State v. Larsen, C5-01-980.

• Decision Date: 29 August 2002
• Docket Number: No. C5-01-980.,C5-01-980.
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Petitioner, Appellant, v. Marvin Russell LARSEN, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

650 N.W.2d 144

STATE of Minnesota, Petitioner, Appellant, v. Marvin Russell LARSEN, Respondent.

No. C5-01-980.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

August 29, 2002.

Mike Hatch, Attorney General, St. Paul, MN, G. Paul Beaumaster, Nathaniel J. Reitz, Faribault, MN, Appellant.

Samuel A. McCloud, Carson J. Heefner, McCloud & Boedigheimer, P.A., Shakopee, MN, Respondent.

Kevin G. Ross, Greene Espel, P.L.L.P., Minneapolis, MN, Attorney for Amicus Minnesota Conservation Officers' Association.

Heard, considered and decided by the court en banc.

OPINION

STRINGER, Justice.

In the course of his duties, a Minnesota conservation officer entered the fish house of Marvin Russell Larsen (respondent) to conduct a routine license check. Upon entry, the officer discovered that respondent had three fishing lines in the water and that he was in possession of marijuana. Respondent was charged with a controlled substance offense and angling with one more line than allowed under his license. Respondent moved to suppress all evidence as obtained in an unauthorized search of his fish house. The district court granted respondent's motion and dismissed all charges, and the court of appeals affirmed. We affirm. On the evening of January 31, 2001, Officer Scott Fritz, a licensed peace officer employed by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources as a conservation officer, was patrolling fish house activities on Circle Lake in Rice County, Minnesota. Circle Lake has a public access that provides an entrance point for anglers and snowmobilers and Officer Fritz estimated that on this particular day there were approximately 60 to 80 fish houses on the lake. In the performance of his duties under Minn.Stat. § 97A.215 (2000),¹ Officer Fritz proceeded from fish house to fish house knocking on occupied shelters, identifying himself, and checking licenses. At approximately 6:30 p.m., Officer Fritz arrived at respondent's fish house which was illuminated and had a vehicle parked next to it. Officer Fritz knocked on the door, identified himself as a state game warden and simultaneously opened the door. As he entered, he had no reason to suspect a violation of fishing laws and concedes that respondent did not expressly consent to his entry. Officer Fritz believed however, that he had authority to enter and inspect occupied fish shelters in this manner under Minnesota law.

Upon entering the fish house, Officer Fritz noticed a strong smell of marijuana and saw what appeared to be a marijuana cigarette. He conducted a pat-down search of respondent and found a bag of marijuana. He also noticed that respondent had three lines in the water when only two are permitted. Respondent was charged with possession of a controlled substance pursuant to Minn.Stat. § 152.027, subd. 4 (2000), and unlawful angling lines pursuant to Minn.Stat. § 97C.315 (2000).

Respondent moved to suppress all evidence obtained as a result of Officer Fritz's entry and search of his fish house and to have the charges against him dismissed, asserting that Minn.Stat. § 97A. 215 authorizing a conservation officer to "enter and inspect" his fish house was unconstitutional. Respondent further argued that a fish house is a temporary place of occupancy for anglers, and as such, it is frequently equipped with various accommodations for short-term living including heating, cooking, and other conveniences such as television and sleeping accommodations, much like a private home, and as with a private home, an enforcement officer is without lawful authority to conduct a search of a private fish house without a warrant or other circumstance authorizing an entry. The district court granted respondent's motion ruling that although a fish house was not necessarily comparable to a home, an occupant has a reasonable expectation of privacy and Officer Fritz's entry into respondent's fish house without consent, a warrant, probable cause, or articulable suspicion was unlawful. In doing so, the district court rejected the state's argument that the exception to the warrant requirement for administrative inspections of "closely regulated" businesses applied, see New York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691, 693, 107 S.Ct. 2636, 96 L.Ed.2d 601 (1987), nothing that recreational fishing is a purely private activity and occupants should not be subject to the more relaxed standards of right to privacy accorded commercial entities.

The state appealed asserting that Officer Fritz's entry into respondent's fish house without a warrant was authorized under Minn.Stat. § 97A.215, subd. 3:

An enforcement officer may, at reasonable times:

(1) enter and inspect the premises of an activity requiring a license under the game and fish laws;

* * * *

The state argued that the statute and regulatory inspections conducted pursuant to it are constitutional and that despite whatever comforts may be added, occupants of a fish house have no greater an expectation of privacy than occupants of a commercial business. The court of appeals disagreed and affirmed the district court's ruling. State v. Larsen, 637 N.W.2d 315, 316, 325 (Minn.App.2001).² The court rejected the state's argument that to effectively enforce conservation laws conservation officers must have broader powers than other law enforcement officers and that the Minnesota Legislature authorized those broader powers in Minn.Stat. § 97A.215. Id. at 323-25. The court did not declare the statute unconstitutional, but concluded that the authority of a conservation officer to search a person or place, like that of all other law enforcement officers, is subject to and limited by the Minnesota Constitution and the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Id. at 323-24. The court ruled that the statutory provisions authorizing entry and inspection at "reasonable times" must be interpreted to authorize entry only when constitutionally permissible.³ Id. at 324. We granted review of the court of appeals decision.

I.

In reviewing pretrial orders suppressing evidence where the facts are not in dispute, we independently review the record and determine, as a matter of law, whether the district court erred in suppressing the evidence. See State v. Harris, 590 N.W.2d 90, 98 (Minn.1999); State v. Othoudt, 482 N.W.2d 218, 221 (Minn.1992). Whether a statute is constitutional and whether it has been properly construed are questions of law subject to our de novo review. State v. Behl, 564 N.W.2d 560, 566 (Minn.1997); State v. Murphy, 545 N.W.2d 909, 914 (Minn.1996). Statutes are presumed constitutional, and the court will exercise its power to declare a statute unconstitutional with extreme caution and only when absolutely necessary. Boutin v. LaFleur, 591 N.W.2d 711, 714 (Minn.), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 973, 120 S.Ct. 417, 145 L.Ed.2d 326 (1999).

The right to be free from unauthorized entry into one's abode is ancient and venerable. As William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, so vividly put it in 1766:

The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter, the rain may enter—but the King of England cannot enter; all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement!

Speech on the Excise Bill, House of Lords (1766), in The MacMillan Book of Proverbs, Maxims, and Famous Phrases 1191-92 (Burton Stevenson ed., 1948). Similarly, the dissenting opinion of Justice Brandeis in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 48 S.Ct. 564, 72 L.Ed. 944 (1928), memorably captures the importance of this fundamental right:

[T]he right to be left alone—the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

Id. at 478, 48 S.Ct. 564 (Brandeis, J., dissenting). Concerns for this essential element of our personal freedom are reflected in the Fourth Amendment and art. I, § 10 of the Minnesota Constitution protecting the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures." U.S. Const. amend. IV; see Minn. Const. art. I, § 10.

Entry constitutes a search whenever there is an intrusion upon an area where a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy. State v. Hardy, 577 N.W.2d 212, 215 (Minn.1998). Warrantless searches where an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy "are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment—subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions." Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967); see also Matter of Welfare of D.A.G., 484 N.W.2d 787, 789 (Minn.1992) (extending the per se concept to the Minnesota Constitution); O'Connor v. Johnson, 287 N.W.2d 400, 405 (Minn.1979) (discussing the greater protections available under the Minnesota Constitution). But an expectation of privacy does not have the constitutional right to be free from impermissible search as its roots. As the Supreme Court noted in Minnesota v. Carter, an expectation of privacy "has `a source outside of the Fourth Amendment, either by reference to concepts of real or personal property law or to understandings that are recognized and permitted by society.'" 525 U.S. 83, 88, 119 S.Ct. 469, 142 L.Ed.2d 373 (1998) (quoting Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 143 n. 12, 99 S.Ct. 421, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978)).

The Supreme Court has recognized that an expectation of privacy is reasonable in one's home and curtilage, Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 589-90, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980), in one's automobile, Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 662-63, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979), and in a closed telephone booth, Katz, 389 U.S. at 352, 88 S.Ct. 507. We have similarly acknowledged a constitutionally protected expectation of privacy in one's home and...