# Arizona v. Hicks > Supreme Court of the United States · March 3, 1987 · 480 U.S. 321 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9430868 ## 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:** Concurrence by White - **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/9430868 ## 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 White, concurring. I write only to emphasize that this case does not present, and we have no occasion to address, the so-called “inadver *330 tent discovery” prong of the plain-view exception to the Warrant Clause. See Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443, 469-471 (1971) (plurality opinion). This “requirement” of the plain-view doctrine has never been accepted by a judgment supported by a majority of this Court, and I therefore do not accept Justice O’Connor’s dissent’s assertion that evidence seized in plain view must have been inadvertently discovered in order to satisfy the dictates of the Fourth Amendment. See post, at 334. I join the majority opinion today without regard to the inadvertence of the officers’ discovery of the stereo components’ serial numbers. The police officers conducted a search of respondent’s stereo equipment absent probable cause that the equipment was stolen. It is for this reason that the judgment of the Court of Appeals of Arizona must be affirmed. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9430868. Public record. Not legal advice.