Searches Flashcards
Olmstead v. Taft & Physcial Intrusion Test
- The historical framework of the 4th is to protect against general warrants and writs of assistance; preventing the use of governmental force to search an individual’s home, person, papers, effects, and the prevent the seizure against their will
- The language of the 4th cannot be extended and expanded to include telephone wires reaching to the whole world from the defendant’s home to the office they were operating out of
- It is reasonable that anyone that installs a telephone that uses connecting wires intending to project their voice to those outside are not protected by the 4th
Exception to the Katz analysis → 3rd Party Doctrine
If it is possible for anyone in the general public to conduct the “observation” then there can’t be a reasonable expectation of privacy from the defendants
“Reasonable expectation of privacy” test
Subjective expectation of privacy: The individual must have a subjective expectation of privacy in the place or thing being searched. In other words, the person must genuinely believe that their privacy will be respected in that particular context.
Objective expectation of privacy: The individual’s expectation of privacy must be one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable. This means that the expectation of privacy must be something that a majority of people would consider legitimate.
Katz v. US—Reasonable Expectation Privacy Test
Katz v. United States (1967) is a landmark Supreme Court case that established the “reasonable expectation of privacy” test for determining whether a government action constitutes a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, which protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures. In Katz, the defendant was convicted based on evidence obtained through electronic eavesdropping of a public telephone booth. The government had placed a listening device on the outside of the booth without obtaining a warrant. The defendant challenged the legality of the government’s actions, arguing that they constituted an unlawful search under the Fourth Amendment.The 4th protects people not places, and eavesdropping devices on public phone booths violate the 4th
US v. Jones
The Supreme Court unanimously held that the government’s actions constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment. However, the justices were divided on the rationale for their decision. The majority opinion, authored by Justice Antonin Scalia, focused on the concept of physical trespass. Scalia argued that by attaching the GPS device to the defendant’s vehicle, the government had physically intruded on the defendant’s private property, which constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment; Justices Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor, took a different approach, focusing on the reasonable expectation of privacy test established in Katz v. United States (1967). The concurring justices argued that the long-term GPS monitoring violated the defendant’s reasonable expectation of privacy, even without considering the physical trespass. What one seeks to preserve as private even in an area accessible to the public may be constitutionally protected
Hester v. US—Open Fields
The “Open Fields” rule is a principle established by the United States Supreme Court, which holds that an individual does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in “open fields.” Open fields are defined as any unoccupied or undeveloped areas that are not adjacent to a person’s home or curtilage (the area immediately surrounding a person’s home, such as a yard or garden). Held that “an individual may not legitimately demand privacy for activities conducted out of doors in fields, except in the area immediately surrounding the home.”
US v. Dunn—Curtilage Test
Is a search warrant needed to peer into the open side of a barn that is located in a field on private property?
No. Justice Byron R. White, writing for a 7-2 majority, reversed the court of appeals. The Supreme Court held that the barn and the area around it lay outside the protected area of curtilage around Dunn’s house. The barn was separated from the house by a fence and was a substantial distance away from the house, the officers had other data that lead them to suspect Dunn, and Dunn did little to protect the barn from observation. Even if Dunn did have a reasonable expectation of privacy, the search still did not violate the Fourth Amendment because the officers never entered the barn. Justice Antonin Scalia concurred, writing that the officers perception of the way Dunn used the barn was not as important as the way the barn actually was used.
The court established a four-factor test to determine whether an area is considered curtilage:
1. The proximity of the area to the home
2. Whether the area is included within an enclosure surrounding the home
3. The nature of the uses to which the area is put
4. The steps taken by the resident to protect the area from observation by people passing by
Flordia v. Jardines
Is a dog sniff at the front door of a suspected grow house by a trained narcotics detection dog a Fourth Amendment search requiring probable cause?
Yes. Justice Antonin Scalia delivered a 5-4 opinion affirming the Florida Supreme Court’s decision. The Court held that the front porch of a home is part of the home itself for Fourth Amendment purposes. Typically, ordinary citizens are invited to enter onto the porch, either explicitly or implicitly, to communicate with the house’s occupants. Police officers, however, cannot go beyond the scope of that invitation. Entering a person’s porch for the purposes of conducting a search requires a broader license than the one commonly given to the general public. Without such a license, the police officers were conducting an unlawful search in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
- License to entry → a legal concept that refers to the authority granted to certain individuals or entities to enter private property for a specific purpose. This can include door-to-door salespeople, also known as “knockers and solicitors,” who are granted a license to enter private property in order to sell goods or services.
Pen Registers & Smith and Maryland
Smith v. Maryland (1979) which dealt with the use of pen registers. In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that the use of a pen register to record the telephone numbers dialed by a criminal suspect did not constitute a “search” under the Fourth Amendment.
This case established the “third-party doctrine” which states that an individual has a reduced expectation of privacy for information voluntarily shared with third parties.
Financial Records & US v. Miller
the 4th was not implicated by a subpoena issued to a bank to obtain depositors records compiled by the bank
Pen Registers “Third Party Doctrine”
there is no expectation of privacy in information voluntarily provided to others. The Fourth Amendment protects the right to be secure in one’s person, house, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.
On Lee v. US - Misplaced Trust
The law permits the use of the testimony of those associated who for one reason or another have determined to turn to the police and that one contemplating illegal activities must realize the risk that his companions may be reporting to the police
Carpenter v. US
The procedural issue before the court is whether the use of the telephone data is a search; In Carpenter, the defendant was convicted of multiple robberies based on evidence obtained from his cellphone’s CSLI, which provided a detailed record of his movements over a 127-day period. The authorities obtained this information from the cell phone service providers without a warrant, relying on the Stored Communications Act, which allowed them to access such records with a court order based on “reasonable grounds’’ rather than the more stringent probable cause standard required for a warrant.
The majority opinion, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, held that the government’s acquisition of Carpenter’s CSLI constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment, and a warrant was required. The Court found that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of their physical movements, and the long-term tracking enabled by CSLI was an invasion of that privacy. The Court reasoned that CSLI provides an intimate window into a person’s life, revealing not only their movements but also their familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations.
US v. White—Public Observation Doctrine
Officer observed the defendant in a bathroom stall by looking through the gap in between the stall door and the wall → court ruled this wasn’t a search; this wasn’t unexpected behavior, anyone could do this in a public bathroom
Kyllo v. US—Thermal Imaging
The government’s use of a device that is not in the general public use, to explore the details of the home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is as search and presumably unreasonable without a warrant
Not in the general public use doctrine; The infrared imaging technology was a sensory enhancement device → these devices, when used to obtain information from the inside of the home, which couldn’t be conducted by the government without the device, and the device isn’t in the general public use, then that is a search that requires as a warrant
