Property owners in Tennessee have locked in a victory in a trespassing fight with a state agency when officials failed to appeal a state court ruling against them.
Officials from the Institute for Justice confirmed the final victory this week.
“This final victory has been a long time coming,” said Terry Rainwaters. “For too long, TWRA officers have treated my private land like public property. But in Tennessee, our land just means more. It’s part of who we are. And to hear the court say that our land deserves protection from TWRA’s warrantless intrusions makes me proud to be a Tennessean.”
The fight erupted years ago when Rainwaters and Hunter Hollingsworth both found hidden cameras on their properties. They had been placed there by operatives for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency who trespassed to do that.
The landowners sued the agency, and won in court.
The IJ explained “Tennessee, along with six other states, has rejected the century-old federal ‘open fields’ doctrine. This was the first such suit from the Institute for Justice, which defends property rights nationwide and is now litigating against open fields doctrines in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Louisiana.”
Josh Windham, of the IJ’s Project on the 4th Amendment, said, “In 1926, two years after the U.S. Supreme Court announced the open-fields doctrine, the Tennessee Supreme Court held that private land deserves more protection. But for the last century, state game wardens have been ignoring that important decision, roaming Tennesseans’ private land at will. No longer.”
Just weeks ago, a unanimous Court of Appeals ruling found that warrantless searches of private land that is put to “actual use” violate the Tennessee Constitution.
Judge Jeffrey Usman wrote, “TWRA’s contention is a disturbing assertion of power on behalf of the government that stands contrary to the foundations of the search protections against arbitrary governmental intrusions in the American legal tradition…”
“Finding out you were under illegal surveillance on your private property for months is a hard pill to swallow,” said Hollingworth. “Thanks to the countless hours of work from Jack Leonard, Josh Windham, and the Institute for Justice, Tennesseans don’t have to swallow that pill anymore!”
The state agency claimed authority to trespass onto private property under the old “open fields” ideology. It was in 1924 the Supreme Court said the 4th Amendment doesn’t protect land beyond a home and its immediate surroundings.
That later was affirmed in a decision impacting what the court called an “open field.”
However, Tennessee’s constitution provided more protection that that concept.
“Property isn’t private if the government can watch you whenever it wants,” said IJ President Scott Bullock. “We are confident that this victory is just the first in what will become a series of wins reinvigorating protections against warrantless searches.”
WND had reported on a description of the state agency’s demands, from IJ attorney Joshua Windham: “TWRA claimed unfettered power to put on full camouflage, invade people’s land, roam around as it pleases, take photos, record videos, sift through ponds, spy on people from behind bushes—all without consent, a warrant, or any meaningful limits on their power. This decision confirms that granting state officials unfettered power to invade private land is anathema to Tennesseans’ most basic constitutional rights.”
The judge in the case said the state agency’s claims could be compared to warrantless searches conducted by British authorities that motivated the American Revolution.
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