{ "id": 6136979, "name": "James Joseph STANDLEY, Jr. v. STATE of Arkansas", "name_abbreviation": "Standley v. State", "decision_date": "1988-06-15", "docket_number": "CA CR 87-213", "first_page": "37", "last_page": "44", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "25 Ark. App. 37" }, { "type": "parallel", "cite": "751 S.W.2d 364" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ark. Ct. App.", "id": 13370, "name": "Arkansas Court of Appeals" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 34, "name_long": "Arkansas", "name": "Ark." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "392 F.2d 432", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "F.2d", "case_ids": [ 2106288 ], "year": 1968, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/f2d/392/0432-01" ] }, { "cite": "476 U.S. 207", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 12541 ], "year": 1985, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/476/0207-01" ] }, { "cite": "453 A.2d 489", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "A.2d", "case_ids": [ 7962286 ], "year": 1982, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/a2d/453/0489-01" ] }, { "cite": "257 Ark. 895", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 8724574 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1975, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/257/0895-01" ] }, { "cite": "466 U.S. 170", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 6195904 ], "weight": 3, "year": 1983, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "184" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/466/0170-01" ] }, { "cite": "440 A.2d 350", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "A.2d", "case_ids": [ 7941917 ], "year": 1982, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/a2d/440/0350-01" ] }, { "cite": "107 S. Ct. 1134", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "S. Ct.", "case_ids": [ 1131408 ], "weight": 5, "year": 1987, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "1139" }, { "page": "1140" }, { "page": "1141" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/480/0294-01" ] }, { "cite": "389 U.S. 347", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 11339173 ], "year": 1967, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/389/0347-01" ] }, { "cite": "1 Ark. App. 106", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark. App.", "case_ids": [ 6138495 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1981, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark-app/1/0106-01" ] }, { "cite": "264 Ark. 433", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 1668936 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1978, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/264/0433-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 590, "char_count": 11225, "ocr_confidence": 0.839, "pagerank": { "raw": 5.347597070707327e-08, "percentile": 0.33616380723354916 }, "sha256": "7f3e93cd929193cdffdd4848de31ce7b4629c0807ad88ce0f423cba778ec923a", "simhash": "1:8e7ba5d0e6c6c2ea", "word_count": 1880 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T22:49:05.220266+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [ "Cooper and Mayfield, JJ., agree." ], "parties": [ "James Joseph STANDLEY, Jr. v. STATE of Arkansas" ], "opinions": [ { "text": "John E. Jennings, Judge.\nThe appellant, James Standley, was found guilty by a jury of the manufacture of a controlled substance (marijuana), possession of a controlled substance (cocaine), possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver (marijuana), and being a felon in possession of a firearm. The trial court sentenced him to a total of 30 years in prison and fined him a substantial sum. Before trial, appellant filed a motion to suppress evidence. After a hearing, the trial court denied the motion. The sole issue on appeal is whether this was error.\nOn or about August 26, 1986, Captain Lonnie Nichols, a Carroll County Sheriff\u2019s Deputy, received a phone call from a confidential informant telling him that appellant was growing marijuana at his home. On September 2, 1986, Carroll County Sheriff Leroy Shower and two deputies, drove out to appellant\u2019s place, in rural Carroll County, in an unmarked pickup truck. They saw that appellant\u2019s house was surrounded by a fence and that there were tall weeds growing up in back of the house. They could not see what lay behind the weeds from the road.\nThe officers decided to park the truck on the road and investigate from behind appellant\u2019s east fence. To do so they went through a gate into a field, apparently owned by appellant\u2019s neighbor, went over a cross-fence, and entered an area of heavy woods located just to the east of appellant\u2019s property. From this vantage point they could see into a garden area, fenced off with barbed wire and bounded on three sides by tall weeds. The officers could see what appeared to be five foot marijuana plants growing in the garden area (see diagram).\nDeputy Behymer estimated that it was about 20 to 30 yards from their vantage point in the woods to the marijuana patch. There was also testimony that the marijuana lay less than 50 feet from the back of appellant\u2019s house. In order to get a closer look, the officers crossed Standley\u2019s east fence and entered an open area just to the east of the fenced marijuana patch. They did not cross the fence that surrounded the patch.\nThey then left the area and obtained a search warrant from Municipal Judge Allen Epley. The subsequent search produced marijuana, cocaine, and several firearms.\nThe question for decision is whether what the officers did, before obtaining the search warrant, constituted an unreasonable search in violation of the Fourth Amendment, as made applicable to the states through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We affirm the trial court\u2019s decision that it did not.\nThe substance of appellant\u2019s argument is (1) that the fenced marijuana patch was a part of the curtilage of his home and (2) that because the officers had no permission to be in the appellant\u2019s neighbor\u2019s woods nor to be in the open area on appellant\u2019s property behind the marijuana patch, their visual observation into the curtilage constituted an unreasonable search. While we agree with the first proposition we cannot agree with the second.\nIn Sanders v. State, 264 Ark. 433, 572 S.W.2d 397 (1978), the defendant had a garden located between 100 and 200 yards behind his house trailer. A fence separated the trailer from the garden. The garden contained vegetables and growing marijuana plants. A water hose ran from the house trailer to the garden. Police officers searched the defendant\u2019s house and found the marijuana growing in his garden. On appeal the supreme court held that the garden was part of the curtilage.\nIn Gaylord v. State, 1 Ark. App. 106, 613 S.W.2d 409 (1981), we held that the test to be applied in distinguishing an open field from curtilage was whether the marijuana patch lay within the defendant\u2019s reasonable expectations of privacy, relying on Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967).\nIn United States v. Dunn, 480 U.S. _, 107 S. Ct. 1134 (1987), the court said that the curtilage question should be resolved with particular reference to four factors: the proximity of the area claimed to be curtilage to the home; whether the area is included within an enclosure surrounding the home; the nature of the uses to which the area is put; and the steps taken by the resident to protect the area from observation by people passing by. The Court said that these factors were only \u201cuseful analytical tools,\u201d in determining whether the area in question is so intimately tied to the home itself that it should be placed under the home\u2019s \u201cumbrella\u201d of Fourth Amendment protection. Dunn at _, 107 S. Ct. at 1139. Whether we apply the holding in Sanders, the test we used in Gaylord, or the factors described in Dunn, the appellant\u2019s marijuana patch was part of the curtilage.\nOur next inquiry is whether the officer\u2019s conduct constituted an unreasonable search of appellant\u2019s property. State v. Peakes, 440 A.2d 350 (Me. 1982), is almost in point. There two police officers had received an anonymous tip that the defendant was growing marijuana in a garden behind his house. They drove past his house on a rural road but were unable to see the garden. They obtained permission from the defendant\u2019s neighbor to go onto the neighbor\u2019s land, walk to the boundary line separating the two tracts, and from there were able to see the growing marijuana plants. They left and obtained a search warrant. The defendant contended that the officers\u2019 observation of the plants constituted an unreasonable search of his property, a contention which the Supreme Court of Maine rejected. The court said:\nThe defendant correctly notes that his garden was not open or exposed to the public. But the defendant made no attempt to conceal the garden from the view of his neighbors. He cannot be said to have had an actual expectation of privacy in the garden under the circumstances. There was no invasion of his property. The officers observed something which was \u201copen and patent\u201d to the defendant\u2019s neighbors and their invitees. [Citations omitted.]\nThe only real difference between Peakes and the case at bar is that here the permission of appellant\u2019s neighbor was not obtained. But in Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170 (1983), the Court held that the government\u2019s intrusion upon an open field does not become a search in the constitutional sense merely because that intrusion is a trespass at common law. In the case of open fields, the general rights of property protected by the common law of trespass have little or no relevance to the applicability of the Fourth Amendment. Oliver, 466 U.S. at 184.\nUnquestionably, a wooded area may be an open field as that term is used in the context of the Fourth Amendment. Oliver, 466 U.S. 170, 180 n.11; Bedell v. State, 257 Ark. 895, 521 S.W.2d 200 (1975). While this is not an open field search case it is clear that the officers\u2019 observations were made from \u201copen fields.\u201d\nThe Court in Oliver reversed State v. Thornton, 453 A.2d 489 (Me. 1982). In Thornton an officer received a tip from an unidentified informant that marijuana was growing in a wooded area behind the defendant\u2019s mobile home. The officers crossed a fence, entered onto the defendant\u2019s property through a footpath and found marijuana growing in two clearings fenced in with chicken wire. The marijuana could not be seen from the public road or from neighboring land. The property was posted with no trespassing signs. The Maine Supreme Court had unanimously held that the officers\u2019 conduct constituted an unreasonable search.\nIn California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207 (1985), once again the police had received an anonymous tip that the defendant was growing marijuana in his backyard, which was enclosed by two fences and shielded from view at ground level. The officers hired a private airplane, flew over the defendant\u2019s house and identified marijuana plants growing in the yard. These observations provided the basis for a subsequent search warrant.\nThe United States Supreme Court reversed the California court\u2019s holding that the warrantless aerial observation of defendant\u2019s yard violated the Fourth Amendment. The Ciraolo Court said:\nThat the area is within the curtilage does not itself bar all police observation. The Fourth Amendment protection of the home has never been extended to require law enforcement officers to shield their eyes when passing by a home on public thoroughfares. Nor does the mere fact that an individual has taken measures to restrict some views of his activities preclude an officer\u2019s observation from a public vantage point where he has a right to be and which renders the activities clearly visible. [Citations omitted.]\nIn United States v. Dunn, 480 U.S. _, 107 S. Ct. 1134 (1987), police officers had information that chemicals which could be used in drug preparation were located in the vicinity of a barn on the defendant\u2019s 200 acre ranch. The barn was located about 60 yards from the defendant\u2019s house. The ranch had a perimeter fence and several cross fences, including a fence which surrounded the ranchhouse but did not enclose the barn.\nWithout a warrant and without probable cause the officers crossed the outer fence and entered the ranch. They crossed two more fences to get near the barn where they smelled what they thought were drugs. They approached the barn and although they did not enter it, they shined a flashlight through an opening to observe what they thought to be a drug laboratory. The officers then left and obtained a warrant.\nWhile the Court in Dunn expressly held that the barn was not part of the curtilage, it did assume, for purposes of the opinion, that the \u201cbarn enjoyed Fourth Amendment protection and could not be entered and its contents seized without a warrant.\u201d Dunn, 480 U.S. at_, 107 S. Ct. at 1140. The Court said:\n[T]he officers never entered the barn, nor did they enter any other structure on respondent\u2019s premises. Once at their vantage point, they merely stood, outside the curtilage of the house and in the open fields upon which the barn was constructed, and peered into the barn\u2019s open front. And, standing as they were in the open fields, the Constitution did not forbid them to observe the phenylacetone laboratory located in respondent\u2019s barn. . . .\nUnder Oliver and Hester, there is no constitutional difference between police observations conducted while in a public place and while standing in the open fields. Similarly, the fact that the objects observed by the officers lay within an area that we have assumed, but not decided, was protected by the Fourth Amendment does not affect our conclusion.\nDunn, 480 U.S_, 107 S. Ct. at 1141.\nObservations from outside the curtilage of activities within are not generally interdicted by the Constitution. Fullbright v. United States, 392 F.2d 432 (10th Cir. 1968).\nOur conclusion is that under Oliver, Ciraolo, and Dunn, the warrantless naked-eye observation of the appellant\u2019s curtilage from an adjacent open field did not constitute an unreasonable search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.\nAffirmed.\nCooper and Mayfield, JJ., agree.", "type": "majority", "author": "John E. Jennings, Judge." } ], "attorneys": [ "Billy J. Allred, for appellant.", "Steve Clark, Att\u2019y Gen., by: O\u00edan W. Reeves, Asst. Att\u2019y Gen., for appellee." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "James Joseph STANDLEY, Jr. v. STATE of Arkansas\nCA CR 87-213\n751 S.W.2d 364\nCourt of Appeals of Arkansas Division I\nOpinion delivered June 15, 1988\nBilly J. Allred, for appellant.\nSteve Clark, Att\u2019y Gen., by: O\u00edan W. Reeves, Asst. Att\u2019y Gen., for appellee." }, "file_name": "0037-01", "first_page_order": 63, "last_page_order": 70 }