People v. Cook

Opinion

GRODIN, J.

This case requires us to examine the contours of California citizens’ entitlement to be free from the intrusive gaze of the state, in an era when the instruments of surveillance at the disposal of the police are far more sophisticated than our nation’s founders would have dared contemplate. Here, after law enforcement officials were frustrated in their effort to confirm from any land-based public vantage point an anonymous tip of possible marijuana cultivation at appellant’s residence, they carefully surveyed appellant’s fenced back yard from a fixed-wing aircraft without…