In a seismic ruling, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that wildlife officers may not enter private land without probable cause.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) claimed the power to routinely send game wardens onto private property without limitations, including at the Punxsutawney and Pitch Pine hunting clubs.
However, via a unanimous 7-0 ruling, that intrusion is over in Pennsylvania. “For years, the Pennsylvania Game Commission has acted as if it’s above the law, invading our land and spying on our members whenever it pleases,” said Jeff Fink, president of Pitch Pine Hunting Club. “We now know the Pennsylvania Constitution forbids that—and thank goodness.”
At the bull’s-eye of the case is the doctrine of Open Fields, allowing government officials to enter, surveil, and remain on private land without restraint. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s hammer blow against Open Fields could echo at both the federal and state levels.
Currently, Open Fields litigation is moving in Alabama, Louisiana, and Virginia. The scope of power claimed by government officials at both the state and federal levels, by way of Open Fields, is remarkably absolute.
Short Shrift
Pitch Pine (1,100 acres) and Punxsutawney (4,000 acres) are neighboring hunting clubs tucked in the steep hills of Clearfield County, Pennsylvania.
All roads in and out of both hunting clubs are gated and the entire perimeter is posted. The membership of the clubs (Pitch Pine—50; Punxsutawney—81) is a blue- and white-collar cross-section. Roughly a quarter of Pitch Pine members are military veterans.
“We’re a bunch of regular people and we have had enough of the state abuse of power,” stated member Jon Mikesell, in 2022, to Agweb. “This is not about politics. This is about fundamental freedoms in this country that every citizen, right or left, should care about.”
“We have reached a time in this country when our government openly believes it can spy on us with no warrant or cause,” Mikesell insisted. “Don’t look away from what is happening in our homeland.”
Represented by Institute for Justice (IJ), Pitch Pine and Punxsutawney sued PGC in 2021, after decades of repeated entries by game wardens onto club ground, without warrant or probable cause.
Lead IJ attorney in the case, Joshua Windham, says the Court’s ruling sends notice to other states that allow warrantless entries onto private land: “The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recognized that state courts all over the country are taking different positions on this issue—and it made very clear that it found the decisions giving short shrift to landowners’ property and privacy rights were simply not persuasive.”
“It’s rare to get a unanimous victory overruling a previous state supreme court decision. But the reason we won 7-0 is that the prior decision (Russo), which allowed state officials to treat all private land in Pennsylvania like public property, was egregiously wrong. Today’s decision recognizes that.”
Eventual Challenge
The Open Fields doctrine stems from two U.S. Supreme Court decisions in 1924 (Hester) and 1984 (Oliver), giving federal officials permission to enter private land with no limits on frequency, duration, or scope. Essentially, the government can access any acreage without warrant or probable cause, excluding a personal residence and immediate yard/lawn/curtilage. Open Fields asserts that on private land, the Bill of Rights’ Fourth Amendment protections from search and seizure do not exist.
The Pennsylvania decision points to a future federal case, Windham concludes:
“This decision puts another brick in the wall for an eventual challenge to the federal Open Fields doctrine. One of the reasons the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to protect private land under the Fourth Amendment is the mistaken notion that people have no reasonable expectation of privacy on their land.”
“The Pennsylvania Supreme Court thoroughly explains why that is false: When people take lawful steps to exclude intruders (for example, by posting “no trespassing” signs or erecting fences), that makes it reasonable for them to expect privacy from intruders,” Windham adds. “We’re optimistic the U.S. Supreme Court will one day see it that way, too.”
For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:
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