holding that attaching a spike mike to a heating duct of a home was a search, reasoning that technical trespass is not necessary for Fourth Amendment violation but “actual intrusion into a constitutionally protected area” is sufficient
How later courts described this case
- holding that attaching a spike mike to a heating duct of a home was a search, reasoning that technical trespass is not necessary for Fourth Amendment violation but “actual intrusion into a constitutionally protected area” is sufficient
- holding that a Fourth Amendment search occurred when police inserted a “spike mike” into a house to overhear conversations of the house next door
- holding that a dog in a bathtub in a grooming room of a pet hospital was not “at large” when injury occurred
- holding that officers’ insertion of electronic instrument from adjacent vacant row house through common wall to heating duct constituted a physical intrusion of the home in violation of the Fourth Amendment
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Mr. Justice Clark and Mr. Justice Whittaker,
concurring.
In view of the determination by the majority that the unauthorized physical penetration into petitioners’ premises constituted sufficient trespass to remove this case from the coverage of earlier decisions, we feel obliged to join in the Court’s opinion.