Are Game Wardens Watching You?

Are Game Wardens Watching You? – Part 1: The Case of the Hidden Trail Camera


What would you do if wardens planted a trail camera on your property to spy on you? Hunter Hollingsworth sued and won—and now game-law enforcement may never be the same





https://www.fieldandstream.com/conservation/tennessee-hunters-sue-game-wardens-trail-cameras/

If I saw a game camera on my property that I nor anyone given access to had put up, I would be pissed. I would have taken it down too. And if I was being harassed like that, I would have been hot under the collar and would probably have taken similar actions...but, then again, I am not a habitual poacher.
The last paragraph of the article..."So, is Hunter Hollingsworth a hero? Were fish and wildlife officers harassing him over a personal vendetta? Of course, it’s not that simple. After days of poring over court records and time spent talking to him face to face, we learned that Hunter Hollingsworth has a long history of poaching, including during that very duck season when he found the camera. Wardens were watching him for a reason."
I would be pissed if they harrassed me like that, but then again, Game Wardens don't have reason to harrass me. I've been checked a few times over my lifetime, never have had an infraction. If someone has multiple poaching infractions, they aren't inadvertently breaking game laws. They are doing it on purpose and will probably continue to do so. Too bad he prevailed in this case.

Guy sounds like a real POS, but that doesn't mean the wardens get to break the law.

Did they? He lost in criminal court, but won in a civil lawsuit. If you get pulled over, and the police smell marijuana, then they have probable cause to search your vehicle. Did they have probably cause to search his property and post a camera?

^^^THIS^^^

Typical article written by someone with little knowledge of case law.

The Supreme Court has upheld the use of technology as a substitute for ordinary police surveillance because it would be legal for the police to enter a private field to collect evidence, they concluded it must also be legal to install cameras there.

It's in the Open Fields Doctrine set by the SCOTUS.

Maybe next time he should walk up to it, smile and blast it with a shotgun.

If I found some "trash" on my property it would get disposed of and when the man showed up I would play dumb. No idea what you're talking about.

I’d put about 50 $&@# pics on it. The guy was obviously a dirtbag so likely doesn’t even know how to find them with technology.

Why didn’t they just get a warrant for the camera?

We find them on a place I hunt in Laredo all the time. I think it's the Feds though.

Case law states they didn't need one.

I would say it is an invasion of privacy.
edit:
I wonder if that would fall under the 1st amendment. https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-1/invasions-of-privacy

CBP can pretty much put cameras anywhere they want to within 25 (I think that's correct) miles of the border.

It’s all right here to read. I’ve never been 100% on board with it but it is the law based on a SCOTUS decision.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-fields_doctrine

It's not nearly that black and white, and none of the cases mentioned technology.

Actually, it is that black and white from a criminal legal perspective. The original post was related to a civil court rather than a criminal court. Here is the current standard for all criminal courts.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...ras-on-private-property-without-warrant/

You misunderstand key legal distinctions.

Installing cameras on unfenced or public land is very different from fenced and/or private land. You need probable cause, at a minimum, to surveil an individual. In most cases, leos also need a warrant.

This to a T. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Don't do dumb sh!t and dumb sh!t won't happen.

Actually no. I conducted both electronic and physical surveillance for many years and sent countless criminals to both state and federal prison with the evidence I acquired. I posted links to some of the more common cases that are now established case law on the subject but I guess you didn't read them. Here is one specifically related to the installation of cameras on private property.

"A federal judge has ruled that police officers in Wisconsin did not violate the Fourth Amendment when they secretly installed cameras on private property without judicial approval.

The officers installed the cameras in an open field where they suspected the defendants, Manuel Mendoza and Marco Magana, were growing marijuana. The police eventually obtained a search warrant, but not until after some potentially incriminating images were captured by the cameras. The defendants have asked the judge to suppress all images collected prior to the issuance of the search warrant.

But in a Monday decision first reported by CNET, Judge William Griesbach rejected the request. Instead, he approved the ruling of a magistrate judge that the Fourth Amendment only protected the home and land directly outside of it (known as "curtilage"), not open fields far from any residence.

The Fourth Amendment protects "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." The court ruled that under applicable Supreme Court precedents, "open fields, as distinguished from curtilage, are not 'effects' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment."

The property in question was heavily wooded, with a locked gate and "no trespassing" signs to notify strangers that they were unwelcome. But the judges found that this did not establish the "reasonable expectation of privacy" required for Fourth Amendment protection. In their view, such a rule would mean that (in the words of a key 1984 Supreme Court precedent) "police officers would have to guess before every search whether landowners had erected fences sufficiently high, posted a sufficient number of warning signs, or located contraband in an area sufficiently secluded to establish a right of privacy."

Are you suggesting you conducted searches of private property without a warrant or probable cause, and those efforts served as a basis for convictions?

I read your article. This is Texas. We're in the 5th Circuit, not the 7th. We have strong protections for private property. While a game warden may enter private lands, your position is that he may REMAIN on fenced, private property in the form of a camera. This, without probable cause, reasonable suspicion, or a warrant.

I'd love to see a case that suggests that's the state of the law in Texas.

If the game wardens are watching me, I am sure they are bored out of their gourd.

I'd love to see case law or legislation that that prevents Texas from being subject to the Open Fields Doctrine. Good luck proving that BTW. Mississippi, Montana, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington are the only states in the U.S. that do not honor the Open Fields Doctrine. If you can’t read and understand this, it’s because you have no training or experience about arrest, search and seizure law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-fields_doctrine

I disagree, you do surveillance on an individual to build probable cause.

So if a property owner finds a camera on their property that they did not put there can they destroy or remove it?

Another Game Warden over reach?

I cannot fathom such lol

Biggest jokers in the game

i followed this case for a bit, it's a few years old if it's the same one. what i understood is no, you can't destroy the camera because it's government property. because he did take the camera down, that was how they got a search warrant, to retrieve government property. what i also understood was it wasn't illegal to take it down, but if you did, put it in a marked box by the gate and call them to come pick it up, i believe the camera was actually marked, property of such and such, or simply leave it where it was and block it's view with something. i think the gw actually cut stuff down to gain the view they wanted. seems to me that alone is destruction of private property

If I find a game cam on my lease that's not mine, first and only call will be to the landowner.

At least I could provide some colorful entertainment.

Would game wardens be prevented from doing this in Texas according to what you wrote? Maybe not. Consider they could still place such cameras in areas they believe crimes are being committed, photograph such crimes, then make an arrest. Subsequently it would be the defendant who has to appeal if convicted. Or maybe the evidence gets dismissed by the judge at trial? It reminds me of the old saying you might beat the rap but won’t beat the ride.

^^^^^

Agreed.


From their own property no less. Surely, Reasonable Suspicion or Probable Cause MUST be a provable element before entering private property in the course of their duties.

Now....we all know LEO can/will come up with 'something' to make that happen on occasion, but it is supposed to be articulable in a court of law. Otherwise this is clearly overreach.

As I said, you misunderstand key legal distinctions. The fact you go to Wikipedia or Google for articles, rather than actual law says it all.

I note you didn't answer my question about whether specific types of your surveillance efforts supported a conviction.



Your point is well taken. I assume you agree surveillance must be conducted from a location the agent has a legal right to be. Otherwise, that evidence will be excluded faster than Biden can destroy an economy.

That's known as case law and quoting it is exactly what occurs in court. You wouldn't know because your experience in the subject consists of attempting to self-educate yourself on the internet about arrest, search and seizure. It's quite obvious BTW. I'm still waiting for your proof of Texas being somehow excluded from the Open Fields Doctrine from the Supreme Court Of The United States. I'll save you some time. You can't

My paralegal is laughing at you as she types this response.

"Case law is the actual ruling - not what you read on Wikipedia, or excerpts you find online.

The distinction you continue to ignore is the reasonable expectation of privacy created by a locked gate, no trespassing signs, etc. May a game warden enter a fenced property in Texas in certain scenarios? Yes, obviously. But you're telling people the warden may clear brush, surveil the private road (not hunting or game animals) and leave a camera on fenced, private property to monitor access indefinitely.

That's not accurate, and it's why you can't point to surveillance you (supposedly) did that supported a conviction and is remotely similar."

Boom...mic drop!

What statute(s) says they can't?

And I ask from genuine curiosity, being of the opinion that Hester vs. US opened a big can of ripe-for-infringement worms a long time ago. While at the same time being intimately familiar with and supportive of similar surveillance (Operation Drawbridge, for example).

He won’t be able to provide that because it doesn’t exist.

Re Operation Drawbridge, I'll be sure to ask Paxton. But my recollection is DPS causes those cameras to be placed by agreement, and for a specific, outward-facing purpose.

Statute? Post-Katz, the Supreme Court looks to determine whether an individual intended to keep information private. TPC §30.05 says it's illegal for anyone to enter property that is fenced, posted with at least one sign, or marked with purple paint on trees or posts. Texas Game Wardens are not excluded by statute, despite the fact TPWC §12.103(a) allows Texas Game Wardens to enter on any land or water...to enforce the game and fish laws of the state.

In recent years, the SC has repeatedly revisited trespass and the evolving Katz test to address technology. (2012- warrant needed to put a GPS device on vehicle and discussing trespass onto private parking lot to change battery.)

In the OP's example, the game wardens remained in the form of a camera. They cleared brush to assist the view. They were watching not the hunt or wildlife, but the private road within the gated land. Kinda creepy, and they could have obtained that information on the public road, but chose to trespass instead.

In Texas, statute protects the landowner's reasonable expectation of privacy because even if wardens are allowed to enter temporarily, in certain instances, there is no statute which allows them to remain indefinitely, either in person or via camera.

And he still can't. Just opinion with nothing to back it up.

Is there a statute that prohibits them?

It is a shame that in this country we would need a statue to prohibit them.

Agree with that.

Yes, the two provisions cited do exactly that. In criminal cases, Texas has the burden to prove an alleged search is warranted and supportable.


+1

If I found a camera on my property that I didn't put there it would get shot a bunch or the tree it was attached to would get bulldozed into a burn pile and burned.

I have a bunch of land just south of Terlingua Texas that straddles the border and I've never found a camera on it but then again there's not a tree to attach one to and pretty much nothing alive out there to even look at.

The idea of Law Enforcement Officers entering private property and planting cameras even if there's case law that permits it is a slap in the face to civil liberties and they better hope I'm never on a jury where the evidence they're presenting against the defendant came from such a source because I'll let the guy walk even if I'm a single juror that has to hang the jury.

I've said it before and I'll say it again here. When the founding fathers were discussing their fears of having a standing army in the United States they were not describing the military we have today. They were describing law enforcement as it is practiced in the United States today.

I'm against such tactics even if legal. This in my mind is the classic left wing approach of identifying a person and searching for a crime. This is not how law enforcement of any kind is suppose to work.

Spot on!

You'd think with the current regime so openly acting illegally against patriots more people would be upset over this. Anything they can do against what you dislike can be done against you.

Run that same matter by this Scotus and see how it turns out...

Would take forever to get there and you would be broke as well.

I was already broke - just making a point that Scotus' opinions change hence so does the law, ie: roe v wade...

Probably would never make it to the SCOTUS.