dependent and have inalienable rights.
Among these are enjoying and defending
life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and
protecting property, and pursuing and
obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.”
(Emphasis added.)
The right of privacy involving peace
officers, in the cases discussed in this
article, however, was created through laws
passed by the California State Legislature.
As is detailed in the cases, there are,
at times, conflicts between various rights
of privacy and society’s needs. In the Long
Beach case, the California Supreme Court
concluded that the public’s right to know
about actions taken by our law enforcement officers, and who those officers are,
outweighed any issue of “privacy” the
officers might have had based on statutory
law. It required detail analysis of those
laws to come to that conclusion.
In the Riley/Wurie cases, the United
States Supreme Court found that the
public’s constitutional right of privacy
“trumped” the belief by law enforcement
that it was necessary to immediately
access information on smart phones of
persons under arrest. In that case, however, the Court found that the needs of
law enforcement could be fulfilled by first
securing a court issued warrant to search
those phones. In addition, if exigent circumstances were present, those circumstances “trumped” the arrestee’s right of
privacy. It appears to be an interesting
balancing of rights and needs.
Finally, in the Johnson case, the California Court of Appeal was presented with
a conflict between different statutory laws
involving a peace officer’s right of privacy
in his or her personnel information and a
prosecutor’s constitutional duty to seek
out and disclose information which could
assist a criminal defendant. Based on
current California law, the Court, again,
appeared to find a balancing of rights – the
prosecutor could access the files to identify
material, if any, which needed to be disclosed but the prosecutor cannot disclose
such information without following the
statutory process set forth in the California
Evidence Code (sec. 1043). ■
Martin J. Mayer is a name partner with
the public sector law firm of Jones &
Mayer and has served as General Counsel
to the California Police Chiefs Association
for approximately 30 years.
“Specializing in providing
advice and representation to public
entities and California’s law
enforcement agencies.”
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