None of the interests which form the basis for the need for protection of a residence, namely the intimacy, personal autonomy and privacy associated with a home, are threatened by thermal imagery.” United States v. Pinson, 24 F.3d 1056, 1059 (8th Cir.1994).

The majority of jurisdictions hold that use of thermal imagery does not constitute a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Ishmael, 48 F.3d 850 (5th Cir.1995);

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
915 S.W.2d 747, 1996 Ky. LEXIS 11, 1996 WL 83170, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lafollette-v-commonwealth-ky-1996.