Right to Privacy in the Federal District Courts: A Research Note

Abstract

This study analyzes opinions published in the Federal Supplement between I984 and I995 which involve a right to privacy issue. Overall, only a slight majoriw of the opinions are supportive of the right to privacy claim raised in the case. However, opinions written by a Democratic judge are significantly more likely to support a right to privacy claim.The makers of our Constitution.. . sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions, and their sensations. They conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone-the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.T h i s statement, one of the first serious mentions of a right to privacy by a Supreme Court Justice, was made by Louis Brandeis in 1928 (Olmstead v.UnitedStutes, 277 US. 438 at 478). Since that time, a number of High Court decisions have focused attention on the right of the people to be let alone. Less well documented, however, is the treatment of right to privacy claims by the federal trial courts.This research note takes some first steps toward filling this void in the literature on right to privacy cases by exploring federal district court decisions cases that involve the issue. We analyze opinions written by federal district judges in right to privacy cases during the twelve-year period 1984-95 in the context of whether they are supportive of the issue of privacy presented in the case. In addition, we explore the links between the opinion writer and his or her political party identification and the president who appointed that particular judge. After a brief discussion of the right to privacy issue in the courts, we describe our data base and methods. Then, our findings are presented and discussed.