## Facts

- Virginia wildlife officials received a report that a protected bird was trapped in a cage on Steve Vankesteren’s farm fields near a public road.
- An agent inspected the location and found a cage trap outfitted with multiple leghold traps and pigeons used as bait.
- Without obtaining a warrant, officers installed a hidden, fixed-range, motion-activated video camera aimed at the trap site in Vankesteren’s open fields.
- The camera captured daylight footage of Vankesteren killing two hawks caught in the trap.
- The hawks were identified as red-tailed hawks protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA).
- Vankesteren was charged with taking or possessing migratory birds without a permit in violation of the MBTA.

## Issues

1. Whether warrantless use of a hidden, fixed-range, motion-activated video camera in an open field to record a defendant’s conduct constitutes a Fourth Amendment search requiring suppression of the footage.

## Decision

- The Fourth Circuit affirmed the denial of the motion to suppress and affirmed the conviction.
- The court held the surveillance did not violate the Fourth Amendment because the camera was placed in an open field where Vankesteren had no reasonable expectation of privacy.
- The court reasoned the camera recorded only what officers could have observed with the naked eye while lawfully present in the open field and did not monitor the home or its curtilage.

## Legal Principles

- The Fourth Amendment does not protect “open fields,” even if privately owned, because activities there generally fall outside any reasonable expectation of privacy.
- Areas outside a home’s curtilage do not receive the heightened Fourth Amendment protection afforded to the home and its immediate surroundings.
- Use of a fixed-range camera in an open field that captures only ordinary visual information (without sense-enhancing intrusion into a protected area) does not, by itself, convert lawful observation into a Fourth Amendment search.
- Cases recognizing heightened privacy interests in enclosed or indoor spaces subjected to hidden video surveillance are distinguishable from surveillance of open fields.

## Conclusion

Because the camera was placed in an open field away from the home and curtilage and recorded only what law enforcement could have lawfully observed in that field, the warrantless video surveillance was not a Fourth Amendment search, and the video evidence was properly admitted.


United States v. Vankesteren, 553 F.3d 286 (4th Cir. 2009)