The exterior of a property (i.e. the land it sits on) is distinctly different from the interior. The 4th Amendment requires warrants to search the following:
persons, houses, papers, and effects,
The land a house sits on is not, "persons, houses, papers, and effects". If it were that would not only prevent conservation officers from doing their jobs but also U.S. Customs and Border Protection would not be able to patrol the border since people and companies own pretty much every square inch at the edges of our country.
> In Hester v. United States,1 the Court held that the Fourth Amendment did not protect “open fields” and that, therefore, police searches in such areas as pastures, wooded areas, *open water*, and vacant lots need not comply with the requirements of warrants and probable cause.
I also want to point out something very important regarding this case in particular: Curtilage is generally known to be the area between a front door and the street however if your property backs up to open water--and you have a back door--that area between the water and the back door also counts as curtilage.
Except he never actually entered the home... He knocked and then left.
Also - despite the repeated attempts at implying it in the article, I really don't suspect the guy is there to creep on an elderly cancer patient in her bathroom.
It sounds a lot like he's on land, which is not protected by the 4th, and he's there well within his scope of authority as granted by the state.
No trespassing signs only apply to someone there without permission. He explicitly has permission from the state. And trespassing is very clearly not "search".
