United
States Supreme Court
232
U.S. 383 (1914)
Police officers went to the house of the defendant,
where he rented a room.� After a neighbor
told them where the key to the defendant�s house was kept, the police officer
found it and entered the house.� Police
searched the defendant's room and took possession of various papers and
articles. Later in the same day police officers returned with a U.S. marshal (a
federal officer), who thought he might find additional evidence.� The U.S. marshal knocked on the defendant�s
door and was admitted by someone in the house.�
The marshal searched the defendant's room and carried away certain
letters and envelops found in a drawer.�
Neither the marshal nor the police officer had a search warrant.� Some of the items were used as evidence
against the defendant at trial.
The government may not admit into evidence at a
federal trial items that are seized by a federal officer who invaded the house
of the accused without a warrant that describes with reasonable particularity
the thing for which the search was to be made.
United
States Supreme Court
367
U.S. 643 (1961)
On May 23, 1957, three Cleveland police officers arrived at the defendant�s residence after receiving information that a person who was wanted for questioning in connection with a recent bombing was hiding in the home.� The defendant and her daughter lived on the top floor of the two-family dwelling.� Upon arriving at that house, the officers knocked on the door and demanded entrance, but the defendant, after telephoning her attorney, refused to admit them without a search warrant.� Three hours later, when additional officers arrived on the scene, the officers tried to enter the house for a second time.� When the defendant did not come to the door immediately, the police officers forced their way into the house. �The officers searched a dresser, a closet and looked through personal papers belonging to the defendant.� The basement of the building and a trunk found therein were also searched.� In the course of that widespread search, police discovered obscene materials.� The defendant was ultimately convicted of possessing these materials.� At the trial no search warrant was produced by the prosecution, nor was the failure to produce one explained or accounted for.
This case also established the rule that the Weeks
exclusionary rule is also enforceable against state officials.
North
Carolina Court of Appeals
319
S.E.2d 254 (N.C. App. 1984)
On March 14, 1982 Beaufort, County A.B.C.
Enforcement Officer William Boyd applied for a warrant to search the mobile
home and truck of the defendant Charles Arrington for controlled
substances.� In an affidavit included in
the application, the officer swore that he received information from two
confidential sources that the defendant was growing and selling marijuana.� Both informants had proven to be reliable in
the past.� A magistrate issued a search
warrant and on the same day Officer Boyd searched the defendant�s mobile home
and found evidence of drug use.� At his
felony trial for drug possession the defendant moved to suppress the drug
evidence. The court agreed to suppress the evidence and ruled that the
affidavit for the warrant was insufficient to show probable cause because it
showed no circumstances from which it could be determined that the information
known to Officer Boyd came to him from the personal knowledge of a reliable
confidential source.
United
States Supreme Court
466
U.S. 109 (1984)
During an examination of a damaged package, employees of a private freight carrier observed a white powdery substance in four plastic bags that had been in a tube inside the package.� The employees notified the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), replaced the plastic bags in the tube, and put the tube back into the box.� When a DEA agent arrived, he removed the tube from the box and the plastic bags from the tube, saw the white powder, removed a trace of the powder, subjected it to a field chemical test, and determined that it was cocaine.� Subsequently, a warrant was obtained to search the place to which the package was addressed.� The warrant was executed, and the defendants were arrested and indicted for possessing an illegal substance with intent to distribute.� Defendant�s motion to suppress based on an illegal search was denied at trial.�
A "search" occurs when an expectation of
privacy that society is prepared to consider reasonable is infringed.� Letters and other sealed packages are in the
general class of effects in which the public at large has a legitimate
expectation of privacy and warrantless searches of such effects are
presumptively unreasonable.� Even when
government agents may lawfully seize a sealed package to prevent loss or
destruction of suspected contraband, the Fourth Amendment requires that they
obtain a warrant before examining contents of such a package.
North
Carolina Court of Appeals
556
S.E.2d 602 (N.C. App. 2001)
Police officers received a tip that the defendant
was smuggling cocaine.� The officers
pulled the defendant over as he was driving from the airport, searched his car
and a briefcase, but did not find any drugs.�
Later, the officers obtained a warrant to search a house where the
defendant had been staying in the basement as a guest. The officers searched
the entire house, including the basement.��
In a closet located at the bottom of the stairs, an officer found two
blueprint tubes that contained cocaine.�
Prior to trial, defendant moved to suppress the items recovered from his
briefcase and from the residence.
The Fourth Amendment does not protect a mere
subjective expectation of privacy, but only those expectations that society is
prepared to recognize as reasonable.�
Defendant was temporarily residing in the basement living room area of
the residence, and he failed to establish that he had a reasonable expectation
of privacy in the area under the stairwell in the laundry room.
United
States Supreme Court
466
U.S. 170 (1984)
A police officer, acting on reports that marijuana
was being raised on defendants' farm, went to the farm to investigate.� Arriving at the farm, they drove past defendant�s
house to a locked gate with a "No Trespassing" sign, but with a
footpath around one side.� The agents
then walked along the road and found a field of marijuana over a mile from
defendant's house.� Defendant was
arrested and indicted for manufacturing a "controlled substance" in
violation of a federal statute. After a pretrial hearing, the District Court
suppressed evidence of the discovery of the marijuana field and held that the
defendant had a reasonable expectation that the field would remain private and
that it was not an "open" field that invited casual intrusion.
Steps taken to protect privacy, such as planting the
marijuana on secluded land and erecting fences and "No Trespassing"
signs around the property, do not establish that expectations of privacy in an
open field are legitimate in the sense required by the Fourth Amendment. The
test of legitimacy is not whether the individual chooses to conceal asserted
"private" activity, but whether the government's intrusion infringes
upon the personal and societal values protected by the Amendment.�
Rakas v.
439
After receiving a robbery report, police stopped the
suspected getaway car.� The owner of the
car was driving and the defendants were passengers.� The police searched the car, and found a box
of rifle shells in the glove compartment and a sawed-off rifle under the front
passenger seat.� The defendants were
arrested for the robbery and were convicted of armed robbery at a trial in
which the rifle and shells were admitted as evidence.�� Before trial, defendants moved to suppress
the rifle and shells on Fourth Amendment grounds, but the trial court denied
the motion and the appeals court agreed on the ground that petitioners did not
own either the car or the rifle and shells.
Occupants made no showing that they had any legitimate
expectation of privacy in glove compartment or area under the seat of the
vehicle where seized items were found.�
Therefore, they were not entitled to suppression of seized items in
their subsequent robbery prosecution.
The defendant was convicted of placing bets over the
telephone in violation of a federal statute. At trial, the Government was
permitted, over the defendant 's objection, to introduce evidence of the
defendant's end of telephone conversations, overheard by FBI agents who had
attached an electronic listening and recording device to the outside of the
public telephone booth from which he had placed his calls.� In affirming his conviction, the Court of
Appeals rejected the contention that the recordings had been obtained in
violation of the Fourth Amendment, because there was no physical entrance into
the area occupied by the defendant.
The Fourth Amendment protects people, not
places.� What a person knowingly exposes
to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth
Amendment protection.� But what he seeks
to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be
constitutionally protected.� Therefore,
the government's listening to and recording defendant's words spoken into
telephone receiver in public telephone booth violated the privacy upon which
defendant justifiably relied while using the telephone booth and thus
constituted a "search and seizure" within Fourth Amendment.
����
North
Carolina Supreme Court
357
S.E.2d 641 (N.C. 1987)
���������
The defendant rented and lived in a trailer home
with the victim.� The manager of the
trailer park in which the house was located, issued rent receipts to defendant
and the victim jointly. �Police searched
the trailer after they suspected that the defendant had murdered the
victim.� The evidence found by the police
was admitted at trial and defendant was convicted of murder.� The trial court held that the defendant did
not have a legitimate expectation of privacy in a home that he rented, but did
not own.
A review of the totality of all the circumstances
shows that defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the trailer
home because there was testimony that joint rent receipts had been issued to
defendant and the victim and that the defendant had resided there for five or
six years, keeping all of his clothes there, eating and sleeping there, working
in the yard, planting a garden, and receiving his mail there.��
��������
United
States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
280
F.3d 1328 (11th Cir. 2002)
Police officers believed that cigars with
counterfeit labels were located in the defendant�s apartment, but they did not
have sufficient probable cause to obtain a search warrant.� Hoping to develop probable cause, the
officers entered the large high-rise apartment building through the glass front
door, which was unlocked.� Though
designed to be locked and function with an electronic card, the door would
unlock when the electronic system was not working.� Once inside, the officers went to the floor
where the defendant�s apartment was located.�
They knocked on the door and asked to enter but the defendant�s wife
would not give them permission.� Thereafter,
one officer hid in the hallway near the apartment.� He watched as the defendant�s wife came out
of the apartment with a garbage bag and threw the bag away.� The officer retrieved the bag, which
contained counterfeit cigar labels.� The
defendant was convicted of trafficking in cigars bearing counterfeit
marks.� The defendant�s motion to
suppress the evidence, on the contention that it had been seized as a result of
an illegal search, was denied.
Tenants of large, high-rise apartment building lacked
a reasonable expectation of privacy in common areas of building, including
lobby, hallways, and other areas, where building's front door had a lock that
was inoperable on the day in question, so that common areas were open not only
to tenants, their visitors, the landlord, and other workers, but also to the
public at large.� Nothing prevented
anyone and everyone who wanted to do so from walking in unlocked door and
moving freely about the premises.
3
F.3d 1239 (9th Cir. 1993)
����������������������������������������������������������������������������������
����������� A defendant convicted of
distributing methamphetamine appealed his conviction, asserting that he had a
legitimate expectation of privacy in the hallway of his high-security apartment
building.� This apartment building�s
security features included 24-hour security guards, a closed-circuit television
system that enabled residents to monitor each entrance to the building on their
own TV sets, and an elevator that enabled guests to access only their host�s floor
and no other area of the building.� The
security guard admitted Drug Enforcement Agents who proceeded to knock on
Nohara�s door.� Nohara answered the door
and stepped into the hallway holding incriminating evidence.� The court found that the evidence could be
admitted since the hallway was not a constitutionally protected area,
irrespective of the building�s security features.
United
States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit
942
F.2d 1170 (7th Cir. 1991)
Agents properly arrested the defendant and seized
his possessions, including his keys.�
Thereafter, they found the defendant�s name on a mailbox of a nearby
apartment building.�� One of the defendant�s
keys opened the outer door.� Inside the
common area of the building, the agents used the key to unlock
The defendant could not assert an expectation of
"privacy" in the common area because the other five tenants shared
the same entrance, used the space, and could admit as many guests as they
pleased.� The defendant had no
expectation that goings-on in the common areas would remain his secret.� The vestibule and other common areas were used
by postal carriers, custodians, and peddlers.��
The area outside one's door lacked anything like the privacy of the area
inside.�
United
States v. Eisler,
United
States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
567
F.2d 814 (8th Cir. 1977)
��������� A DEA agent was investigating the
defendant for selling drugs.� During the
course of his investigation, he gained entry to an apartment complex (where the
defendant would buy drugs) by following a tenant who had opened a door.� He watched from a common hallway and saw the
defendant enter and leave the drug dealer�s apartment.� He also overheard conversations between the
defendant and the drug dealer in the hallway and from within the apartment.� This information was used against the
defendant at his trial for drug possession.�
The defendant moved to suppress the conversations, alleging that the
agent conducted an illegal search by listening to him in the hallway.� The defendant�s motion was denied because the
defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in hallway of
apartment building, even though the building had extensive security measures in
place.
United
States Supreme Court
455
U.S. 1 (1982)
A police officer observed a student leave a
dormitory carrying a bottle of gin.�
Because the student appeared to be under 21, the officer stopped him and
asked for identification.� After the
student requested to retrieve his identification from his dormitory room, the
officer accompanied him there and, while remaining in the open doorway watching
the student and his roommate (the defendant), noticed what he believed to be
marijuana seeds and a pipe lying on a desk in the room.� The officer then entered the room, confirmed
that the seeds were marijuana, determined that the pipe smelled of marijuana,
and placed the students under arrest.�
The officer then asked if there were any other drugs in the room, and
the defendant gave him a box, which contained more marijuana and cash.�� After a second officer arrived, the students
voluntarily consented to a search of the room, which yielded more marijuana and
another controlled substance.� The
defendant was later charged with two counts of possessing the controlled
substances and, after denial of his pretrial motion to suppress the evidence
seized in the room, was convicted.
The seizure of other contraband taken from
defendant's room pursuant to his valid consent did not violate the Fourth
Amendment.�� He voluntarily produced
marijuana and he then consented to the search of the room.�� Thus, all of the seized contraband was
properly admitted at his trial.
North
Carolina Court of Appeals
565
S.E.2d 266 (N.C. App. 2002)
A confidential informant told the police that the defendant sold drugs. A detective listened to a telephone conversation between defendant and the informant.� The defendant told the informant that the marijuana would be in a detergent box inside the trash can outside the defendant's home. The officers followed the informant to the home.� The informant went up to the trash can, looked inside, and notified the police officers that the drugs were inside.� The officers then search the trash can and found drugs.� The defendant moved to suppress the evidence and the motion was denied.
For purpose of the Fourth Amendment, the trash can
in which marijuana was found was within curtilage of defendant's home, where
the trash can was situated immediately beside steps that led to side-entry door
of the defendant's house, and was approximately fifty feet from road and viewable
from road.� (The curtilage is the area
around a home associated with the sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of
life, and therefore has been considered part of the home itself for Fourth
Amendment purposes.)
North
Carolina Court of Appeals
346
S.E.2d 243 (N.C. App. 1986)
Police officers conducting a raid of a house came
out and discovered that someone had slashed the tires to all of their
cruisers.� The officers "fanned
out" in the neighborhood to search for the person responsible or to locate
persons who might provide information.�
One officer crossed the street and entered the parking lot of an
apartment complex.� Using his flashlight,
the officer looked underneath and inside the parked cars, in the event that a
suspect was hiding there.� In the course
of doing so, the officer shined his light inside a car and noticed a stereo and
speakers in the back seat.� A
��������� The police officer's observation of
items through the window of defendant's car did not amount to an unreasonable
intrusion into an area in which defendant had a reasonable expectation of
privacy.� The defendant's car was parked
in a parking lot generally accessible to the public and the stereo and speakers
were situated in the rear seat and were within plain sight anyone who passed
the exterior of the automobile.
543
F.2d 709 (9th Cir. 1976)
����������� Executing a search warrant, police
officers kicked-down a door leading from the street into the corridor where
Fluker�s apartment was located.� In
determining whether the police had the right to kick-down the door, the court
first had to answer the question of whether Fluker had a legitimate expectation
of privacy in the corridor leading to his apartment. There was only one other
apartment unit on Fluker�s floor, in addition to his unit.� Only Fluker and the tenant of the other
apartment had access to the corridor.�
The door to the street was always locked.� Because the corridor was only open to those
two tenants, and not to the public, the court recognized Fluker�s expectation
of privacy in the corridor but affirmed his conviction on other grounds.