Supreme Court Case Study: Katz V. US

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v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967) A. Katz was observed routinely using the three same public phone booths on the same day and on a daily basis. From February 19 to 25, FBI agents decided to place a microphone on the outside top of the booth in order to listen to Katz’s conversation. Since the microphone was placed in the outside of the booth, the FBI agents were only able to hear Katz’s conversation but not the respondent’s conversation. After studying the transcripts, the subject matter of them pertained to bet placing and the gathering of gambling information. The FBI agents obtained a search warrant after they rented a room next to Katz’s apartments, so they could further listen to Katz’s conversations through the wall. In the District Court for the Southern California District, the …show more content…

The Supreme Court stresses that the fourth amendment does not protect what a person exposes in public. However, the fourth amendment does protect whatever that person decides to be kept private even in a public setting. In the case of a conversation inside a public phone booth the fourth amendment would protect the contents of that private conversation. The very nature of a phone booth ensures that the paying customer is guaranteed some sort of privacy of Katz privacy from the public. For instance, the clear see through walls and the closed door are meant to prevent outside people from hearing the conversation inside. What the nature of the phone booth does not protect from is people being able to see inside the booth. The court additionally states that even though the microphones did not penetrate the insides of the phone booth, the fourth amendment still applies because Katz had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the booth. In such ruling the Supreme Court moves away from the property rights doctrine to the reasonable expectation of privacy rule. The court makes sure to clarify that such searches are not unconstitutional, but do require search warrants from a

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