De Lancie v. Superior Court

• Decision Date: 08 July 1982
• Docket Number: S.F. 24095
• Citation: 183 Cal.Rptr. 866,647 P.2d 142,31 Cal.3d 865
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 647 P.2d 142 Marlene DE LANCIE et al., Petitioners, v. The SUPERIOR COURT OF SAN MATEO COUNTY, Respondent; John McDONALD, as Sheriff, etc., et al., Real Parties in Interest.

Page 866

183 Cal.Rptr. 866

31 Cal.3d 865, 647 P.2d 142

Marlene DE LANCIE et al., Petitioners, v. The SUPERIOR COURT OF SAN MATEO COUNTY, Respondent;

John McDONALD, as Sheriff, etc., et al., Real Parties in Interest.

S.F. 24095.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

July 8, 1982.

Margaret C. Crosby, Alan L. Schlosser, Amitai Schwartz, San Francisco, Thomas J. Nolan and Dorothy Glancy, for petitioners.

Quin Denvir, State Public Defender, and Thomas Lundy, Deputy State Public Defender, as amici curiae on behalf of petitioners.

No appearance for respondent.

Keith C. Sorenson, Dist. Atty., James W. Foley and David A. Levy, Deputy Dist. Attys., for real parties in interest.

James M. Cramer, Dist. Atty., Joseph A. Burns, Deputy Dist. Atty., San Bernardino, as amici curiae on behalf of real parties in interest.

BY THE COURT:

Plaintiffs filed suit for injunctive and declaratory relief, challenging the alleged practice of the San Mateo County Sheriff and other county officials in monitoring and recording conversations of persons detained in county jail awaiting trial. The complaint alleged, inter alia, that the monitoring was not undertaken for security purposes, but rather was utilized primarily to gather evidence for use in criminal trials. The trial court sustained a demurrer without leave to amend to several counts of the complaint, and we granted a hearing to consider whether the alleged monitoring practices exceed the authority of the applicable public officials.

We probe here a very narrow question: may county jail officials monitor ostensibly private conversations between pretrial detainees ¹ and their visitors for the purpose of discovering evidence for use in criminal trials, rather than for the purpose of institutional security or public protection? We explain that by enactment of Penal Code sections 2600 and 2601, the Legislature established a policy that prisoners retain the rights of free persons, including the right of privacy, except to the extent that restrictions are necessary to insure the security of the prison and the protection of the public. Although these statutes speak of persons confined in state prison, detainees in local jails as a matter of logical and constitutional necessity enjoy at least equal rights. Since the allegations of the complaint raise issues of fact as to whether the county monitors conversations for the permissible purpose of safeguarding institutional security and protecting the public, or for the impermissible purpose of gathering evidence for use against the detainees, those allegations state a cause of action under sections 2600 and 2601. We therefore issue a peremptory writ to direct the trial court to overrule defendants' demurrer.

Plaintiffs--three taxpayers, a detainee, and an attorney for several detainees--filed an individual and class action to challenge the surveillance practices in the San Mateo County jail. The trial court sustained defendants' demurrers, without leave to amend, as to the first, second, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth causes of action. Plaintiffs filed the present petition for mandate to overturn the trial court's order.

We begin our analysis by summarizing the allegations of the disputed causes of action. The first cause of action alleges that a detainee's only means of oral communication with a visitor is through a special telephone intercom system installed in visiting areas where the parties are separated by a sound-proof glass panel. The system was "designed and installed in such a manner that conversations could be monitored and recorded without alerting or revealing to plaintiff pretrial detainees and pretrial visitors that their conversations are being monitored and recorded." A guard is stationed on the detainee's side of the panel at a "discreet distance." "The size and arrangement of the visiting facilities, the distance of the guards from the pretrial detainees and their visitors, and the design and use of the telephone communications system combine to deceive plaintiff pretrial detainees and plaintiff visitors by creating the illusion and reasonable expectation of privacy as to their conversations with each other. They are thus encouraged to, and do discuss the most intimate and private aspects of their lives and feelings."

The jail telephone systems are wired into a central monitor. "An unseen deputy sheriff ... sits at this master keyboard and is able to, and does surreptitiously monitor [and record] conversations between plaintiff pretrial detainees and plaintiff visitors." No regulations are in effect to govern the monitoring and recording of conversations or the use of those recordings.

Plaintiffs allege on information and belief that the "conversations are monitored and tape recorded without any probable cause or reasonable suspicion to believe that the contents of said conversations will pertain to illegal acts or activities." Plaintiffs assert that although defendants justify their practice as a means of protecting jail security, "[t]his justification is a sham." Conversations are generally monitored and recorded at the request of the prosecutor or police; "[t]he primary use made ... of the information gathered by this surveillance is as evidence, or as a means to attempt to gather evidence, in criminal proceedings against plaintiff pretrial detainees and others."

Plaintiffs claim that the described surveillance violates a detainee's right of privacy guaranteed by article I, section 1 of the California Constitution, constitutes an unreasonable search and seizure in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and article I, section 13 of the California Constitution, and violates title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2520). They do not specifically allege a violation of Penal Code sections 2600 and 2601. That omission, however, is of no consequence so long as the factual allegations of the complaint state a cause of action under those provisions; "[t]he nature of an action and the issues involved are to be determined, not from the appellation given the pleading, but from the facts alleged and the relief that they support." (Bloniarz v. Roloson (1969) 70 Cal.2d 143, 149, 74 Cal.Rptr. 285, 449 P.2d 221.)

Plaintiffs' second cause of action challenges defendants' policy of random monitoring and recording of private conversations among detainees "in every room in the jail." Plaintiffs assert such surveillance violates the constitutional and statutory provisions referred to in the first cause of action.

Defendants did not demur, or the court failed to sustain demurrers, to the third through ninth causes of action. ² The remaining causes of action (tenth through twelfeth) add no new factual allegations of significance to the first and second causes of action, but merely assert the surveillance described in those earlier counts violates additional constitutional proscriptions: that it chills freedom of speech, association, and religion (tenth cause of action); inflicts cruel and unusual punishment (eleventh cause of action); and denies detainees the equal protection of the laws (twelfth cause of action).

The trial court, as we noted earlier, sustained defendants' demurrer without leave to amend to the first, second, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth causes of action. Plaintiffs petitioned for writ of mandate in the Court of Appeal. That court, although recognizing that the use of a prerogative writ to review rulings on questions of pleadings is generally disfavored (see Babb v. Superior Court (1971) 3 Cal.3d 841, 851, 92 Cal.Rptr. 179, 479 P.2d 379), found mandamus appropriate because the issues presented were matters of general importance, and the trial court's order would bar such issues from being heard on the merits. (See Vasquez v. Superior Court (1971) 4 Cal.3d 800, 807, 94 Cal.Rptr. 796, 484 P.2d 964.) The Court of Appeal then issued a peremptory writ commanding the trial court to overrule the demurrer as to plaintiffs' first, second, and tenth causes of action. We granted a petition for hearing.

As we shall explain, we believe the provisions of Penal Code sections 2600 and 2601 are dispositive of the issues presented in this proceeding. Section 2600, as amended by the Legislature in 1975, provides that "[a] person sentenced to imprisonment in a state prison may, during any such period of confinement, be deprived of such rights, and only such rights, as is necessary in order to provide for the reasonable security of the institution in which he is confined and for the reasonable protection of the public." (Emphasis added.) The broad span of constitutional rights protected by section 2600 is augmented by the terms of section 2601, which specifies that state prisoners "shall have" certain civil rights, among them the right to own or sell property; to buy and read newspapers and periodicals; to marry; to bring civil suits; and, the provision relevant to the instant case, "to have personal visits; provided that the department may provide such restrictions as are necessary for the reasonable security of the institution." (§ 2601, subd. (d).) (Emphasis added.)

The original version of section 2600, enacted in 1850 as section 145 of the Act Concerning Crimes and Punishments, provided that "[a] sentence of imprisonment in the State Prison for a term less than life suspends all civil rights of the person so sentenced during the term of imprisonment, and forfeits all public offices and all private trusts, authority, and power; and the person sentenced to such imprisonment for life shall thereafter be deemed civilly dead. " (Stats.1850, ch. 99, § 145, p. 247.) (Emphasis added.) Under that provision, all state prisoners were relegated to the status of social outcasts, victims of the archaic "civil death" doctrine ³ which conceived of prisoners as something less than human beings.

The Legislature modified the civil death statut...