# State v. Hamper

> Montana Supreme Court · August 20, 2008 · 345 Mont. 421

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9511892

## Case

- **Full name:** STATE OF MONTANA, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. MICHAEL THADDEUS GOETZ, Defendant and Appellant; STATE OF MONTANA, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. JOSEPH PATRICK HAMPER, Defendant and Appellant
- **Court:** Montana Supreme Court
- **Decided:** August 20, 2008
- **Citations:** 345 Mont. 421; 191 P.3d 489; 2008 MT 296; 2008 Mont. LEXIS 444
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Warner
- **Judges:** Cotter, Gray, Leaphart, Morris, Nelson, Rice, Warner
- **Cited by:** 56 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9511892

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding concealed electronic monitoring of face-to-face conversations in private settings are constitutional searches

## Opinion text

JUSTICE WARNER
dissents.
¶122 I emphatically agree with the dissent of Justice Rice. The only real world result of the Court’s decision today will be to increase the use of a perpetrator’s home for all types of criminal transactions.
¶123 For the sake of safety, law enforcement might opt to continue equipping officers and citizen informants with electronic transmitting devices when they undertake the dangerous task of securing evidence against drug dealers, white-slavers and other offenders, who naturally decline to conduct their flagitious business out in the open. It is possible that such recordings could be used in redirect examination. U.S. v. Burns, 432 F.3d 856, 860 (8th Cir. 2005). And, in the event a criminal defendant chooses to testify and contradicts the testimony of a State’s witness to a criminal transaction, a recording of what actually happened might come in handy for impeachment purposes. See e.g. U.S. v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 910 , 104 S. Ct. 3405, 3414 (1984); Walder v. U.S., 347 U.S. 62, 65 , 74 S. Ct. 354, 356 (1954); Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 226 , 91 S. Ct. 643, 646 (1971).

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9511892. Public record. Not legal advice.
