An Alabama court has ruled the state’s game wardens don’t need permission or a warrant to conduct surveillance and searches on private property, two years after a Tennessee court handed down an opposite ruling.
In the landmark Tennessee case, a Benton County landowner sued the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency after a game warden installed a camera on his property to obtain evidence of suspected game law violations.
The TWRA argued the historical “Open Fields Doctrine” granted game wardens such leeway and without it, enforcing game laws on private property would be virtually impossible…