People v. Drennan

In People v. Drennan (2000) 84 Cal.App.4th 1349, the defendant used a hidden video camera in a fake smoke detector to take pictures of a high school principal's desk during the school week for about three and a half months. The camera had no audio abilities. (Drennan, supra, 84 Cal.App.4th 1349, 1352.) Because the recordings in Drennan were "timed still photographs, without accompanying sound," our colleagues in the Third District reversed the defendant's conviction reasoning that the recordings prohibited by section 632 "are the recordings of the contents of audible or symbol-based communications." (Drennan, supra, 84 Cal.App.4th 1349, 1357.) Disagreeing with our decision in People v. Gibbons (1989) 215 Cal. App. 3d 1204, the court reasoned that "the language of section 632 admits of no other construction than that the Legislature intended to address the interception and recording of sound-based or symbol-based communications, and that the statute protects the content of the communication from being recorded, not the non-content-based conduct coincident to the communication." (Drennan, at p. 1356.)