# McDonald v. United States

> Supreme Court of the United States · December 20, 1948 · 335 U.S. 451

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9420241

## Case

- **Full name:** McDONALD Et Al. v. UNITED STATES
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** December 20, 1948
- **Citations:** 335 U.S. 451; 69 S. Ct. 191; 93 L. Ed. 2d 153; 1948 U.S. LEXIS 1456
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Rutledge
- **Judges:** Douglas, Rutledge, Jackson, Burton, Black, Frankfurter, Court'S, Reed
- **Cited by:** 1,375 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Red flag:** Overruled by United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56 (1950).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 0
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9420241

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- 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
- reasoning that trespass by police officers into rooming house violated privacy of home, requiring suppression of seized evidence

## Opinion text

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.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9420241. Public record. Not legal advice.