Olmstead v. United States
Encyclopedia
Olmstead v. United States, , was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, in which the Court reviewed whether the use of wiretapped private telephone conversations, obtained by federal agents without judicial approval and subsequently used as evidence, constituted a violation of the defendant’s rights provided by the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. In a 5-4 decision, the Court held that neither the Fourth Amendment nor the Fifth Amendment rights of the defendant were violated. This decision was overturned by Katz v. United States
in 1967.
, largely followed the precepts of English common law when it came to matters dealing with the validity of introducing evidence in criminal trials. In most cases, the general philosophy was that the process by which the evidence was obtained had little, if anything to do with the permissibility of its use in court. The only limiting factor was that the police agents could not break the law to seize the evidence; however, since what is now illegal seizure was then permitted by the courts, it rarely presented a significant challenge.
In 1914, however, in the landmark case of Weeks v. United States
, the Court held unanimously that illegal seizure of items from a private residence was a violation of the Fourth Amendment, and established the exclusionary rule
that prohibits admission of illegally obtained evidence in federal courts. It is important to underline that because the Bill of Rights
did not at the time extend to cover states, such a prohibition extended only to federal agents, and covered only federal trials. It was not until the case of Mapp v. Ohio
(1961) that the exclusionary rule was extended to state courts as well.
The question here, then, was whether the recordings of wiretapped private telephone conversations constituted impermissibly-seized evidence and thus constituted a violation of the federal exclusionary rule.
, who challenged their convictions, arguing that the use of evidence of wiretapped private telephone conversations amounted to a violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.
The petitioners were convicted for alleged conspiracy to violate the National Prohibition Act by unlawfully possessing, transporting, and selling alcohol. Seventy-two additional persons, aside from the petitioners, were indicted. The evidence provided by the wiretapped telephone conversations disclosed "a conspiracy of amazing magnitude" to engage in bootlegging
, involving the employment of some fifty persons, use of sea vessels for transportation, an underground storage facility in Seattle, and the maintenance of a central office fully equipped with executives, bookkeepers, salesmen, and an attorney. According to the record, even in a bad month, the sales amounted to some $176,000; the grand total for a year probably came out to some $2,000,000.
Olmstead was the general manager of this business, receiving fifty percent of all the profits. The information that led to the discovery of his involvement and the conspiracy itself was largely obtained by four federal prohibition officers who were able to intercept messages on his, and other conspirators' telephones. No laws were violated in installing the wiretapping equipment, as the officers did not trespass upon either the homes or the offices of the defendants; instead, the equipment was placed in the streets near the houses and in the basement of the large office building.
The wiretapping went on for several months, and the records revealed significant details on the business transactions of the petitioners and their employees. Stenographic notes were made of the conversations, and their accuracy was testified to by the government witnesses. The evidence disclosed full details of the operations of the bootlegging business; in addition, it showed the relationship between Olmstead with members of the Seattle police, which resulted in prompt release of some of the arrested members of the conspiracy and promises to officers of payment.
William Howard Taft
delivered the opinion of the Court.
, Sanford
, Sutherland
, and Van Devanter
. After outlining the factual and procedural history of the case, Chief Justice Taft lists the relevant amendments, Fourth and Fifth, and proceeds to examine the legal matters and precedents in question.
Boyd v. United States
concerned the Act of June 22, 1874 (19 USCA 535), which provided per section 5, a United States attorney with the power to use a marshal to obtain evidence that the defendant had refused to provide, in cases that were not criminal under the revenue laws. The Court held that Act of 1874 was a violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendment, even though it did not constitute a clear case of search and seizure.
Chief Justice Taft next examines the "perhaps the most important" case of Weeks v. United States
, which involved a conviction for using the mail to transport lottery tickets. The defendant was arrested by a police officer without a warrant, and subsequent to the arrest, the defendant’s house was searched and a number of papers and articles was seized despite the lack of a search warrant. Although the defendant applied for and successfully obtained a court order directing the return of his property, he was denied return of relevant evidence. He appealed; the Court held that such taking of papers was in violation of the constitutional rights of the defendant, and that the trial court could not permit their use at trial.
Chief Justice Taft cites several other cases (Silverthome Lumber Co. v. United States, Amos v. United States, Gouled v. United States, and Agnello v. United States,) and concludes that there is no permissible way to apply the Fifth Amendment to this case unless it could be shown that the Fourth Amendment was first violated. In this instance, there is no evidence that the defendants were in any way compelled to talk over their telephones, and were voluntarily engaging in business. Thus, “our consideration must be confined to the Fourth Amendment.”
Taft writes that the aggregate outcome of the Weeks case and those that followed it was that the Fourth Amendment forbade the introduction of evidence in court if it had been obtained in violation of the amendment. This is in compliance with the historical purpose of the Fourth Amendment, as it was in part intended to prevent the use of governmental force to search and seize a man’s personal property and effects.
While it may seem that the language of Justice Field in ex parte Jackson could be viewed as an analogy to the interpretation of the Fourth Amendment qua wiretapping, Taft believes that the analogy fails. The Fourth Amendment applies to sealed letters in the mail because there exists a constitutional provision for the federal postal office and the relationship between the government and those “who pay to secure protection of their sealed letters.” However, the United States does not take such care with telegraphic and telephonic messages as it applies to mailed sealed letters, and Taft is quite emphatic in drawing the distinction:
"The amendment does not forbid what was done here. There was no searching. There was no 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."
He points out that one can talk with another at a great distance via telephone, and suggests that because the connecting wires were not a part of either the petitioners’ houses or offices, they cannot be held subject to the protections of the Fourth Amendment.
Taft, in keeping with his personal judicial philosophy, suggests that Congress may "of course" extend such protections to telephone conversations by passing direct legislation that would prohibit their use in federal criminal trials. Until such legislation is passed, however, "the courts may not adopt such a policy by attributing an enlarged and unusual meaning to the Fourth Amendment," as there are no precedents that permit the Fourth Amendment to apply as a viable defense in cases where there had been no official search and seizure of the person, his papers, tangible material effects, or an actual physical invasion of property.
He concludes that such wiretapping as occurred in this case did not amount to a search or seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.
The government made no attempt to defend the methods employed by federal agents, and, in fact, conceded that if wiretapping could be deemed a search or seizure, such wiretapping as took place in this case would be unreasonable search and seizure and thus inadmissible in court. However, it claimed that the protections of the amendment do not extend to telephone conversations.
Brandeis attacks the proposition that expanding the Fourth Amendment to include protection of telephone conversations was inappropriate. At the time of the adoption of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, he writes, “force and violence” were the only means by which the government could compel self-incrimination. Thus, the protections offered by these Amendments were necessarily limited to address only imaginable forms of such force and violence.
However, with the technological advances, the government has received the ability to invade privacy in more subtle ways; further, there is no reason to think that the rate of such technological advances will slow down. “Can it be that the Constitution affords no protection against such invasions of individual security?”, Brandeis asks. He answers that a clear negative answer is evident in Boyd v. United States
.
Brandeis argues that the mail is a public service furnished by the government, and the telephone is "a public service furnished by its authority." He concludes that there is no difference between a private telephone conversation and a sealed letter. In fact, he writes, "the evil incident to invasion of the privacy of the telephone is far greater than that involved in tampering with the mails."
In its past rulings, the Court has refused to read a literal construction of the Fourth Amendment, most notably in the Boyd case. Unjustified search and seizure violate the Fourth Amendment, and it does not matter what type of papers were seized, whether the papers were in an office or a home, whether the papers were seized by force, etc. The protection guaranteed by the Fourth and Fifth Amendments are broad in scope. The framers of the Constitution sought "to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions, and their sensations." It is for this reason that they established, as against the government, the right to be let alone as "the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment. And the use, as evidence in a criminal proceeding, of facts ascertained by such intrusion must be deemed a violation of the Fifth."
Brandeis argues further that even independently of the constitutional question, the judgment should be reversed. By the law of Washington, wiretapping is a crime, and a federal court should not permit a prosecution that makes use of such crime to continue. The Eighteenth Amendment
did not empower Congress to authorize anyone, federal agents or not, to violate the criminal laws of a state; nor has Congress ever purported to do so. These unlawful acts were not directed by the Attorney General or the Secretary of Treasury; they were committed by individual officers. Thus, the government was innocent from a legal point of view, since it did not direct its agents to commit a crime on its behalf. However, when it sought to "avail itself of the fruits of these acts" to convict the defendants, "it assumed moral responsibility for the officers' crimes." If the Supreme Court were to permit the government to punish the defendants by the sole means of its officers’ transgressions, it would present all the elements of a ratification. "If so, the government itself would become a lawbreaker."
Brandeis cites an old maxim of unclean hands
, inherited from courts of equity, whereby a court will not redress a wrong when he who has requested its aid has unclean hands. This principle, he believes, is very much relevant here. The Court should deny its aid to maintain respect for law to promote confidence in the administration of justice and preserve the judicial process from contamination.
We must subject government officials to the same rules of conduct that we expect of the citizen. The very existence of the government is imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. As Brandeis puts it, "if the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means—to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal—would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this court should resolutely set its face."
Justice Brandeis' opinion was quoted by Timothy McVeigh
at his trial for the bombing of the Federal Building
in Oklahoma City
. After remaining silent throughout his trial, he was asked before sentencing if he would like to make a statement. He responded "I wish instead to use the words of Justice Brandeis dissenting in Olmstead to speak for me. He wrote 'Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.'"
The sole question that he considers is whether the government may direct its officers to engage in wiretapping without violating the search and seizure clause of the Fourth Amendment.
Butler writes that though there was no direct search and seizure in Boyd v. United States, the Court still found such exercise as occurred in that case to be in violation of the constitutional protections afforded to the criminal defendant. The Court does not limit its decisions to the literal meaning of the words of the Constitution. "Under the principles established and applied by this court, the Fourth Amendment safeguards against all evils that are like and equivalent to those embraced within the ordinary meaning of its words." Thus, when all these facts are evaluated, Butler concludes "with great deference," that the petitioners should be given a new trial.
Correctional Institute. He then became a carpenter. On December 25, 1935, President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt granted him a full presidential pardon
. Besides restoring his constitutional rights, the pardon remitted him $10,300.00 dollars in costs. Eventually, Mr. Olmstead became a well-known, full-time Christian Science
practitioner, who also worked with prison inmates on an anti-alcoholism agenda for decades until his death in 1966 at the age of 79.
Katz v. United States
Katz v. United States, , is a United States Supreme Court case discussing the nature of the "right to privacy" and the legal definition of a "search." The Court’s ruling adjusted previous interpretations of the unreasonable search and seizure clause of the Fourth Amendment to count immaterial...
in 1967.
Background information
Until 1914, the American judicial system, including the Supreme Court of the United StatesSupreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
, largely followed the precepts of English common law when it came to matters dealing with the validity of introducing evidence in criminal trials. In most cases, the general philosophy was that the process by which the evidence was obtained had little, if anything to do with the permissibility of its use in court. The only limiting factor was that the police agents could not break the law to seize the evidence; however, since what is now illegal seizure was then permitted by the courts, it rarely presented a significant challenge.
In 1914, however, in the landmark case of Weeks v. United States
Weeks v. United States
In Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383 , the United States Supreme Court unanimously held that the warrantless seizure of items from a private residence constitutes a violation of the Fourth Amendment...
, the Court held unanimously that illegal seizure of items from a private residence was a violation of the Fourth Amendment, and established the exclusionary rule
Exclusionary rule
The exclusionary rule is a legal principle in the United States, under constitutional law, which holds that evidence collected or analyzed in violation of the defendant's constitutional rights is sometimes inadmissible for a criminal prosecution in a court of law...
that prohibits admission of illegally obtained evidence in federal courts. It is important to underline that because the Bill of Rights
Bill of rights
A bill of rights is a list of the most important rights of the citizens of a country. The purpose of these bills is to protect those rights against infringement. The term "bill of rights" originates from England, where it referred to the Bill of Rights 1689. Bills of rights may be entrenched or...
did not at the time extend to cover states, such a prohibition extended only to federal agents, and covered only federal trials. It was not until the case of Mapp v. Ohio
Mapp v. Ohio
Mapp v. Ohio, , was a landmark case in criminal procedure, in which the United States Supreme Court decided that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against "unreasonable searches and seizures," may not be used in criminal prosecutions in state courts, as well as...
(1961) that the exclusionary rule was extended to state courts as well.
The question here, then, was whether the recordings of wiretapped private telephone conversations constituted impermissibly-seized evidence and thus constituted a violation of the federal exclusionary rule.
Case details
The case concerned several petitioners, including Roy OlmsteadRoy Olmstead
Roy Olmstead was one of the most successful and best-known bootleggers in the Pacific Northwest region of the U.S.. A former lieutenant in the Seattle, Washington, police department, he began to bootleg part-time...
, who challenged their convictions, arguing that the use of evidence of wiretapped private telephone conversations amounted to a violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.
The petitioners were convicted for alleged conspiracy to violate the National Prohibition Act by unlawfully possessing, transporting, and selling alcohol. Seventy-two additional persons, aside from the petitioners, were indicted. The evidence provided by the wiretapped telephone conversations disclosed "a conspiracy of amazing magnitude" to engage in bootlegging
Rum-running
Rum-running, also known as bootlegging, is the illegal business of transporting alcoholic beverages where such transportation is forbidden by law...
, involving the employment of some fifty persons, use of sea vessels for transportation, an underground storage facility in Seattle, and the maintenance of a central office fully equipped with executives, bookkeepers, salesmen, and an attorney. According to the record, even in a bad month, the sales amounted to some $176,000; the grand total for a year probably came out to some $2,000,000.
Olmstead was the general manager of this business, receiving fifty percent of all the profits. The information that led to the discovery of his involvement and the conspiracy itself was largely obtained by four federal prohibition officers who were able to intercept messages on his, and other conspirators' telephones. No laws were violated in installing the wiretapping equipment, as the officers did not trespass upon either the homes or the offices of the defendants; instead, the equipment was placed in the streets near the houses and in the basement of the large office building.
The wiretapping went on for several months, and the records revealed significant details on the business transactions of the petitioners and their employees. Stenographic notes were made of the conversations, and their accuracy was testified to by the government witnesses. The evidence disclosed full details of the operations of the bootlegging business; in addition, it showed the relationship between Olmstead with members of the Seattle police, which resulted in prompt release of some of the arrested members of the conspiracy and promises to officers of payment.
Opinions
Chief JusticeChief Justice of the United States
The Chief Justice of the United States is the head of the United States federal court system and the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Chief Justice is one of nine Supreme Court justices; the other eight are the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States...
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft was the 27th President of the United States and later the tenth Chief Justice of the United States...
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Chief Justice Taft
Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Taft was joined by Justices McReynoldsJames Clark McReynolds
James Clark McReynolds was an American lawyer and judge who served as United States Attorney General under President Woodrow Wilson and as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court...
, Sanford
Edward Terry Sanford
Edward Terry Sanford was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court from 1923 until his death in 1930. Prior to his nomination to the high court, Sanford served as an Assistant Attorney General under President Theodore Roosevelt from 1905 to 1907, and...
, Sutherland
George Sutherland
Alexander George Sutherland was an English-born U.S. jurist and political figure. One of four appointments to the Supreme Court by President Warren G. Harding, he served as an Associate Justice of the U.S...
, and Van Devanter
Willis Van Devanter
Willis Van Devanter was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, January 3, 1911 to June 2, 1937.- Early life and career :...
. After outlining the factual and procedural history of the case, Chief Justice Taft lists the relevant amendments, Fourth and Fifth, and proceeds to examine the legal matters and precedents in question.
Boyd v. United States
Boyd v. United States
Boyd v. United States, , was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, which held that “a search and seizure [was] equivalent [to] a compulsory production of a man's private papers” and that the search was “an 'unreasonable search and seizure' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.”In the...
concerned the Act of June 22, 1874 (19 USCA 535), which provided per section 5, a United States attorney with the power to use a marshal to obtain evidence that the defendant had refused to provide, in cases that were not criminal under the revenue laws. The Court held that Act of 1874 was a violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendment, even though it did not constitute a clear case of search and seizure.
Chief Justice Taft next examines the "perhaps the most important" case of Weeks v. United States
Weeks v. United States
In Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383 , the United States Supreme Court unanimously held that the warrantless seizure of items from a private residence constitutes a violation of the Fourth Amendment...
, which involved a conviction for using the mail to transport lottery tickets. The defendant was arrested by a police officer without a warrant, and subsequent to the arrest, the defendant’s house was searched and a number of papers and articles was seized despite the lack of a search warrant. Although the defendant applied for and successfully obtained a court order directing the return of his property, he was denied return of relevant evidence. He appealed; the Court held that such taking of papers was in violation of the constitutional rights of the defendant, and that the trial court could not permit their use at trial.
Chief Justice Taft cites several other cases (Silverthome Lumber Co. v. United States, Amos v. United States, Gouled v. United States, and Agnello v. United States,) and concludes that there is no permissible way to apply the Fifth Amendment to this case unless it could be shown that the Fourth Amendment was first violated. In this instance, there is no evidence that the defendants were in any way compelled to talk over their telephones, and were voluntarily engaging in business. Thus, “our consideration must be confined to the Fourth Amendment.”
Taft writes that the aggregate outcome of the Weeks case and those that followed it was that the Fourth Amendment forbade the introduction of evidence in court if it had been obtained in violation of the amendment. This is in compliance with the historical purpose of the Fourth Amendment, as it was in part intended to prevent the use of governmental force to search and seize a man’s personal property and effects.
While it may seem that the language of Justice Field in ex parte Jackson could be viewed as an analogy to the interpretation of the Fourth Amendment qua wiretapping, Taft believes that the analogy fails. The Fourth Amendment applies to sealed letters in the mail because there exists a constitutional provision for the federal postal office and the relationship between the government and those “who pay to secure protection of their sealed letters.” However, the United States does not take such care with telegraphic and telephonic messages as it applies to mailed sealed letters, and Taft is quite emphatic in drawing the distinction:
"The amendment does not forbid what was done here. There was no searching. There was no 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."
He points out that one can talk with another at a great distance via telephone, and suggests that because the connecting wires were not a part of either the petitioners’ houses or offices, they cannot be held subject to the protections of the Fourth Amendment.
Taft, in keeping with his personal judicial philosophy, suggests that Congress may "of course" extend such protections to telephone conversations by passing direct legislation that would prohibit their use in federal criminal trials. Until such legislation is passed, however, "the courts may not adopt such a policy by attributing an enlarged and unusual meaning to the Fourth Amendment," as there are no precedents that permit the Fourth Amendment to apply as a viable defense in cases where there had been no official search and seizure of the person, his papers, tangible material effects, or an actual physical invasion of property.
He concludes that such wiretapping as occurred in this case did not amount to a search or seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.
Associate Justice Brandeis
Associate Justice Louis Brandeis wrote a dissenting opinion that in subsequent years became very famous.The government made no attempt to defend the methods employed by federal agents, and, in fact, conceded that if wiretapping could be deemed a search or seizure, such wiretapping as took place in this case would be unreasonable search and seizure and thus inadmissible in court. However, it claimed that the protections of the amendment do not extend to telephone conversations.
Brandeis attacks the proposition that expanding the Fourth Amendment to include protection of telephone conversations was inappropriate. At the time of the adoption of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, he writes, “force and violence” were the only means by which the government could compel self-incrimination. Thus, the protections offered by these Amendments were necessarily limited to address only imaginable forms of such force and violence.
However, with the technological advances, the government has received the ability to invade privacy in more subtle ways; further, there is no reason to think that the rate of such technological advances will slow down. “Can it be that the Constitution affords no protection against such invasions of individual security?”, Brandeis asks. He answers that a clear negative answer is evident in Boyd v. United States
Boyd v. United States
Boyd v. United States, , was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, which held that “a search and seizure [was] equivalent [to] a compulsory production of a man's private papers” and that the search was “an 'unreasonable search and seizure' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.”In the...
.
Brandeis argues that the mail is a public service furnished by the government, and the telephone is "a public service furnished by its authority." He concludes that there is no difference between a private telephone conversation and a sealed letter. In fact, he writes, "the evil incident to invasion of the privacy of the telephone is far greater than that involved in tampering with the mails."
In its past rulings, the Court has refused to read a literal construction of the Fourth Amendment, most notably in the Boyd case. Unjustified search and seizure violate the Fourth Amendment, and it does not matter what type of papers were seized, whether the papers were in an office or a home, whether the papers were seized by force, etc. The protection guaranteed by the Fourth and Fifth Amendments are broad in scope. The framers of the Constitution sought "to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions, and their sensations." It is for this reason that they established, as against the government, the right to be let alone as "the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment. And the use, as evidence in a criminal proceeding, of facts ascertained by such intrusion must be deemed a violation of the Fifth."
Brandeis argues further that even independently of the constitutional question, the judgment should be reversed. By the law of Washington, wiretapping is a crime, and a federal court should not permit a prosecution that makes use of such crime to continue. The Eighteenth Amendment
Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Eighteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution established Prohibition in the United States. The separate Volstead Act set down methods of enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment, and defined which "intoxicating liquors" were prohibited, and which were excluded from prohibition...
did not empower Congress to authorize anyone, federal agents or not, to violate the criminal laws of a state; nor has Congress ever purported to do so. These unlawful acts were not directed by the Attorney General or the Secretary of Treasury; they were committed by individual officers. Thus, the government was innocent from a legal point of view, since it did not direct its agents to commit a crime on its behalf. However, when it sought to "avail itself of the fruits of these acts" to convict the defendants, "it assumed moral responsibility for the officers' crimes." If the Supreme Court were to permit the government to punish the defendants by the sole means of its officers’ transgressions, it would present all the elements of a ratification. "If so, the government itself would become a lawbreaker."
Brandeis cites an old maxim of unclean hands
Unclean hands
Unclean hands, sometimes called the clean hands doctrine or the dirty hands doctrine, is an equitable defense in which the defendant argues that the plaintiff is not entitled to obtain an equitable remedy on account of the fact that the plaintiff is acting unethically or has acted in bad faith with...
, inherited from courts of equity, whereby a court will not redress a wrong when he who has requested its aid has unclean hands. This principle, he believes, is very much relevant here. The Court should deny its aid to maintain respect for law to promote confidence in the administration of justice and preserve the judicial process from contamination.
We must subject government officials to the same rules of conduct that we expect of the citizen. The very existence of the government is imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. As Brandeis puts it, "if the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means—to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal—would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this court should resolutely set its face."
Justice Brandeis' opinion was quoted by Timothy McVeigh
Timothy McVeigh
Timothy James McVeigh was a United States Army veteran and security guard who detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995...
at his trial for the bombing of the Federal Building
Oklahoma City bombing
The Oklahoma City bombing was a terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. It was the most destructive act of terrorism on American soil until the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Oklahoma blast claimed 168 lives, including 19...
in Oklahoma City
Oklahoma city
Oklahoma City is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma.Oklahoma City may also refer to:*Oklahoma City metropolitan area*Downtown Oklahoma City*Uptown Oklahoma City*Oklahoma City bombing*Oklahoma City National Memorial...
. After remaining silent throughout his trial, he was asked before sentencing if he would like to make a statement. He responded "I wish instead to use the words of Justice Brandeis dissenting in Olmstead to speak for me. He wrote 'Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.'"
Associate Justice Holmes
Citing the extensive dissent filed by Brandeis, Holmes says that he need "add but a few words." While he is not ready to say that the penumbra of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments covers the defendant, he does concur that even apart from the Constitution, the government should be prohibited to use evidence obtained (and only obtainable) by a criminal act. Holmes writes that in his opinion, it would be a less evil that some criminals should escape prosecution than that the government "should play an ignoble part."Associate Justice Butler
Justice Butler begins his dissent by registering his regret for being unable to support the opinion and judgments of the Court. Because the writ of certiorari limited the counsel’s arguments only to the constitutional question, he writes that it does not participate in the controversy of the admissibility of evidence because "the mode of obtaining it was unethical and a misdemeanor under state law."The sole question that he considers is whether the government may direct its officers to engage in wiretapping without violating the search and seizure clause of the Fourth Amendment.
Butler writes that though there was no direct search and seizure in Boyd v. United States, the Court still found such exercise as occurred in that case to be in violation of the constitutional protections afforded to the criminal defendant. The Court does not limit its decisions to the literal meaning of the words of the Constitution. "Under the principles established and applied by this court, the Fourth Amendment safeguards against all evils that are like and equivalent to those embraced within the ordinary meaning of its words." Thus, when all these facts are evaluated, Butler concludes "with great deference," that the petitioners should be given a new trial.
Associate Justice Stone
Justice Stone concurs in the opinions of Justice Holmes and Justice Brandeis, and also with that of Justice Butler insofar as it deals with the merits. Though the order granting certiorari did indeed limit the argument to a single question, Justice Stone does not believe that it prevents the Court from considering any questions present in the record.Aftermath
Mr. Olmstead spent his 4 year prison sentence at the McNeil IslandMcNeil Island
McNeil Island is an island in western Puget Sound, located just west of Steilacoom, Washington, with a land area of 17.177 km² . It lies just north of Anderson Island. Fox Island is to the north, across Carr Inlet. To the west McNeil Island is separated from Key Peninsula by Pitt Passage. The...
Correctional Institute. He then became a carpenter. On December 25, 1935, President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Franklin Delano Roosevelt granted him a full presidential pardon
Pardon
Clemency means the forgiveness of a crime or the cancellation of the penalty associated with it. It is a general concept that encompasses several related procedures: pardoning, commutation, remission and reprieves...
. Besides restoring his constitutional rights, the pardon remitted him $10,300.00 dollars in costs. Eventually, Mr. Olmstead became a well-known, full-time Christian Science
Christian Science
Christian Science is a system of thought and practice derived from the writings of Mary Baker Eddy and the Bible. It is practiced by members of The First Church of Christ, Scientist as well as some others who are nonmembers. Its central texts are the Bible and the Christian Science textbook,...
practitioner, who also worked with prison inmates on an anti-alcoholism agenda for decades until his death in 1966 at the age of 79.
See also
- Exclusionary ruleExclusionary ruleThe exclusionary rule is a legal principle in the United States, under constitutional law, which holds that evidence collected or analyzed in violation of the defendant's constitutional rights is sometimes inadmissible for a criminal prosecution in a court of law...
- Wolf v. ColoradoWolf v. ColoradoWolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25 was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held 6-3 that the Fourth Amendment was applicable to the States through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, however, the exclusionary rule was not. The Court specified no redressive measures...
- Elkins v. United States
- Boyd v. United StatesBoyd v. United StatesBoyd v. United States, , was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, which held that “a search and seizure [was] equivalent [to] a compulsory production of a man's private papers” and that the search was “an 'unreasonable search and seizure' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.”In the...
- Bram v. United States
- Adams v. New York
- Katz v. United StatesKatz v. United StatesKatz v. United States, , is a United States Supreme Court case discussing the nature of the "right to privacy" and the legal definition of a "search." The Court’s ruling adjusted previous interpretations of the unreasonable search and seizure clause of the Fourth Amendment to count immaterial...
- Fourth AmendmentFourth Amendment to the United States ConstitutionThe Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause...
- Fifth AmendmentFifth Amendment to the United States ConstitutionThe Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. Its guarantees stem from English common law which traces back to the Magna Carta in 1215...
- List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 277