# Arizona v. Hicks > Supreme Court of the United States · March 3, 1987 · 480 U.S. 321 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9430866 ## Case - **Full name:** Arizona v. Hicks - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** March 3, 1987 - **Citations:** 480 U.S. 321; 55 U.S.L.W. 4258; 107 S. Ct. 1149; 94 L. Ed. 2d 347; 1987 U.S. LEXIS 1056 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Dissent by Connor - **Judges:** O'Connor'S, Powell'S, Scalia, Brennan, White, Marshall, Blackmun, Stevens, Powell, Rehnquist, O'Connor - **Cited by:** 1,293 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/9430866 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - holding that the police officer’s act of moving stereo equipment “did constitute a ‘search’ separate and apart from the search for the shooter, victims, and weapons that was the lawful objective of his entry into the apartment.... [and that] taking action, unrelated to the obj… - holding that police officer’s actions in moving stereo equipment came within the purview of the Fourth Amendment as a “search” independent of the search which was justified by the exigent circumstances validating the entry of the apartment and pointing out, “A search is a sear… - holding that, when warrant-less entry into apartment to search for shooter was justified based on exigent circumstances, seizure of stereo equipment in plain view in the apartment was illegal because police did not have probable cause to believe the stereo equipment was eviden… - holding an officer’s “moving of [stereo] equipment . . . constitute[d] a [search] separate and apart from the search for the shooter, victims, and weapons that was the lawful objective of [the police officer’s] entry into the STATE V. NEWBORN 2021-NCCOA-426 Opinion of the Cour… - holding that moving stereo equipment even a few inches to find its serial number, as opposed to reading a serial number already in view, to confirm whether something is stolen property was an unconstitutional search in the absence of existing probable cause to seize the stereo… ## Opinion text Justice O’Connor’s dissent suggests that we uphold the action here on the ground that it was a “cursory inspection” rather than a “full-blown search,” and could therefore be justified by reasonable suspicion instead of probable cause. As already noted, a truly cursory inspection — one that involves merely looking at what is already exposed to view, without disturbing it — is not a “search” for Fourth Amendment purposes, and therefore does not even require reasonable suspicion. We are unwilling to send police and judges into a new thicket of Fourth Amendment law, to seek a creature of uncertain description that is neither a “plain view” inspection nor *329 yet a “full-blown search.” Nothing in the prior opinions of this Court supports such a distinction, not even the dictum from Justice Stewart’s concurrence in Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U. S. 557, 571 (1969), whose reference to a “mere inspection” describes, in our view, close observation of what lies in plain sight. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9430866. Public record. Not legal advice.