Idaho finds a reasonable expectation of privacy in a camouflaged hooch in a National Forest because he had a subjective expectation of privacy in a temporary dwelling, and even a temporary dwelling is entitled to constitutional protection. State v. Pruss, 145 Idaho 623, 181 P.3d 1231 (2008):
The first inquiry under the two-part test is an issue of fact. Did Pruss have a subjective expectation of privacy in his hooch? The district court found that he did. That finding is supported by substantial and competent evidence. Pruss attempted to camouflage his hooch so that it would not be readily observable. More significantly, one can certainly infer that a person has a subjective expectation of privacy in his dwelling, even if it is a temporary structure like a tent, travel trailer, or the hooch in this case.
The second inquiry is an issue of law. Is society willing to recognize Pruss’s expectation of privacy as being reasonable? Stated differently, “the correct inquiry is 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, 80 L. Ed. 2d 214 (1984).
“[N]either history nor this Nation’s experience requires us to disregard the overriding respect for the sanctity of the home that has been embedded in our traditions since the origins of the Republic.” Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 601, 100 S. Ct. 1371, 63 L. Ed. 2d 639 (1980). The respect for the sanctity of the home does not depend upon whether it is a mansion or hut, or whether it is a permanent or a temporary structure. As stated eloquently by William Pitt, “‘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!'” Miller v. United States, 357 U.S. 301, 307, 78 S. Ct. 1190, 2 L. Ed. 2d 1332 (1958) (quoting remarks attributed to William Pitt).
A structure need not be one’s “home” in order for the occupant to have a legitimate expectation of privacy there. Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U.S. 91, 96, 110 S. Ct. 1684, 109 L. Ed. 2d 85 (1990). “‘[T]he Fourth Amendment protects people, not places,’ and provides sanctuary for citizens wherever they have a legitimate expectation of privacy.” Id. at 96 n.5.
Throughout our State’s history, its citizens have engaged in various types of outdoor recreational activities on public lands. Idaho’s first game laws were enacted by the Territorial Legislature in 1864. Idaho’s state park system will celebrate its centennial this year. While engaging in outdoor recreational activities on public lands, our citizens often use various types of portable shelters such as backpacking tents, wall tents, tent trailers, and travel trailers. The central purpose of the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures forecloses any distinction between such types of shelters. See, United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 822, 102 S. Ct. 2157, 72 L. Ed. 2d 572 (1982) (“a constitutional distinction between ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’ containers would be improper”). If the travel trailer is protected against government intrusion, then so is the tent.
Utilizing public lands for outdoor recreational activities is a longstanding custom in this State that is recognized as valuable to society. For example, on May 1, 2007, the Governor of Idaho issued a proclamation declaring June 2007 to be “Great Outdoors Month” and “invit[ing] citizens to observe this month by taking advantage of the many opportunities our state offers for family outdoor recreation activities.” As the Governor recognized in his proclamation, “[O]utdoor activities contribute to the physical well-being and happiness of the people of the state.” We hold that a person using a temporary shelterFN2 on public lands as his or her living quarters has a reasonable expectation of privacy in that shelter and that the government may not intrude into the shelter without a search warrant, absent an exception to the warrant requirement.
2. By “temporary,” we mean not permanent. Temporary does not refer to the length of time the person utilizes the temporary shelter as his or her abode.
"If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. It isn't, and they don't." —Me
"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well." –Josh Billings (pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw), Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things (1868) (erroneously attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson, among others)
“I am still learning.” —Domenico Giuntalodi (but misattributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti (common phrase throughout 1500's)).
"Love work; hate mastery over others; and avoid intimacy with the government."
—Shemaya, in the Thalmud
"It is a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers."
—Charles Dickens, “The Old Curiosity Shop ... With a Frontispiece. From a Painting by Geo. Cattermole, Etc.” 255 (1848)
"A system of law that not only makes certain conduct criminal, but also lays down rules for the conduct of the authorities, often becomes complex in its application to individual cases, and will from time to time produce imperfect results, especially if one's attention is confined to the particular case at bar. Some criminals do go free because of the necessity of keeping government and its servants in their place. That is one of the costs of having and enforcing a Bill of Rights. This country is built on the assumption that the cost is worth paying, and that in the long run we are all both freer and safer if the Constitution is strictly enforced." —Williams v. Nix, 700 F. 2d 1164, 1173 (8th Cir. 1983) (Richard Sheppard Arnold, J.), rev'd Nix v. Williams, 467 US. 431 (1984).
"The criminal goes free, if he must, but it is the law that sets him free. Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence." —Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 659 (1961).
"Any costs the exclusionary rule are costs imposed directly by the Fourth Amendment."
—Yale Kamisar, 86 Mich.L.Rev. 1, 36 n. 151 (1987).
"There have been powerful hydraulic pressures throughout our history that bear heavily on the Court to water down constitutional guarantees and give the police the upper hand. That hydraulic pressure has probably never been greater than it is today." — Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 39 (1968) (Douglas, J., dissenting).
"The great end, for which men entered into society, was to secure their property." —Entick v. Carrington, 19 How.St.Tr. 1029, 1066, 95 Eng. Rep. 807 (C.P. 1765)
"It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people. And so, while we are concerned here with a shabby defrauder, we must deal with his case in the context of what are really the great themes expressed by the Fourth Amendment." —United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 69 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting)
"The course of true law pertaining to searches and seizures, as enunciated here, has not–to put it mildly–run smooth." —Chapman v. United States, 365 U.S. 610, 618 (1961) (Frankfurter, J., concurring).
"A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable." —Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 325 (1987)
"For the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. ... But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected." —Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967)
“Experience should teach us to be most on guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.” —United States v. Olmstead, 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1925) (Brandeis, J., dissenting)
“Liberty—the freedom from unwarranted intrusion by government—is as easily lost through insistent nibbles by government officials who seek to do their jobs too well as by those whose purpose it is to oppress; the piranha can be as deadly as the shark.” —United States v. $124,570, 873 F.2d 1240, 1246 (9th Cir. 1989)
"You can't always get what you want / But if you try sometimes / You just might find / You get what you need." —Mick Jagger & Keith Richards, Let it Bleed (album, 1969)
"In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me–and by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
—Martin Niemöller (1945) [he served seven years in a concentration camp]
“Children grow up thinking the adult world is ordered, rational, fit for purpose. It’s crap. Becoming a man is realising that it’s all rotten. Realising how to celebrate that rottenness, that’s freedom.” – John le Carré, The Night Manager (1993), line by Richard Roper
"The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime." —Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14 (1948)
The book was dedicated in the first (1982) and sixth (2025) editions to Justin William Hall (1975-2025). He was three when this project started in 1978.
