# United States v. White

> Supreme Court of the United States · May 17, 1971 · 401 U.S. 745

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9883109

## Case

- **Full name:** United States v. White
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** May 17, 1971
- **Citations:** 401 U.S. 745; 91 S. Ct. 1122; 28 L. Ed. 2d 453; 1971 U.S. LEXIS 132
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Brennan
- **Judges:** White, Court'S, Burger, Stewart, Blackmun, Black, Brennan, Douglas, Harlan, Marshall
- **Cited by:** 935 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/9883109

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- explaining that courts must assess the “de­ sirability” of privacy expectations and ask whether courts “should” recognize them by “balanc[ing]” the “impact on the individual’s sense of security . . . against the utility of the conduct as a technique of law enforcement”
- holding that, just as an informant “may write down for official use his conversations with a defendant and testify concerning them, . . . no different result is required if the agent . . . records them with electronic equipment which he is carrying on his person”
- finding that, “however strongly a defendant may trust an apparent colleague, his expectations in this respect are not protected by the Fourth Amendment when it turns out that the colleague is a government agent regularly communicating with the authorities”
- stating that the court must transcend the "search for subjective expectations” inasmuch as subjective expectations are inextricably linked to a determination of whether society considers the expectation reasonable
- holding no warrant to “search and seize” is required when the Government sends to defendant’s home a secret agent who conceals his identity and makes a purchase of narcotics from the accused, or when the same agent, unbeknown to the defendant, carries electronic equipment to r…

## Opinion text

*755 Mr. Justice Brennan,
concurring in the result.
I agree that Desist v. United States, 394 U. S. 244 (1969), requires reversal of the judgment of the Court of Appeals. Therefore, a majority of the Court supports disposition of this case on that ground. However, my Brothers Douglas, Harlan, and White also debate the question whether On Lee v. United States, 343 U. S. 747 (1952), may any longer be regarded as sound law. My Brother White argues that On Lee is still sound law. My Brothers Douglas and Harlan argue that it is not. Neither position commands the support of a majority of the Court. For myself, I agree with my Brothers Douglas and Harlan. But I go further. It is my view that the reasoning of both my Brothers Douglas and Harlan compels the conclusion that Lopez v. United States, 373 U. S. 427 (1963), is also no longer sound law. In other words, it is my view that current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence interposes a warrant requirement not only in cases of third-party electronic monitoring (the situation in On Lee and in this case) but also in cases of electronic recording by a government agent of a face-to-face conversation with a criminal suspect, which was the situation in Lopez . For I adhere to the dissent in Lopez, 373 U. S., at 446-471 , in which, to quote my Brother Harlan, post, at 778 n. 12, “the doctrinal basis of our subsequent Fourteenth Amendment decisions may be said to have had its genesis.” Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967), adopted that “doctrinal basis” and thus, it seems to me, agreed with the argument in the Lopez dissent that “subsequent decisions and subsequent experience have sapped whatever vitality [On Lee] may once have had; that it should now be regarded as overruled” and that the situation in Lopez “is rationally indistinguishable.” 373 U. S., at 447 . The reasons in support of those conclusions are set forth fully in the Lopez *756 dissent and need not be repeated here. It suffices to say that for those reasons I remain of the view that the Fourth Amendment imposes the warrant requirement in both the On Lee and Lopez situations.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9883109. Public record. Not legal advice.