Privy not Private

Score one for common sense.

ST. LOUIS (AP) - A man found partly disrobed with a woman, cocaine and marijuana in the one-person restroom of an Iowa convenience store in an area known for prostitution had no absolute right to privacy, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

An 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel unanimously rejected Lonnie Maurice Hill's claim that police who found him with the woman and drugs breached his Fourth Amendment right to privacy, making the drugs illegally seized and unusable as evidence. Other courts have held that the right of privacy in bathrooms varies case to case, with some judges holding that a stall in a public restroom is not a private place when used for something other than its intended purpose.

The money quote:

The Fourth Amendment protects people and not places," Judge Donald Lay wrote for the three-judge 8th Circuit panel. In Hill's case, "it was not a single person using the single toilet restroom but two persons of opposite gender and, under the circumstances, we hold that they had a diminished expectation of privacy which had expired by the time the officers arrived."

When it comes to restroom privacy, "we have never held that this expectation lasts indefinitely," Lay wrote. The 8th Circuit also cited legal precedent finding that an expectation of privacy in businesses "is different from, and indeed less than, a similar expectation in an individual's home."

Oh, yeah?

Anyone who expects a public restroom to provide any privacy whatsoever is seriously deluded. There are certainly times when we desperately wished for a little more privacy, although not for reasons akin to Mr. Hill's.

No, if there must be a Fourth Amendment finding to be desired, it would be that a man (or a woman) could be left alone in the privacy of his own bathroom, ensconced well within his "castle." Children -- and even spouses -- do not seem to be aware of this essential privacy need. At least at times.