Owens

Appellant Arthur F. Owens, Jr., and his codefendant Charles Madry, Jr., were arrested at a service station in San Jose when, for reasons irrelevant to this appeal, a police officer ran a warrant check on the vehicle they were driving and discovered that it had been stolen.

The two suspects were taken to the police station where they were interviewed and separated and gave inconsistent tape-recorded statements after waiving their right to silence. They were then locked together in an interview room where they engaged in inculpatory conversation which was secretly recorded. At one point in the conversation, Madry asked, “Any speakers in here?” Appellant replied, “Don’t you know that they probably have this thing wired?” Madry answered, “Damn. I messed myself up... I don’t know if they have this wired up or not. ... ”

Appellant was charged with taking or driving an automobile without the consent of the owner in violation of Vehicle Code section 10851. The information also alleged that he had suffered two prior felony convictions, one for the same offense and one for sale of a controlled substance (Health & Saf. Code, § 11352).

*445 Appellant admitted the sale of a…

The mandate of Auto Equity Sales, Inc. v. Superior Court (1962) 57 Cal.2d 450, 455 [ 20 Cal.Rptr. 321 , 369 P.2d 937 ], compels that I concur in the result reached by the majority in this instance. However, I cannot presently subscribe to the over-broad sweeping views expressed in their reasoning. I need more time for reflective thought before acceptance. My hesitancy is dictated by my conviction that the parameters of the individual’s “right to be left alone” as guaranteed by article I, section 1, of the California Constitution are as yet undefined. Therefore, I do not presently understand the decisional law to assume that “search and seizure and privacy protections to be coextensive when applied to police surveillance in the criminal context.” *

I recognize that it has consistently been held that a jail inmate, whether held on probable cause for his arrest or trial, or after conviction of crime, has no reasonable expectation of privacy from electronic surveillance under the general circumstances of the case before us. (See Lanza v. New York (1962) 370 U.S. 139, 143-144 [ 8 L.Ed.2d 384, 388 , 82 S.Ct. 1218 ]; People v. Hill (1974) 12 Cal.3d 731, 764-765 [ 117 Cal.Rptr. 393 , 528…