Opinion

McDonald v. United States

  • 335 U.S. 451
  • 69 S. Ct. 191
  • 93 L. Ed. 2d 153
  • 1948 U.S. LEXIS 1456
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Filed
Dec 20, 1948
Status
Published
Author
Rutledge
On the bench
Douglas, Rutledge, Jackson, Burton, Black, Frankfurter, Court'S, Reed
Cited by
1,375 cases
Authority
More cited than 24.0%

Overruled by United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56 (1950)

holding that officers who had been watching the defendant for -8- STATE V. GRICE Opinion of the Court two months committed an unconstitutional search when they climbed through a window and peered through a transom to see if he was running an illegal gambling operation

How later courts described this case

  • holding that officers who had been watching the defendant for -8- STATE V. GRICE Opinion of the Court two months committed an unconstitutional search when they climbed through a window and peered through a transom to see if he was running an illegal gambling operation
  • concluding that a warrantless search resulting in the discovery of an illegal lottery operation did not rise to the level of exigency because “[a]bsent some grave emergency, the Fourth Amendment has interposed a magistrate' between the citizen and the police”
  • holding that officers who had been watching the defendant for two months committed an unconstitutional search when they climbed through a window and peered through a transom to see if he was running an illegal gambling operation
  • holding that officers’ actions of climbing through a window of a boarding house, standing on a chair in the hallway, and peering through the transom above the defendant’s door constituted an unlawful search

Written by the judges who cited it.

Later courts went against this

  • Overruled by United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56 (1950)

    Listed in the Constitution Annotated's table of Supreme Court decisions overruled by subsequent decision (entry 87, expressly overruled).
    Supreme Court of the United StatesFeb 20, 1950official confidenceRead it

The opinion

Mr. Justice Rutledge

concurs in the result, and in the opinion insofar as it relates to the petitioner McDon- *457 aid. With respect to the petitioner Washington he is of the view that the evidence, having been illegally obtained, was inadmissible. Cf. Malinski v. New York, 324 U. S. 401 , opinion dissenting in part p. 420 at pp. 430-432.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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