Carroll v. United States 1925

• Author: Daniel Brannen, Richard Hanes, Elizabeth Shaw
• Pages: 439-443

Contenidos

• Bootlegging.
• The Automobile Exception.
• Uncommon Law.
• Suggestions for further reading.

Page 439

Appellants: George Carroll and John Kiro

Appellee: United States

Appellants' Claim: That searching their car for illegal liquor without a search warrant violated the Fourth Amendment.

Chief Lawyer for Appellants: Thomas E. Atkinson and Clare J. Hall

Chief Lawyers for Appellee: John G. Sargent, Attorney General, and James M. Beck, Solicitor General

Justices for the Court: Louis D. Brandeis, Pierce Butler, Joseph McKenna, Edward Terry Sanford, William Howard Taft, Willis Van Devanter

Justices Dissenting: James Clark McReynolds, George Sutherland

Date of Decision: March 2, 1925

Decision: The Supreme Court affirmed appellants' convictions.

Significance: In Carroll, the Supreme Court decided that law enforcement officers do not need to get a warrant to search an automobile or other movable vehicle. Law enforcement only needs probable cause to believe the automobile has evidence of a crime.

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects privacy. It requires law enforcement officers to get a warrant to search a house or other private place for evidence of a crime. To get a warrant, officers

Page 440

must have probable cause, which means good reason to believe the place to be searched has evidence of a crime. In Carroll v. United States, the Supreme Court had to decide whether officers need a warrant to search an automobile.

Chief Justice William Howard Taft. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Bootlegging

In January 1919 the United States adopted the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Eighteenth Amendment made it illegal to manufacture, sell, and transport alcohol in the United States. Because many Americans still wanted to drink alcohol, gangs of organized criminals entered the liquor trade. They made their own alcohol for sale in the United States and smuggled alcohol in from other countries.

Under the Volstead Act, Congress gave federal law enforcement the power to seize vehicles and arrest persons illegally transporting alcohol. Fred Cronenwett was a federal law enforcement officer. On September 29, 1921, Cronenwett went undercover to an apartment in Grand Rapids, Michigan. There he met John Carroll, who took Cronenwett's order for three cases of whiskey. Although Carroll never delivered the whiskey, Cronenwett remembered what Carroll and his car looked like.

A few months later on December 15...