Contemporary Business and Online Commerce Law 7th Edition by Henry R Cheeseman

Exercise 1

U.S. SUPREME COURT Search

Kyllo v. United States

533 U.S. 27,121 S.Ct. 2038,150 L.Ed.2d 94, Web 2001 U.S. Lexis 4487 (2001)

Supreme Court of the United States

“At the very core of the Fourth Amendment stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable government intrusion.”

—Justice Scalia

Facts

Government agents suspected that marijuana was being grown in the home of Danny Kyllo, which was part of a triplex building in Florence, Oregon. Indoor marijuana growth typically requires high-intensity lamps. In order to determine whether an amount of heat was emanating from Kyllo’s home consistent with the use of such lamps, federal agents used a thermal imager to scan the triplex. Thermal imagers detect infrared radiation and produce images of the radiation. The scan of Kyllo’s home, which was performed from an automobile on the street, showed that the roof over the garage and a side wall of Kyllo’s home were “hot.”The agents used this scanning evidence to obtain a search warrant authorizing a search of Kyllo’s home. During the search, the agents found an indoor growing operation involving more than one hundred marijuana plants.

Kyllo was indicted for manufacturing marijuana, a violation of federal criminal law. Kyllo moved to suppress the imaging evidence and the evidence it led to, arguing that it was an unreasonable search that violated the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. District Court disagreed with Kyllo and let the evidence be introduced and considered at trial. Kyllo then entered a conditional guilty plea and appealed the trial court’s failure to suppress the challenged evidence to the U.S. Court of Appeals. The U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s decision to admit the evidence. Kyllo appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Issue

Is the use of a thermal-imaging device aimed at a private home from a public street to detect relative amounts of heat within the home a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment?

Language of the U.S. Supreme Court

At the very core of the Fourth Amendment stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable government intrusion. With few exceptions, the question whether a warrantless search of a home is reasonable and hence constitutional must be answered no. The present case involves officers on a public street engaged in more than naked-eye surveillance of a home. The question we confront today is what limits there are upon this power of technology to shrink the realm of guaranteed privacy. We think that obtaining by sense-enhancing technology any information regarding the interior of the home that could not otherwise have been obtained without physical intrusion into a constitutionally protected area constitutes a search—at least where (as here) the technology is question is not in general public use. This assures preservation of that degree of privacy against government that existed when the Fourth Amendment was adopted. On the basis of this criterion, the information obtained by the thermal imager in this case was the product of a search.

Decision

The U.S. Supreme Court held that the use of a thermalimaging device aimed at a private home from a public street to detect relative amounts of heat within the home is a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court reversed the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals and remanded the case for further proceedings.

Case Questions

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Critical Legal Thinking What does the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure provide? Explain.

Ethics Did the police act ethically in obtaining the evidence in this case? Did Kyllo act ethically in trying to suppress the evidence?

Contemporary Business Is selling illegal drugs a big business in this country? How can the government catch entrepreneurs such as Kyllo?