A Constitutional Limitations

• Library: Illinois Decisions on Search and Seizure (2017 Ed.)

A. Constitutional Limitations

United States v. Caceres, 440 U.S. 741 (1979) (HELD: Where an IRS agent recorded several conversations with the defendant and a number of those conversations were in violation of IRS regulations requiring supervisory approval of the consensual eavesdropping, all of the taped conversations were admissible at the defendant's criminal trial because no constitutional rights were violated and the exclusionary rule was not applicable since the IRS recordings were only in violation of its own regulations).

United States v. White, 401 U.S. 745 (1971) (HELD: Where governmental agents overheard defendant's incriminating statements through a radio transmitter carried by an informant and concealed on his person, the informant's and agent's warrantless electronic surveillance of defendant's conversation did not violate his Fourth Amendment rights because one must assume his or her conversation may be recorded or electronically transmitted to another individual by the person with whom he or she is conversing).

Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165 (1968) (HELD: The defendants had standing under the Fourth Amendment to object to illegal, warrantless eavesdropping, and the exclusionary rule applied to evidence in the form of recorded conversations on the defendants' premises intercepted via the illegal electronic surveillance, even though the defendants' did not participate in and were not present during the conversations).

Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967) (A defendant was charged with conducting illegal gambling transactions from a public telephone booth. The government was permitted to introduce as evidence conversations of the defendant recorded without a warrant from a device attached to the outside of a public telephone booth. When defendant challenged the government's recording, the government relied on the fact that no physical entrance into the area occupied by the defendant had occurred. HELD: A person in a telephone booth could rely upon the protection of the Fourth Amendment because someone who uses a telephone booth, shuts the door behind him, and paid money to make a call had a reasonable "expectation of privacy," in that his conversation would not be transmitted to the world or the "uninvited ear" of the government). Compare People v. Wright, 41 Ill. 2d 170, 242 N.E.2d 180 (1968) (where a police officer standing on public property observed defendant's gambling operation through a crack on a first-floor window and overheard with the naked ear conversations about gambling, the court upheld the police action because of the "plain view doctrine." Under the "plain view doctrine," it was not a "search" for an officer standing on public property to observe criminal activity carried out in open view).

Berger v. New York, 388 U.S. 41 (1967) (HELD: Where an eavesdropping statute permitted a trespassory invasion of a home or office by a general warrant without requiring the belief that any particular offense had been or was being committed or that the property sought or the conversations be particularly described, the statute was without adequate judicial supervision or protective procedures. Here, the order to intercept (1) not based on probable cause, (2) authorizing eavesdropping for 60 days, (3) not containing termination provision and (4) not requiring after-the-fact notice of surveillance violated the Fourth Amendment).

Lopez v. United States, 373 U.S. 427 (1963) (holding where a federal agent was the recipient of defendant's bribe offer, which was reflected in a tape recording from a...