Privacy

Pennsylvania's Top Court Unanimously Rejects Warrantless Searches of Private Land

The justices said the "open fields" doctrine, a sweeping exception to constitutional privacy protections, does not apply in the Keystone State.

Jacob Sullum | 7.21.2026 5:15 PM

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(Institute for Justice)

On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously ruled that warrantless searches of land marked as private violate that state's constitution. The seven justices agreed that the "open fields" doctrine, a sweeping exception to the Fourth Amendment that the U.S. Supreme Court first announced in 1924, does not apply to the Pennsylvania Constitution's privacy protections.

"The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed that private land is not public property," says Joshua Windham, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, which represented two hunting clubs that objected to warrantless surveillance of their land by the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC). "It's yours, and that means you get to decide who enters it."

The Punxsutawney Hunting Club and the Pitch Pine Hunting Club own land in Clearfield County: 4,400 acres and 1,100 acres, respectively. The properties include houses where members can stay overnight or longer. Although both clubs value their members' privacy and have marked their land with signs, fences, purple paint, and locked entrance gates, PGC officers have never treated those indicators as legally significant.

Since 2013, Warden Mark Gritzer and other PGC officers "have entered the Hunting Clubs' land without consent, a warrant, or probable cause at least 15 to 22 times to look for evidence of hunting offenses," Justice Kevin Brobson notes in Punxsutawney Hunting Club v. Pennsylvania Game Commission. "Warden Gritzer even placed a trail camera on Punxsutawney's property in an attempt to develop probable cause for charges of illegal elk feeding. That camera remained on Punxsutawney's property for 78 days."

Those intrusions were authorized by two provisions of the Pennsylvania Game and Wildlife Code.........

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