# Lewis v. United States

> Supreme Court of the United States · January 9, 1967 · 385 U.S. 206

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9423295

## Case

- **Full name:** Lewis v. United States
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** January 9, 1967
- **Citations:** 385 U.S. 206; 87 S. Ct. 424; 17 L. Ed. 2d 312; 1966 U.S. LEXIS 3
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Brennan
- **Judges:** Warren, Brennan, Fortas
- **Cited by:** 728 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/9423295

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- explaining that undercover agents, “in the same manner as a private person, may accept an invitation to *630 do business and may enter upon the premises for the very purposes contemplated by the occupant” but that when entry is gained by invitation “an agent is [not] authorize…
- explaining that undercover agents, “in the same manner as a private person, may accept an invitation to do business and may enter upon the premises for the very purposes contemplated by the occupant” but that when entry is gained by invitation “an agent is [not] authorized to …
- finding that if a home “is converted into a commercial center to which outsiders are invited for the purposes of transacting unlawful business,” a government agent “may enter the premises for the very purposes contemplated by the occupant.”
- concluding that consensual entry into defendant’s home did not violate any legitimate expectation of privacy even though persons entering home were in reality government agents hoping to incriminate defendant
- stating that a per se bar on deception would “severely hamper the Government in ferreting out those organized criminal activities that are characterized by covert dealings,” such as “narcotics traffic”

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Brennan,
with whom Mr. Justice Fortas joins,
concurring.
While I concur in the Court’s judgment, I vote to affirm solely on the reasoning on which the Court ulti *213 mately relies, namely that petitioner’s apartment was not an area protected by the Fourth Amendment as related to the transactions in the present case.
The Fourth Amendment protects against governmental intrusion upon “the sanctity of a man’s home and the privacies of life.” Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 630 . However, the occupant can break the seal of sanctity and waive his right to privacy in the premises. Plainly he does this to the extent that he opens his home to the transaction of business and invites anyone willing to enter to come in to trade with him. When his customer turns out to be a government agent, the seller cannot, then, complain that his privacy has been invaded so long as the agent does no more than buy his wares. Thus the corner grocery with the living quarters in the rear would not be protected with respect to the area set aside for the purchase of groceries, although the living quarters to which shoppers are not privy retain the constitutional immunity. Cf. Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471 .
The petitioner in this case opened his apartment for the conduct of a business, the sale of narcotics; the agent, in the same manner as any private person, entered the premises for the very purpose contemplated by the occupant and took nothing away except what would be taken away by any willing purchaser. There was therefore no intrusion upon the “sanctity” of petitioner’s home or the “privacies of life.”

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9423295. Public record. Not legal advice.