# Silverman v. United States

> Supreme Court of the United States · March 6, 1961 · 365 U.S. 505

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422146

## Case

- **Full name:** SILVERMAN Et Al. v. UNITED STATES
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** March 6, 1961
- **Citations:** 365 U.S. 505; 97 A.L.R. 2d 1277; 81 S. Ct. 679; 5 L. Ed. 2d 734; 1961 U.S. LEXIS 1605
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Whittaker
- **Judges:** Douglas, Stewart, Sti, Whittaker
- **Cited by:** 1,070 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422146

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- 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
- finding Fourth Amendment violation where “spike mike” used to listen in on a defendant’s conversations penetrated wall and made physical contact with heating duct, and distinguishing cases in which no unauthorized physical intrusion occurred

## Opinion text

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.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422146. Public record. Not legal advice.