holding that although a private club had a one-way mirror and buzzer system, the practice was to release the door whenever the buzzer was pressed and therefore there was no reasonable expectation of privacy, because for “all the owner and bartender knew, or apparently cared, the door might have been opening for a thief, a non-member, a uniformed officer, or, as in this case, a plain clothes trooper”
How later courts described this case
- holding that although a private club had a one-way mirror and buzzer system, the practice was to release the door whenever the buzzer was pressed and therefore there was no reasonable expectation of privacy, because for “all the owner and bartender knew, or apparently cared, the door might have been opening for a thief, a non-member, a uniformed officer, or, as in this case, a plain clothes trooper”
- Police officers gained entrance to a private club in which admission was theoretically restricted to members. There was one entrance and it was through a locked door activated by a buzzer system. The door contained a one-way mirror. The officers, not in uniform, gained entrance simply by pressing the doorbell. The court held that the “lax enforcement of purported security measures indicate[d] that appellees’ expectation of privacy was hardly reasonable or justifiable”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
SPAETH, Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the majority’s disposition, but only because I agree that appellees’ conduct in admitting the police shows that they did not regard the premises as private. I disagree with the majority’s extended dictum, that “assuming ar-guendo that the appellees entertained a reasonable expectation of privacy, we cannot agree the entry was improper.” Majority slip opinion 6-7 et seq.