Olmstead v. U.S., 277 U.S.

438 (1928) Facts: Petitioners were convicted by the District Court for the Western District of Washington of a conspiracy to violate the National Prohibition Act (27 USCA) by unlawfully possession, transporting and importing intoxicating liquors and maintaining nuisances, and by selling intoxicating liquors. Seventy-two others, in addition to the petitioners, were indicted. Some were not apprehended, some were acquitted, and others pleaded guilty. The information which led to the discovery of the conspiracy and its nature and extent was largely obtained by intercepting messages on the telephones of the conspirators by four federal prohibition officers. Small wires were inserted along the ordinary telephone wires from the residences of four of the petitioners and those leading from the chief office. The insertions were made without trespass upon any property of the defendants. They were made in the basement of the large office building. The taps from the house lines were made in the streets near the houses. The gathering of evidence continued for many months. Conversations of the conspirators, of which refreshing stenographic notes were currently made, were testified to by the government witness. They revealed the large business transactions of the partners and their subordinates. Men at the wires heard the orders given for liquor by customers and the acceptances; they became auditors of the conversations between the partners. All this disclosed the conspiracy charged in the indictment. Many of the intercepted conversations were not merely reports, but parts of criminal acts. The evidence also disclosed the difficulties to which the conspirators were subjected, the reported news of the capture of vessels, t6he arrest of their men, and the seizure of cases of liquor in garages and other places. It showed the dealing with Olmstead, the chief conspirator, with members of the Senate police, the messages to them which secured the release of arrested members of the conspiracy, and also direct promises to officers of payments as soon as opportunity offered. Issue:

Whether the use of the private telephone conversation between the defendants and others, intercepted by means of wire tap, amounted to a violation of the Fourth1 and Fifth2 Amendments.3 Held: There is no room in the present case to apply the Fifth Amendment, unless the Fourth Amendment was first violated. There was no evidence of compulsion to induce the defendants to talk over their many telephones. They were continually and voluntarily transacting business without knowledge of the interception. Our consideration must be confined to the Fourth Amendment. The well-known historical purpose of the Fourth Amendment, directed against general warrants and writs of assistance, was to prevent the use of governmental force to search a mans house, his person, his papers, and his effects, and to prevent their seizure against his will. The amendment itself shows that the search is to be of material thingsthe person, the house, his papers, or his effects. The description of the warrant necessary to make the proceeding lawful is that it must specify the place to be searched and the person or things to be seized. Hence, the amendment does not forbid what was done here because there was no search or seizure. The evidence was secured by the use of the sense of hearing and that only. There was no entry of the houses or offices of the defendants. By the invention of the telephone 50 years ago, and its application for the purpose of extending communications, one can talk with another at a far distant place. The language of the amendment cannot be extended and expanded to include telephone wires, reaching to the whole world from the defendants house or office. The intervening wires are not part of his house or office, any more than are the highways along which they are stretched. However, Congress may, of course, protect the secrecy of telephone messages by making them, when intercepted, inadmissible in evidence in federal criminal trials, by direct legislation and thus depart from the common law of evidence.4 But the courts may not adopt such a policy by attributing
1

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. 2 No person...shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself. 3 The petitions were granted with the distinct limitation that the hearing should be confined to only to this issue. 4 FIND OUT WHEN WIRE TAP LAW WAS PASSED IN THE US

an enlarged and unusual meaning to the Fourth Amendment. The reasonable view is that one who installs in his house a telephone instrument with connecting wires intends to project his voice to those quite outside, and that the wires beyond his house, and messages passing over them, are not within the protection of the Fourth Amendment. Here those who intercepted the projected voices were not in the house of either party to the conversation. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 US 479 (1965) Facts: Appellant Griswold is the Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut Appellant Buxton is a licensed physician and a professor at Yale Medical School who served as Medical Director for the League at its Center in New Haven. They gave information, instruction and medical advice to married persons as to the means of preventing contraception. They examined the wife and prescribed the best contraceptive device or material for her use. Fees were usually charged, although some couples were serviced for free. A Connecticut statute makes it a crime for any person to use any drug or article to prevent contraception. Based on this statute, the appellants were found guilty as accessories and fined $100 each. Appellants claimed that the statute violate the Fourteenth Amendment. The Appellate Division of the Circuit Court affirmed. The Supreme Court of Errors affirmed that judgment. Issue/s:

(1)

Whether appellants have standing to raise the married couples right to privacy. (2) Whether the statute violates the constitutional right to privacy of married couples who wish to use contraceptives. Held: (1)Appellants have standing to raise the constitutional rights of the married couple with whom they had a professional relationship with. The rights of the married couple at issue are likely to be diluted or adversely affected unless those rights are considered in a suit involving those who have this kind of confidential relation to them.

(2)

The present case concerns a relationship lying with the zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees. And it concerns a law which, in forbidding the use of contraceptives rather than regulating their manufacture or sale, seeks to achieve its goals by means having a maximum destructive impact upon that relationship. Such a law cannot stand in light of the familiar principle, so often applied by this Court, that a governmental purpose to control or prevent activities constitutionally subject to state regulation may not be achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade the area of protected freedoms. (NAACP v. Alabama, 377 US 288, 307) Whalen v. Roe, 429 US 589 (1977)

Facts: In response to a concern that certain drugs were being diverted into unlawful channels, the New York Legislature created a special commission to evaluate the States drug-control laws. The commission found the existing laws deficient in several respects. In drafting new legislation to correct such defects, the commission consulted with enforcement officials in California and Illinois where central reporting systems were being used effectively.. The new New York statute classified potentially harmful drugs in five schedules. Drugs, such as heroin, which are highly abused and have no recognized medical use, are in Schedule I; they cannot be prescribed. Schedule II through V include drugs which have a progressively lower potential for abuse but also have a recognized medical use. With an exception for emergencies, the Act requires that all prescriptions for Schedule II drugs be prepared by the physician in triplicate on an official form. The completed form identifies the prescribing physician; the dispensing pharmacy; the drug and dosage; and the name, address, and age of the patient. One copy of the form is retained by the physician, the second by the pharmacist, and the third is forwarded to the New York State Department of Health in Albany. A prescription made on an official form may not exceed a 30-day supply, and may not be refilled. The prescriptions are delivered to a receiving room at the Department of Health in Albany each month. They are sorted, coded, and logged and then taken to another room where the data on the forms is recorded on magnetic tapes for processing by a computer. Thereafter, the forms are returned to the receiving room to be retained in a vault for a five-year period and then destroyed as required by a statute. Public disclosure of the identity of patients is expressly prohibited by the statute and by a Department of

Health regulation. Willful violation of these prohibitions is a crime punishable by up to one year in prison and a $2,000.00 fine. A few days before the Act became effective, a group of patients regularly receiving prescriptions for Schedule II drugs assailed its constitutionality. The District Court held that the the doctor-patient relationship is one of the zones of privacy accorded constitutional protection and the patient-identification provisions of the Act invaded this zone with a needlessly broad sweep, and enjoined enforcement of the provisions of the Act which deal with the reporting of patients names and addresses. Issue/s: (1)Whether the State of New York may record, in a centralized computer file, the names and addresses of all persons who have obtained, pursuant to a doctors prescription, certain drugs for which there is both a lawful and unlawful market. (2)Whether the statute impairs the right of doctors to practice medicine. Held:

(1)

The enactment was a reasonable exercise of New Yorks broad police powers. There was nothing unreasonable in the assumption that the patient-identification requirement might aid in the enforcement of laws designed to minimize the misuse of drugs. For the requirement could reasonably be expected to have a deterrent effect on potential violators as well as to aid in the detection or investigation of specific instances of apparent abuse. At the very least, it would seem clear that the States vital interest in controlling the distribution of dangerous drugs would support a decision to experiment with new techniques for control. For if an experiment fails, the legislative process remains available to terminate the unwise experiment. The New York program does not, on its face, pose a sufficiently grievous threat to either interest to establish a constitutional violation. Even without public disclosure, it is true that private information must be disclosed to the authorized employee of the New York Department of Health. Such disclosures are not significantly different from those that were required under prior law. Nor are they meaningfully distinguishable form a host of other unpleasant invasions of privacy that are associated with many facets of health care.

Unquestionably, some individuals concern for their own privacy may lead them to avoid or to postpone needed medical attention. Nevertheless, disclosures of private medical information to doctors, to hospital personnel, to insurance companies, and to public health agencies are often an essential part of modern medical practice even when the disclosure may reflect unfavourably on the character of the patient. Requiring such disclosures to representatives of the State having responsibility for the health of the community, does not automatically amount to an impressible invasion of privacy. Nor can it be said that the individual has been deprived of the right to decide independently, with the advice of his physician to acquire and to use needed medication. Although the State no doubt could prohibit entirely the use of particular Schedule II drugs, it has not done so. This case is therefore, unlike those in which the Court held that a total prohibition of certain conduct was an impermissible deprivation of liberty. Nor does the State require access to these drugs to be conditioned on the consent of any state official or other third party. With dosage limits which appellees do not challenge, the decision to prescribe or to use, is left entirely to the physician and the patient.

(2)

The statute does not impair the right of doctors to practice medicine for even the prior statute required doctors to prepare a written prescription identifying the name and address of the patient and the dosage of the prescribed drug. To the extent that their claim has reference to the possibility that the patients concern about disclosure may induce them to refuse needed medication, the doctors claim is derivate from, and therefore no stronger than, the patients. Morfe vs. Mutuc, 22 SCRA 424 (1968)

Facts: This involved an action for declaratory relief assailing Section 7, of Republic Act No. 3019, on the periodical submission within the month of January of every other year thereafter of such sworn statement of assets and liabilities after an officer or employee had once hared his financial condition upon assumption of office. Plaintiff-appellee allege that such requirement is violative of due process as an oppressive exercise of police power and as an unlawful invasion of the constitutional right to privacy, implicit in the ban against

unreasonable sear and seizure construed together with the prohibition against self-incrimination. The lower court sustained the plaintiff-appellee. Issue/s: Whether by virtue of the requirement for a periodical submission of sworn statement of assets and liabilities, there is an invasion of liberty protected by the due process clause. Held: The finding of the lower court must be reversed on the following grounds: There was no factual foundation on which the nullification of the section of the assailed statue could be based. Hence, the presumption of validity must prevail. The Anti-Graft Law was precisely aimed at curtailing and minimizing the opportunities for official corruption and maintaining standard of honesty in the public service. It is intended to further promote morality in public administration. A public office must indeed be a public trust. Nobody can cavil at its objective; the goal to be pursued commands the assent fo all. The conditions then prevailing called for norms of such character. The times demanded such a remedial device. More than that, an effort was made, so evident from even a cursory perusal thereof, to avoid evasions and plug loopholes. One such feature is the challenged section. Thereby it becomes much more difficult by those disposed to take advantage of their positions to commit acts of graft and corruption. Admittedly without the challenged provision, a public officer would be free from such requirement. To the extent then that there is a compulsion to act in a certain way, his liberty is affected. It cannot however be denied that under the Constitution, such a restriction is allowable as long as due process is observed. As long as arbitrariness is ruled out and unfairness avoided the requirement cannot be assailed on this ground. 3. The required disclosure does not infringe on a persons right to privacy. There is a rational relationship between the requirement and the

1.

2.

objective of the statute. This is not to say that a public officer, by virtue of a position he holds, is bereft of constitutional protection; it is only to emphasize that in subjecting him to such a further compulsory revelation of his assets and liabilities, including the statement of the amounts and sources of income, the amounts of personal and family expenses, and the amount of income taxes paid for the next preceding calendar year, there is no unconstitutional intrusion into what otherwise would be a private sphere.

4. The required disclosure does not violate the guarantees against unreasonable search and seizure and against self-incrimination. Foremost, the right against search and seizure does not cover testimonial compulsion. Arguments against self-incrimination must also fail. We are not aware of any constitutional provision designed to protect a mans conduct from judicial inquiry, or aid him in fleeing from justice.
Bates v. Little Rock, 361 US 516 Facts: Municipalities in Arkansas are authorized by the State to levy a license tax on any person, firm, individual, or corporation engaging in any trade, business, profession, vocation or calling within their corporate limits. Pursuant to this authority, the City of Little Rock and the City of North Little Rock have for some years imposed annual license taxes on a broad variety of businesses, occupations, and professions. Charitable organizations which engage in activities affected are relieved from paying the taxes. Petitioners are the custodians of the records of local branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. These local organizations supplied the municipalities with all the information required by the ordinances, except that demanded 2E of each ordinance which would have required disclosure of the names of the organizations members and contributors. After refusing upon further demand to submit the names of the members of the organization, each petitioner was tried, convicted, and fined for a violation of the ordinance of her respective municipality. Issue/s: Whether the required disclosure violates the right to freedom of association. Held:

On this record it sufficiently appears that compulsory disclosure of the membership lists of the local branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People would work a significant interference with the freedom of association of their members. There was substantial uncontroverted evidence that public identification of persons in the community as members of the organizations had been followed by harassment and threats of bodily harm. There was also evidence that fear of community hostility and economic reprisals that would follow public disclosure of the membership lists had discouraged new members from joining the organizations and induced former members to withdraw. The repressive effect, while in part the result of private attitudes and pressures, was brought to bear only after the exercise of governmental power had threatened to force disclosure of the members names. Thus, the threat of substantial government encroachment upon important and traditional aspects of individual freedom is neither speculative nor remote. Furthermore, we can find no relevant correlation between the power of the municipalities to impose occupational license taxes and the compulsory disclosure and publication of the membership lists of the local branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The occupational license tax ordinances of the municipalities are squarely aimed at reaching all the commercial, professional, and business occupations within the communities. The taxes are not, as a matter of state law cannot be, based on earnings or income, but upon the nature of the occupation or enterprise conducted. McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 US 184 Facts: Appellants were charged with a violation of 798.05 of the statute entitled Adultery and Fornication. The elements of the offense as described by the trial judge are: (1) habitual occupation of a room at night; (2) by a Negro and white person; (3) who are not married. Appellants assail the constitutionality of the statute for denying them of their right to the equal protection of the laws. Issue/s: Whether the statute denied the appellants of their right to the equal protection of the laws. Held:

The Florida Supreme Court, relying on the case of Pace v. Alabama found no legal discrimination and gave no consideration to statutory purpose. The State in its brief, however, says that the legislative purpose was to prevent breaches of the basic concepts of sexual decency. We find nothing in this suggested legislative purpose, however, which makes it essential to punish promiscuity of one racial group and not that of another. There is no suggestion that a white person and a Negro are any more likely to habitually to occupy the same room together than the white or the Negro couple or to engage in illicit intercourse if they do. That a general evil will be partially corrected may at times, and without, more serve to justify the limited application of a criminal law; but legislative discretion to employ the piecemeal approach stops short of permitting a State to narrow statutory coverage to focus on a racial group. Such classifications bear a far heavier burden of justifications. When the law lays an unequal hand on those who have committed intrinsically the same quality of offense and sterilizes one and not the other, it has made as invidious a discrimination as if it had selected a particular race or nationality for oppressive treatment. (Yick Wo v. Hopkins 118 US 356) The argument that the statute is ancillary to the law against interracial marriage and hence valid neither can stand. Even if we posit the constitutionality of the band against the marriage of a Negro and a white, it does not follow that the cohabitation law is not to be subjected to independent examination under the Fourteenth Amendment. [A]ssuming, for purposes of argument only, that the basic prohibition is constitutional, in this case the law against interracial marriage, it does not follow that there is no constitutional limit to the means which may be used to enforce it. (Oyama v. California, 332 US 633, 646-647) Pollo vs. Constantino David, G.R. No. 181881, October 18, 2012 Facts: Petitioner is a former Supervising Personnel Specialist of the Civil Service Commission Regional Office No. IV and also the Officer-in-Charge of the Public Assistance and Liaison Division (PALD) under the Mamamayan Muna Hindi Mamaya Na program of the CSC. Chairman of the CSC received an anonymous complaint alleging that the someone from the Mamamayan Muna Hindi Mamaya Na program is lawyering for impleaded employees.

The CSC immediately formed a team to investigate and specifically to back up all the files in the computers found in the Mamamayan Muna (PALD) and Legal divisions. Petitioners computer was among those searched and backed up. It was found that the computer assigned and used by Petitioner contained about 40 to 42 draft pleadings or letters in connection with administrative cases in the CSC and other tribunals. The CSC charged and found Petitioner guilty of dishonesty, grave misconduct, conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service, and violation of Republic Act No. 6713 and penalized him with dismissal. Petitioner filed a petition for certiorari before the Court of Appeals praying that the latter nullify the proceedings conducted by the CSC which was denied. Hence, this petition. Issue/s: Whether the search conducted on petitioners computer violated his constitutional right to privacy and right to privacy of communication and correspondence. Held: The right to privacy has been accorded recognition in this jurisdiction as a facet of the right protected by the guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure under Section 2, Article III of the 1987 Constitution. The constitutional guarantee is not a prohibition of all searches and seizures but only of unreasonable searches and seizures. The employees privacy interests in an office is to a large extent circumscribed by the companys work policies, the collective bargaining agreement, if any, entered into by management and the bargaining unit, and the inherent right of the employer to maintain discipline and efficiency in the workplace. Their privacy expectation in a regulated office environment is, in fine, reduced; and a degree of impingement upon such privacy has been upheld. In order to determine whether the search was legally conducted the following questions must be answered: (1) did petitioner have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his office computer files?; and (2) was the search authorized by the CSC Chair, the copying of the contents of the hard drive on petitioners computer reasonable in its inception and scope?

First, the CSC in this case had implemented a policy that put its employees on notice that they have no expectation of privacy in anything they create, store, send or receive on the office computers, and that the CSC may monitor the use of the computer resources using both automated or human means. This implies that on-the-spot inspections may be done to ensure that the computer resources were used only for such legitimate business purposes. Hence, petitioner had no reasonable expectation of privacy over the contents of his computer. Second, the search of petitioners computer files was conducted in connection with investigation of work-related misconduct prompted by an anonymous letter-complaint. A search by a government employer of an employees office is justified at its inception when there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that it will turn up evidence that the employee is guilty of work-related misconduct. Given the foregoing, petitioners claim of violation of his constitutional right to privacy of communication and correspondence is also untenable considering the recognition accorded to certain legitimate intrusions into the privacy of employees in government workplace.

Estrada vs. Sandiganbayan, 369 SCRA 394 Facts: Petitioner Joseph Ejercito Estrada, the highest-ranking official to be prosecuted under R.A. 7080 (An Act Defining and Penalizing the Crime of Plunder), as amended by R.A. 7659, assails the law for being allegedly defectively fashioned that it crosses a thin but distinct line which divides the valid from the constitutionally infirm. According to petitioner, the Plunder Law: (a) suffers from the vice of vagueness; (b) dispenses with the reasonable doubt standard in criminal prosecutions; and (c) abolishes the element of mens rea in crimes already punishable under the Revised Penal Code, all of which are purportedly clear violations of the fundamental rights of the accused to due process and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him. Issue/s:

(1)

Whether the Plunder Law is unconstitutional for being vague;

(2)Whether the Plunder Law requires less evidence for proving the predicate crimes of plunder and therefore violates the rights of the accused to due process; and (3) Whether Plunder as defined in R.A. 7080 is a malum prohibitum, and if so, whether it is within the power of Congress to so classify it Held: (1)As long as the law affords some comprehensible guide or rule that would inform those who are subject to it what conduct would render them liable to its penalties, its validity will be sustained. The amended information itself closely tracks the language of law, indicating w/ reasonable certainty the various elements of the offense w/c the petitioner is alleged to have committed. We discern nothing in the foregoing that is vague or ambiguous that will confuse petitioner in his defense. Petitioner however bewails the failure of the law to provide for the statutory definition of the terms combination and series in the key phrase a combination or series of overt or criminal acts. These omissions, according to the petitioner, render the Plunder Law unconstitutional for being impermissibly vague and overbroad and deny him the right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him, hence violative of his fundamental right to due process. A statute is not rendered uncertain and void merely because general terms are used herein, or because of the employment of terms without defining them. A statute or act may be said to be vague when it lacks comprehensible standards that men of common intelligence most necessarily guess at its meaning and differ in its application. In such instance, the statute is repugnant to the Constitution in two (2) respects it violates due process for failure to accord persons, especially the parties targeted by it, fair notice of what conduct to avoid; and, it leaves law enforcers unbridled discretion in carrying out its provisions and becomes an arbitrary flexing of the Government muscle. A facial challenge is allowed to be made to vague statute and to one which is overbroad because of possible chilling effect upon protected speech. The possible harm to society in permitting some unprotected speech to go unpunished is outweighed by the possibility that the protected speech of other may be deterred and perceived grievances

left to fester because of possible inhibitory effects of overly broad statutes. But in criminal law, the law cannot take chances as in the area of free speech. (2)Sec. 4 (Rule of Evidence) states that: For purposes of establishing the crime of plunder, it shall not be necessary to prove each and every criminal act done by the accused in furtherance of the scheme or conspiracy to amass, accumulate or acquire ill-gotten wealth, it being sufficient to establish beyond reasonable doubt a pattern of overt or criminal acts indicative of the overall unlawful scheme or conspiracy. In a criminal prosecution for plunder, as in all other crimes, the accused always has in his favor the presumption of innocence guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, and unless the State succeeds in demonstrating by proof beyond reasonable doubt that culpability lies, the accused is entitled to an acquittal. The reasonable doubt standard has acquired such exalted stature in the realm of constitutional law as it gives life to the Due Process Clause which protects the accused against conviction except upon proof of reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged. Not everything alleged in the information needs to be proved beyond reasonable doubt. What is required to be proved beyond reasonable doubt is every element of the crime chargedthe element of the offense. Relative to petitioners contentions on the purported defect of Sec. 4 is his submission that pattern is a very important element of the crime of plunder; and that Sec. 4 is two-pronged, (as) it contains a rule of evidence and a substantive element of the crime, such that without it the accused cannot be convicted of plunder We do not subscribe to petitioners stand. Primarily, all the essential elements of plunder can be culled and understood from its definition in Sec. 2, in relation to sec. 1 par. (d). Sec. 4 purports to do no more than prescribe a rule of procedure for the prosecution of a criminal case for plunder. Being a purely procedural measure, Sec. 4 does not define or establish any substantive right in favor of the accused but only operated in furtherance of a remedy. What is crucial for the prosecution is to present sufficient evidence to engender that moral certitude exacted by the fundamental law to prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt.

(3) It is malum in se which requires proof of criminal intent. Precisely because the constitutive crimes are mala in se the element of mens rea must be proven in a prosecution for plunder. It is noteworthy that the amended information alleges that the crime of plunder was committed willfully, unlawfully and criminally. It thus alleges guilty knowledge on the part of petitioner. In support of his contention In support of his contention that the statute eliminates the requirement of mens rea and that is the reason he claims the statute is void, petitioner cites the following remarks of Senator Taada made during the deliberation on S.B. No.733. Senator Taada was only saying that where the charge is conspiracy to commit plunder, the prosecution need not prove each and every criminal act done to further the scheme or conspiracy, it being enough if it proves beyond reasonable doubt a pattern of overt or criminal acts indicative of the overall unlawful scheme or conspiracy. As far as the acts constituting the pattern are concerned, however, the elements of the crime must be proved and the requisite mens rea must be shown. The application of mitigating and extenuating circumstances in the Revised Penal Code to prosecutions under the Anti-Plunder Law indicates quite clearly that mens rea is an element of plunder since the degree of responsibility of the offender is determined by his criminal intent. Finally, any doubt as to whether the crime of plunder is a malum in se must be deemed to have been resolved in the affirmative by the decision of Congress in 1993 to include it among the heinous crimes punishable by reclusion perpetua to death. The evil of a crime may take various forms. There are crimes that are, by their very nature, despicable, either because life was callously taken or the victim is treated like an animal and utterly dehumanized as to completely disrupt the normal course of his or her growth as a human being. There are crimes however in which the abomination lies in the significance and implications of the subject criminal acts in the scheme of the larger socio-political and economic context in which the state finds itself to be struggling to develop and provide for its poor and underprivileged masses. The legislative declaration in R.A. No.7659 that plunder is a heinous offense implies that it is a malum in se. For when the acts punished are inherently immoral or inherently wrong, they are mala in se and it does

not matter that such acts are punished in a special law, especially since in the case of plunder the predicate crimes are mainly mala in se. Katz v. U.S., 389 US 347 (1967) Facts: Petitioner Katz used a public telephone booth to transmit wagering information from Los Angeles to Boston and Miami in violation of federal law. After extensive surveillance, the FBI placed a listening device to the top of the telephone booth and recorded the petitioners end of the telephone conversations which was then used as evidence against him at his trial. The petitioner moved to have the evidence suppressed under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, and that motion was denied. The Court of Appeals rejected the contention that the evidence is inadmissible. Certiorari was granted. Issue/s: Whether the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution protects telephone conversations conducted in a phone booth and secretly recorded from introduction as evidence against a person. Held: The Fourth Amendment protects persons and not places from unreasonable intrusion. Even in a public place, a person may have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his person. Although the petitioner did not seek to hide his self from public view when he entered the telephone booth, he did seek to keep out the uninvited ear. He did not relinquish his right to do so simply because he went to a place where he could be seen. A person who enters into a telephone booth may expect the protection of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution as he assumes that the words he utters into the telephone will not be broadcast to the world. Once this is acknowledged, it is clear that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution protects persons and not areas from unreasonable searches and seizures. The Governments activities in electronically listening to and recording the petitioners telephone conversations constituted a search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment and absent a search warrant predicated upon sufficient probable cause, all evidence obtained is inadmissible.

U.S. v. Lee, 274 US 559 Facts: On February 16, 1925, the boatswain of a Coast Guard patrol boat saw a motorboat of the numbered type proceed in a southeasterly direction from Gloucester harbour. He followed her. On board the motorboat were Lee, two associates, and 71 cases of grain alcohol. The boatswain arrested the three men, seized the motorboat, and took her with them and the liquor to Boston. No proceedings for forfeiture were instituted against either the motorboat or the liquor. Lee and his associates were indicted and found guilty of conspiring within the United States to violate the Tarrif Act of 1922. Lee sued out of a writ of error. The Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the judgment on the ground that evidence had been admitted which was obtained which was obtained by an illegal search seizure. The court granted a writ of certiorari. Issue/s: Whether the search and seizure were illegal. Held: Officers of the Coast Guard are authorized, by virtue of Revised Statutes 3072, to seize on the high seas beyond the 12-mile limit an American vessel subject to forfeiture for violation of any law respecting the revenue. From that power it is fairly to be inferred that they are likewise authorized to board and search such vessels when there is probable cause to believe them subject to seizure for violation of revenue laws, and to arrest persons thereon engaged in such violation. In the case at bar, there was probable cause to believe that our revenue laws were being violated by an American vessel and the persons thereon, in such manner as to render the vessel subject to forfeiture. Under such circumstances, search and seizure of the vessel, and arrest of the persons thereon, by the Coast Guard on the high seas is lawful, as like search and seizure of an automobile, and arrest of the persons therein, by prohibition officers on land is lawful. The failure of the government to institute thereafter proceedings for forfeiture of the motorboat and the liquor did not, by retroaction, render illegal either the seizure or the search. Moreover, search, if any, of the motorboat was made as an incident of a lawful arrest. But no search was shown. The testimony of the boatswain shows that he used a searchlight. It is not shown there was any exploration

below decks or under hatches. For aught that appears, the cases of liquor were on deck and, like the defendants, were discovered before the motorboat was boarded. Rios v. US, 364 US 253 Facts: At about ten oclock on the night of February 18, 1975, two Los Angeles police officers, dressed in plain clothes and riding in an unmarked car, observed a taxicab standing in a parking lot next to an apartment house at the corner of First and Flower Streets in Los Angeles. The neighbourhood had a reputation for narcotics activity. The officers saw the petitioner look up and down the street, walk across the lot, and get into the cab. Neither officer had ever before seen the petitioner, and neither of them had any idea of his identity. Except for the reputation the neighbourhood, neither officer had received information of any kind to suggest that someone might be engaged in criminal activity at that time and place. They were not searching for a participant in any previous crime. There were in possession of no arrest or search warrant. The taxicab drove away, and the officers followed it in their car for a distance. At the intersection, the cab stopped for a traffic light. The two officers alighted from their car and approached on foot to opposite sides of the cab. One of the officers identified himself as a policeman. In the next minute there occurred a rapid succession of events. The cab door opened; the petitioner dropped a recognizable package of narcotics to the floor of the vehicle; one of the officers grabbed the petitioner as he alighted from the cab, the other officer retrieved the package; and the first officer drew his revolver. Thereafter, petitioner was indicted with unlawful receipt and concealment of narcotics. Before the trial petitioner made a motion to suppress the use of the package of narcotics, heroin, obtained during the alleged unconstitutional search and seizure. The District Court denied the motion, finding that federal agents had not participated in the search, and finding also that the California officers had obtained the evidence in a lawful manner. Petitioner was convicted and sentenced to twenty years in prison. On appeal, the conviction was affirmed. Hence this petition for certiorari. Issue/s:

(1)

Whether the search and seizure conducted by the law enforcement officers violated petitioners constitutional right against unreasonable searches and seizures.

(2)Whether the evidence obtained through such search is admissible in the federal prosecution of petitioner. Held: (1)The court concluded to remand the case to the district court. There, free from the entanglement of other issues that have now become irrelevant the lawfulness of the policemens conduct can be determined in accord with the basic principles governing the validity of searches and seizures by federal officers under the Fourth Amendment. Under the principles the inquiry in the present case will be narrowly oriented. The seizure can survive constitutional inhibition only upon a showing that the surrounding facts brought it within one of the exceptions to the rule that a search must rest upon a search warrant. Here justification is primary sought upon the claim that the search was an incident to a lawful arrest. Yet upon no possible view of the circumstances revealed in the testimony of the officers could it be said that there existed probable cause for an arrest at the time the officers decided to alight from their car and approach the taxi in which the petitioner was riding.

(2)

Evidence seized in an unreasonable search by state officers is to be excluded from a federal criminal trial upon the timely objection of a defendant who has standing to complain. Thus, the only questions that remains is whether the officers obtained the narcotics during a search which, if conducted by federal officers, would have violated the defendants immunity from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendement. Kyllo v. U.S., 533 U.S. 27 (2001)

Facts: Agent William Elliot of the United States Department of the Interior came to suspect that marijuana was being grown in the home belonging to Danny Kyllo. Indoor marijuana growth typically requires high-intensity lamps. In order to determine whether an amount of heat was emanating from

petitioners home consistent with the use of such lamps, at 3:20 a.m. on January 16, 1992, the agents used an Agema Thermovision 210 thermal imager to scan the home of Kyllo. Thermal imagers detect infrared radiation, which virtually all objects emit but which is not visible to the naked eye The imager converts radiation into images based on relative warmth black is cool, white is hot, shades of gray connote relative differences; in that respect, it operates somewhat like a video camera showing eat images. The scan of Kyllos home was performed from the passenger seat of Agent Elliotts vehicle located across the street from the front of the house and also from the street in back of the house. The scan showed that the roof over the garage and a side wall of Kyllos home were relatively hot compared to the rest of the home and substantially warmer than neighboring homes. Based on tips from informants, utility bills, and the thermal imaging, a Federal Magistrate Judge issued a warrant authorizing a search of petitioners home, and the agents found an indoor growing operation involving more than 100 plants. Issue: Whether the use of a thermal imaging device to detect heat that is either within a home or radiating from it is a search under the Fourth Amendment. Held: We have said that the Fourth Amendment draws "a firm line at the entrance to the house." That line, we think, must be not only firm but also bright-which requires clear specification of those methods of surveillance that require a warrant. While it is certainly possible to conclude from the videotape of the thermal imaging that occurred in this case that no "significant" compromise of the homeowner's privacy has occurred, we must take the long view, from the original meaning of the Fourth Amendment forward. Where, as here, the Government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of the home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a "search" and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant. Since we hold the Thermovision imaging to have been an unlawful search, it will remain for the District Court to determine whether, without the evidence it provided, the search warrant issued in this case was supported by probable cause-and if not, whether there is any other basis for supporting admission of the evidence that the search pursuant to the warrant produced.

U.S. v. Jones 132 S. Ct. 945, 2012 U.S. LEXIS 1063 (Jan. 23, 2012) Facts: Respondent Antoine Jones, owner and operator of a nightclub in the District of Columbia, came under suspicion of trafficking in narcotics and was made the target of an investigation by a joint FBI and Metropolitan Police Department task force. Officers employed various investigative techniques, including visual surveillance of the nightclub, installation of a camera focused on the front door of the club, and a pen register and wiretap covering Jones's cellular phone. Government agents obtained a warrant to place a tracking device on a vehicle registered to the defendants wife. The government installed the device 11 days later while it was parked in a public parking lot in Maryland. The government used the GPS device to track the vehicle for 28 days. With the evidence it gathered from the GPS, the government indicted the defendant and others for charges involving a conspiracy to traffic drugs. The district court excluded evidence that the GPS gathered while the vehicle was parked at the defendants home but admitted the remaining GPS data since the defendant did not have an expectation of privacy while on the public streets. The D.C. Circuit reversed, finding that the use of the GPS device outside the terms of the warrant violated the Fourth Amendment. Issue/s: Whether the attachment of a Global-Positioning-System (GPS) tracking device to an individual's vehicle, and subsequent use of that device to monitor the vehicle's movements on public streets, constitutes a search or seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Held: The Government's installation of a GPS device on a target's vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle's movements, constitutes a "search." The Government physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information. We have no doubt that such a physical intrusion would have been considered a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when it was adopted.

The Government contends that several of our post-Katz cases foreclose the conclusion that what occurred here constituted a search. It relies principally on two cases in which we rejected Fourth Amendment challenges to "beepers," electronic tracking devices that represent another form of electronic monitoring. The first case, Knotts5, upheld against Fourth Amendment challenge the use of a "beeper" that had been placed in a container of chloroform, allowing law enforcement to monitor the location of the container. We said that there had been no infringement of Knotts' reasonable expectation of privacy since the information obtainedthe location of the automobile carrying the container on public roads, and the location of the off-loaded container in open fields near Knotts' cabinhad been voluntarily conveyed to the public. But as we have discussed, the Katz reasonable-expectation-of-privacy test has been added to, not substituted for, the common-law trespassory test. The holding in Knotts addressed only the former, since the latter was not at issue. The beeper had been placed in the container before it came into Knotts' possession, with the consent of the then-owner. Knotts did not challenge that installation, and we specifically declined to consider its effect on the Fourth Amendment analysis. Knotts would be relevant, perhaps, if the Government were making the argument that what would otherwise be an unconstitutional search is not such where it produces only public information. The Government does not make that argument, and we know of no case that would support it. The second "beeper" case6, does not suggest a different conclusion. There we addressed the question left open by Knotts, whether the installation of a beeper in a container amounted to a search or seizure. As in Knotts, at the time the beeper was installed the container belonged to a third party, and it did not come into possession of the defendant until later. Thus, the specific question we considered was whether the installation "with the consent of the original owner constitute[d] a search or seizure . . . when the container is delivered to a buyer having no knowledge of the presence of the beeper." We held not. The Government, we said, came into physical contact with the container only before it belonged to the defendant Karo; and the transfer of the container with the unmonitored beeper inside did not convey any information and thus did not invade Karo's privacy. That conclusion is perfectly consistent with the one we reach here. Karo accepted the container as it came to him, beeper and all, and was therefore not entitled to object to the beeper's presence, even though it was used to monitor the container's location. (no search or seizure where an informant, who was wearing a concealed microphone, was invited into the defendant's business). Jones, who possessed the Jeep at the time the Government trespassorily inserted the information-gathering device, is on much different footing.

5 6

460 U.S., at 278, 103 S.Ct. 1081 468 U.S., at 713, 104 S.Ct. 3296.

The Government also points to our exposition in New York v. Class, 475 U.S. 106, 106 S.Ct. 960, 89 L.Ed.2d 81 (1986), that "[t]he exterior of a car . . . is thrust into the public eye, and thus to examine it does not constitute a `search.'" That statement is of marginal relevance here since, as the Government acknowledges, "the officers in this case did more than conduct a visual inspection of respondent's vehicle," Brief for United States 41 (emphasis added). By attaching the device to the Jeep, officers encroached on a protected area. In Class itself we suggested that this would make a difference, for we concluded that an officer's momentary reaching into the interior of a vehicle did constitute a search. Finally, the Government's position gains little support from our conclusion in Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 104 S.Ct. 1735, 80 L.Ed.2d 214 (1984), that officers' information-gathering intrusion on an "open field" did not constitute a Fourth Amendment search even though it was a trespass at common law. Quite simply, an open field, unlike the curtilage of a home, is not one of those protected areas enumerated in the Fourth Amendment. The Government's physical intrusion on such an areaunlike its intrusion on the "effect" at issue hereis of no Fourth Amendment significance.