Case Name: OLMSTEAD et al. v. UNITED STATES; GREEN et al. v. SAME; McINNIS v. SAME
Court: Supreme Court of the United States
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1928-06-04
Citations: 277 U.S. 438
Docket Number: Nos. 493, 532 and 533
Parties: OLMSTEAD et al. v. UNITED STATES GREEN et al. v. SAME. McINNIS v. SAME.
Judges: 
Reporter: United States Reports
Volume: 277
Pages: 438–488

Head Matter:
OLMSTEAD et al. v. UNITED STATES GREEN et al. v. SAME. McINNIS v. SAME.
Nos. 493, 532 and 533.
Argued February 20, 21, 1928.
Decided June 4, 1928.
Mr. John F. Dore, with whom Messrs. F. C. Reagan and J. L. Finch were on the brief, for petitioners in No. 493.
The principles controlling this case were first announced by this Court in Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616. They have never been deviated from, but have been reiterated agfin and again in a series of cases, the last of which is Byars v. United States, 273 U. S. 28. See also Gouled v. United States, 255 U. S. 298.
If incriminating evidence is secured by means of trickery, subterfuge; trespass or fraud, and, after it has been so secured, finds its way into the hands of government officials, no legal ground can be urged against its introduction in evidence, for the reason that no constitutional question is involved. If, however, the fraud, subterfuge, trespass or theft is perpetrated by government officials, or if a government official participates directly or indirectly therein, the evidence thus secured is not admissible for the reason that it was secured in a manner which violates the provisions of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution. Byars v. United States, supra; United States v. Mandel, 17 F. (2d) 270; Rudkin, J., in case at bar, dissenting opinion.
The Boyd case lays down search and seizure law, and nothing but search and seizure law, but it involved neither a search nor a seizure.
Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U. S. 385, was ruled by application of the Fourth Amendment, but it was not a search and seizure case either. Upon appeal to this Court, it was held that the proceedings were an attempt to do indirectly what the Government could not do directly.
Gouled v. United States, supra, d-id not involve a search apd seizure as these words are employed in legal parlance, but the case was ruled by search • and seizure law and application of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. '
It is Pot necessary that the act complained of be strictly a search or seizure, if its effect be to compel a man to furnish the evidence to convict himself of crime, and the act be one of governmental agency. See Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U. S. 365.
These principles apply to “ all invasions on the privacies of life.” No exact definition of this term has been found, but obviously iff is a comprehensive term and surely includes the right to be let alone.
The right to the exclusive enjoyment of a telephone free of interference from anybody, is-a right of privacy. No government agent has a right to interpose an earpiece upon it any more than he has a right to raise the curtain and peek through another’s window. If two persons are conversing in a room of one of them, an intrusion therein by a government agent secretly is an intrusion upon their right of privacy. Is it any the less so if they are in separate rooms connected by a telephone and some interloper “ listens in ” by means of “ tapping ” the wire? Such conduct constitutes an invasion of the privacies of life, and when done by a government agent, falls within the condemnation of the Boyd case; and evidence thereby secured is inadmissible for the purpose of securing a conviction in a criminal case.
Mr. Frank R. Jeffery, for petitioner in No. 533, and some of the petitioners in No. 532.
This Court has held that the Fourth and Fifth Amendments were inspired by the same abuses, preceding,, the adoption of the Constitution, and they must be liberally construed in favor of the citizen and his liberty, and that stealthy encroachments upon the rights guaranteed by them will not be tolerated. Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616.
The majority opinion of the Circuit Court o'f Appeals for the Ninth Circuit places a harrow construction upon the rights protected by these Amendments, declaring that “the purpose of the Amendments is to prevent .the invasion of homes and offices and seizure of incriminating evidence found therein.”
The majority opinion concedes that the tapping of the defendants’ telephone wires is an “unethical intrusion on the privacies of persons who are suspected of crime,” but holds that “it is not an act which comes within the letter of the prohibition of constitutional provisions.”
These declarations of the Circuit Court of Appeals are directly contrary to the holdings of this Court. In Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S. 727, this Court did not limit the application of the Amendments to the “ invasion of homes and offices.” Neither has this Court limited the applica tion of these Amendments to the “letter” of the same. On the contrary, the underlying thought in each decision of this Court affecting these Amendments has been to apply the “ spirit ” of them. In the Boyd case this Court declares that these principles “apply to all invasions on the part of the Government and its employees of the security of a man’s home and the privacies of life.” In that case no search and seizure were involved, if the words “ Search and seizure ” be given their ' literal meaning. The Court in its decision admitted, in effect, that no actual search and no actual seizure were involved, but held that the result was the same as if an actual search and an actual seizure were made.
-It definitely established that it is not the mere form and substance of the acts of government agents which determine whether the search and seizure are in violation of the- constitutional provisions, but it is the results accomplished by such acts. If such acts “ effect the sole object and purpose of search and seizure,” then they come within the inhibition of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.
In the. case at bar, the sole object of the government agents was to obtain evidence relating to transactions in liquor by the defendants. The conversations heard over the telephone were of evidential value only. It is no crime to exchange messages relating to the possession and sale of liquor. The crime is to possess and sell liquor, and conversations concerning the possession or sale are only admissible when the liquor which is possessed or sold is seized. Suppose that the messages relating to the posr session and sale of the liquor had been sent by letter. -No' warrant to search the homes, offices or persons of the defendants for such letter could have been obtained. Gouled v. United States, 255 U. S. 298. Likewise, no valid search warrant could be obtained by government agents to tap the telephone lines of- the defendants for the purpose of securing evidence of the private messages" and conversations relating to the possession or sale of liquor.
Furthermore, the admission of the evidence of government agents as to the messages transmitted over; the telephone wires compelled the" defendants to give evidence against themselves just as effectively as if they had been forced to take the witness stand and themselves testify as to the messages sent over the telephone; yea, just as effectively as if the defendants had been required to produce in court private messages sent' by letter of exactly the same import as the messages sent by ’phone. The result is to compel the defendants to become the unwilling source of evidence to convict them of crime, which this Court in the Boyd case held to be a violation of the defendants’ right under the Fifth Amendment.
It would indeed be difficult to attempt to enumerate all of those things coming within the phrase “the privacies of life,” but it would be equally difficult to suggest any more sacred or any greater privacy of life under present conditions than that of using a private telephone line for transmitting private and confidential communications- to one’s family and business associates. What greater invasion of this privacy of life could be contemplated than to have one’s private and confidential communications intercepted and overheard by promiscuous government agents by means of secretly tapping one’s telephone? The telephone as a means of communication-’ was not known to the world at the time of Lord Camden’s judgment, or at the time of the adoption of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, or even at the time of the decision of this Court in the Boyd case. The only means -of communication at that time was by letter, and the right to transmit a secret message in a letter without having it intercepted and read by government agents w,as de dared by this Court in no uncertain language in the case of Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S. 727.
It is not the paper which is protected by the constitutional inhibitions, but it is the message contained' in the letter. In the same manner, any message transmitted by telephone or telegraph should be protected. The interpretation of the language of the Amendments should be sufficiently liberal and elastic to apply the principles laid down in the Boyd case to the conditions of to-day. That this is the true criterion is declared by this Court in Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U. S. 365.
The telephones used by the defendants were theirs against all the world, even against the telephone company while their tolls were paid. 'The telephone lines leading to the defendants’ houses and offices, as well as the telephone' equipment in the houses and offices, were the private property of the .defendants. They had the right to the exclusive use and enjoyment of them, except the license given by them to connect other lines with their lines for the purpose of receiving incoming calls. When the government agents tapped the defendants’ telephone lines they committed a trespass upon the property rights of the defendants. The effect of this trespass was to project themselves into the .houses and offices of the defendants, with the same result as if they had broken through the windows or doors and secretly seized letters containing the identical messages that were, transmitted over the ’phones. The result was not only an unlawful search for evidence, but an unlawful seizure by means of which the defendants, in effect, were compelled to testify against themselves. As stated by Judge Rudkin, those who use the telephone are not broadcasting to the world. Under modern conditions the telephone has, to á large extent, supplanted the mails as a means of transmitting private messages. It has become indispensable to every home .and office. If the stamp of approval is put upon the ac tion of government agents in seeking and obtaining, evidence against those suspected of crime by means of tapping private telephone lines, the door is opened wide for the great mass of citizens using the telephone for lawful purposes to have'their private and confidential communications relating to business and family subjected to the scrutiny of government agents. Such a system of espionage would become deplorable and unbearable. It would deprive the citizenship of the country of the personal security and the enjoyment of the privacies of life guaranteed by the Constitution, and subject them to an espionage unequalled by the conditions prevailing under the King’s officers prior to the Revolution.
Messrs. Arthur E. Griffin, George F. Vanderveer, and Samuel B. Bassett, on a brief for petitioners in No. 532.
The right to use the telephone, and the right of privacy in its enjoyment, are property rights which the courts have repeatedly upheld. It was precisely this right of privacy or secrecy in busines|_matters which this Court protected' in the Boyd case. The same was true in Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383, where the article involved was a canceled lottery' ticket having no pecuniary value whatever and which had been seized by government agents solely for evidential purposes. In both of these cases this Court said that-each of these Amendments threw much-light upon the other because they were .designed to remedy, the same abuses. And it has"always been held that any search and seizure was unreasonable under the provisions of the Fourth Amendment which had for its purpose the compulsory extortion of evidence, ho matter what the form of the evidence, -to be used in violation of the Fifth Amendment.
In the Gouled case it was held immaterial whether the seizure of a man’s papers was accompanied by force or threat of force, or whether it was'accomplished by stealth. Ex parte Jackson condemned the “ bare inspection ” of letters in the mail, entirely without reference to the question whether the owner was thereby deprived of his papers or not. It was the violation of their privacy that was obnoxious to the law. See Cooley, Const. Lim., 7th ed., p. 424; Ex parte Brown, 7 Mo. App. 484; Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U. S. 385. None of these decisions can be reconciled with the narrow interpretation which the Solicitor General would place upon these Amendments.
It is doubtless true that a message transmitted by telephone is in no sense a paper. But it is also true that privacy is as essential to the conduct of business by telephone or telegraph as by mail, and the courts have always been as.ready to protect privacy in the one case as in the other. The Constitution was not written for a day or a year, nor can it be re-written to meet every .changing circumstance of our lives. .For this reason Constitutions deal with principles.
,.-The Government suggests that the case can not be distinguished from a case where a federal officer on a public street overhears conversations within a citizen’s private residence, or where a federal officer joins a band of conspirators and listens from day to day to conversations in-their homes and elsewhere. But it seems to us that both these cases are clearly distinguishable from the case at bar on the precise basis that in neither of them was there any wrongful invasion of any right of privacy, but on the contrary in both hypothetical cases the conspirators had themselves thrown privacy to the four winds and, of course, could not be heard to complain of the results of their own folly. Here it is appropriate to call attention to the statute of Washington forbidding the intercepting of telephone or telegraph messages, Remington’s Comp. Stats., § 2656, Subdiv. 18, and to a federal ^statute passed by Congress in 1912 to protect the privacy of the radio.
The abuses of which we complain, in this case are identical in kind with those to which the English people were subjected during the . latter half of the Eighteenth Century, and the speeches of Lord Chatham and James Otis, and the letters of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, leave no doubt in our minds as to how they, would have felt on-the ^subject of having government agents tap their private telephone wires. Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U. S. 465. '
Mr. Michael J. Doherty, Special Assistant to the Attorney General, with whom Solicitor General Mitchell was on the brief, for the United States.
• The Fifth Amendment can only be invoked by first' stowing that there has been a violation of the Fourth Amendment. The third clause of the Fifth Amendment “ nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself” merely gave constitutional sanction to a rule of common law well established at the time the Constitution was adopted. 6 Jones on Evidence, 2d ed., § 2474; Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78.
Obviously the case has nothing to do ,with the provision against self-incrimination in its original and primary sense, that is, the compulsion of the accused by legal procesé to produce in court evidence either testimonial or physical Ordinarily evidence’ of incriminating oral statements 'made by' the accused before, during, or after the commission of a crime, overheard by a witness-, and testified to by him in court, is always competent. ’
The only inhibition against evidence in this form is that which forbids evidence of extorted confessions. Here there was neither extortion nor confession. There was no coercion, threat or promise. Moreover, the conversations were not in the nature of confessions. They were a part and parcel of the criminal transaction. The prohibition officers,'.relating in court what they overheard, were testi fying as immediate witnesses of the crime, as much so as would be a witness who testified to having seen liquor delivered and the price paid.
Aside from the rule against duress of legal process and extorted confessions, it was a fundamental and time-honored rule of common law that evidence was not rendered inadmissible in a criminal case by illegality of the means by which it was obtained. This rule of the common law is still in force in England and Canada and in a majority of the States. The illegality dealt with in many of the state cases was the violation of the constitutional rights under provisions of state constitutions substantially identical with the Fourth Amendment. 5 Jones on Evidence, c. 22; Blakemore on Prohibition, 2d. ed., p. 519; Cornelius on Search and Seizure, p. 45; Search and Seizure, 8 Am. Bar. Ass’n Journal, p. 479; State v. Aime, 62 Utah 476; State v. Owens, 302 Mo. 348.
, In the light of Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616; Adams v. New York, 192 U. S. 585; Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383; Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U. S. 385; Gouled v. United States, 255 U. S. 298; Agnello v. United States, 269 U. S. 20; Amos v. United States, 255 U. S. 313; Byars v. United States, 273 U. S. 28; and Marron v. United States, 275 U. S. 192, it is not open to question that evidence obtained by federal officers in violation of the Fourth Amendment is inadmissible as evidence in criminal trials in federal courts. To that extent the common law rule and anything said to the contrary in the Adams case has been abandoned.
The limits of this departure from the common law rule are, however, definite. The reason for it appears to be the close interrelation that is conceived to exist between the Fourth and the Fifth Amendments. It has never been extended to evidence obtained illegally in the general .-sense, but only where the illegality amounts to a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Evidence obtained by trespass, fraud, unethical or even criminal methods, is admissible if the Fourth Amendment be not violated. 5 Jones on Evidence, §§ 2075 et seq.; Adams v. New York, supra; Hester v. United States, 265 U. S. 57 ; McGuire v. United States, 273 U. S. 95; Koths v. United States, 16 F. (2d) 59; United States v. Mandel, 17 F. (2d) 270.
The Fifth Amendment therefore is not involved in this case, unless it can- be invoked as a result of a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
The Fourth Amendment was the direct consequence of two abuses practiced by the English Government — the use of general warrants and the use of writs of assistance. The Wilkes and Entick cases, in their criminal and civil aspects, attracted universal attention and aroused tremendous opposition to the use of general warrants, resulting in their condemnation by the courts and a declaration of their illegality by the House of Commons. May, Const.,Hist. of England, p. .110 et.seq.; 1, Cooley, Const. Lim., 8th ed., p. 612; Boyd v. United States, supra; 19 How. State Trials, 1029, 1153.
. The use of writs of assistance in the .American Colonies was authorized by the Act of Parliament of 1767, 7 Geo. Ill, c. 46. The use of the writs soon led to great public agitation and opposition, particularly in Massachusetts, •led by James Otis, but their , use continued to the outbreak of the Revolution. '3 Charming, Hist, of U. S., ■pip. 1-5 and 114. Knowledge and appreherision of these abuses — warrants and writs — was fresh iñ 'the minds of the colonial statesmen when .it came to framing the Constitution.
The Virginia Constitution had already adopted a bill of rights, of which § 10 was as follows:
“ That general warrants, whereby an officer or messenger may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of a fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, or whose offense is pot partieu-' larly described and supported by evidence, are grievous and oppressive, and ought not to be granted.”
An amendment to the Federal Constitution similar to this was proposed by the Virginia ratification convention. Journal of the Convention of Virginia, p. 34. As introduced by James Madison .at the first session of Congress it read:
“ The right of the people to be secured in their persons, their houses, their papers, and their other property from all unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated by warrants issued, without probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, or not particularly describing the places to be searched, or the persons or things to be seized.” Annals of Congress, Vol. I, col. 434.
A committee of one member from each State was appointed to consider and report such amendments as ought to be proposed by Congress to the legislatures of the States. In the report of this committee was proposed an amendment differing but slightly from that originally proposed by Madison. The word “ effects ” was substituted for the words “i&ther property.” Mr. Gerry, saying that he presumed there was a mistake in the wording of the clause, moved that it be amended to read: “ The right of the people to be secured in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable seizures and searches .. . .” Annals of Congress, Vol. I, col. 754.
The amendment came out of conference committee in its present form, and we have no light as to the reason for the further change in phraseology. It is quite apparent that the principal, if not the sole, peril in the minds of those who advocated the amendment and against which its protection was intended was the use of general warrants and the writs of assistance.
In Boyd v. United States, supra, the Court said that the judgment of Lord Camden in Entick v. Carrington might be considered as sufficiently explanatory of what was meant by unreasonable searches and seizures; and Chief Justice Taft in the Carroll case said that the Fourth Amendment is to be construed in the light of what was deemed an unreasonable search and seizure when it was adopted.
This Court has frequently said that the Fourth and Fifth Amendments should be construed liberally; but it is submitted that by no liberality of construction can a conversation' passing over a telephone wire become a “house,” no more can it become a “person,” a “paper,” or an “ effect.” “ Effects ” is the least definite of the four words. This Court has said of “ effects ” that—
“ when the word is used alone, or dmplidter, it means all kinds of personal estate. . . . But if there be some word used with it, restraining its meaning, then it is governed by that, or means something ejusdem generis.”. Planters Bank v. Sharp, 6 How. 301, 321.
Giving to the word its literal import, the sense in which it is generally understood, its natural significance taken in connection with. the context in which it appears, it does not seem possible to include within its meaning anything other than tangible personal property, or to extend it to include a telephone conversation or any intangible right of privacy of the parties with respect to such conversation.
- Petitioners are urging the extension of the Fourth Amendment into a new field, the limits of which are difficult to define. If evidence, obtained by tapping telephone wires at points not in private dwellings is excluded on constitutional grounds, on the same principle would not all manner of evidence gathered by ruse or entrapment have to be excluded? Suppose an officer obtains access to a telephone on a party line, and listens to incriminating conversations of other parties-having telephones on the line; suppose that, instead of tapping a wire, he goes to the telephone exchange and, with or without permission of the operator, plugs in on a private line, and listens; suppose he leases an office and puts a dictaphone in the wall of the adjoining office and listens; suppose without trespassing he is able to. put his ear to the keyhole of the door of an office or house and listens; suppose he pretends to/join a conspiracy and thereby gains aécess to the inner councils of the conspirators and hears the hatching of their criminal schemes. These examples, varying into slight shades of distinction, might be multiplied indefinitely to' show the extremes to which the principle contended for would lead. Once cut loose from the fair literal import of the language of the Amendment, and there is no place to anchor. .'
In the construction of the Amendment a balance should be sought between that which will preserve the fundamental safeguard which the Amendment was designed to secure, and at the same time not unduly fetter the arm of-the Government in the enforcement of law. The practical aspect of the problem is forcibly expressed in People v. Mayen, 188 Cal. 237.
:If, in any circumstances, obtaining evidence by tapping wires is deemed an objectionable governmental practice, it may be regulated or forbidden by statute, or avoided by officers of the law, , but clearly the Constitution does not forbid it1 unless it involves actual unlawful entry into a house.
. Messrs. Otto B. Rupp, Charles M. Bracelen, Robert H. Strahan, and Clarence B. Randall on behalfiof The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company, American Telephone and Telegraph Company,' United States Independent Telephone Association, and the Tri-State Telephone and Telegfaph Company, as amici curiae, filed a brief -by special leave of Court. .
The petitioners were using the telephone lines and facilities of the local telephone company, such as were available to everyone without discrimination. The func tion of a telephone system in our modern economy is, so far as reasonably practicable, to enable any two persons at a distance to converse privately with each other as they might do if both were personally present in the privacy of the home or office of either one. When the lines of two “ parties ” are connected at the central office, they are intended to be devoted to their exclusive use, and in that sense to be turned -over to their exclusive posses- . sion. A third person who taps the lines violates the property rights of both persons then using the telephone,' and of the telephone company as well. Internat’l News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U. S. 215.
It is of the very nature of the telephone service that it shall be private; and hence it is that wire tapping has been made an offense punishable either as a felony or misdemeanor by the legislatures of twenty-eight States, and that in thirty-five States there are statutes in some form intended to prevent the disclosure of telephone or telegraph messages, either by connivance with agents of the companies or otherwise.
The wire tapper destroys this privacy. He invades the “ person ” of the citizen, and his “ house,” secretly and without warrant. Having regard to the substance of things, he would not do this more truly if he secreted himself in the home of the citizen.
In view of what this Court has held ,as to the intent and scope of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, it would not seem necessary to. enter into any meticulous examination of their precise words. But if that be done, does not wire tapping involve an “ unreasonable search,” of the “ house ” and of the “ person ”? There is of course no search warrant, as in the nature of the case there could not be. If the agent should secrete himself in the house or office to examine documents, would not that constitute a “search ”? Is the case any different in the eyes of the law if from a distance the agent physically enters upon the property of the citizen, ¿s he does when he taps the wire, ,and from that point projects himself into the house? Certainly in its practical aspect the latter case is worse than the first, because the citizen is utterly helpless to detect the espionage to which he is subjected.
If it be said that, in any event, there is no “ seizure,” that an oral conversation cannot be seized, we answer, in the first place, that this is a purely superficial view, which puts the letter above the spirit and intent of the law. The “privacy of life” and the.liberty of the citizen have been invaded. And, in the second pl^ce, we do not understand that seizure is a necessary element to constitute the offense. An unreasonable search alone violates the Fourth Amendment. It is enough that the federal officer has made an unreasonable search, within, the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and has thereby unlawfully obtained evidence. The evidence so obtained is excluded under the provisions of the Fifth Amendment.
The Government itself provides the mail service, a public service, and the Government authorizes the telephone company to provide the telephone service, also a public service. It is settled that the communication in the mail is protected. Upon what reason, then, can it be said that the communication by telephone is not protected?
The telephone has become part and parcel' of the social and business intercourse of the people of the United States, and the telephone system offers a means of espionage compared to which general warrants and writs of assistance were the puniest instruments of tyranny and oppression.
. The telephone companies deplore the use of their facilities in furtherance of any criminal or wrongful enterprise. But it was not solicitude for law breakers that caused the people of the United States to ordain the Fourth and Fifth Amendments as part of the Constitution. Criminals will not escape detection and conviction merely because evidence obtained by tapping wires of a public telephone system is inadmissible, if it should be so held; but, in any event, it is better that a few criminals escape than that the privacies of life of all the people be exposed to the agents of the Government, who will act at their own discretion, the honest and the dishonest, unauthorized and unrestrained by the courts. Legislation, making wire tapping a crime will not suffice if the courts nevertheless hold the evidence to be lawful. Writs of assistance might have been abolished by statute, but the people were wise to abolish them by the Bill of Rights.

Opinion:
Mr. Chief Justice Taft
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases are here by certiorari from the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. 19 F. (2d) 842 and 850: The petition in No. 493 was filed August 30, 1927; in Nos. 532 and 533, September 9, 1927. They were granted with the distinct limitation that the hearing should be confined to the single question whether the use of evidence of private telephone conversations between the defendants and others, intercepted by means of wire tapping, amounted to a violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.
The petitioners were convicted in the District Court for the Western District of Washington of a conspiracy to violate the National Prohibition Act by unlawfully possessing, transporting and importing intoxicating liquors and maintaining nuisances, and by selling intoxicating liquors. Seventy-two others in addition to the petitioners were indicted. Some were not apprehended, some were acquitted and others.pleaded guilty.
The evidehce in the records discloses a conspiracy of amazing magnitude to import, possess and sell liquor un lawfully. It .involved the employment of not less than fifty persons, of two seagoing vessels for the transportation of liquor to British Columbia, of smaller vessels for coastwise transportation to the State of Washington, the purchase and use of a ranch beyond the suburban limits of Seattle, with a large underground cache for storage and a number of smaller caches in that city, the maintenance of a central office manned with operators, the employment of executives, salesmen, deliverymen, dispatchers, scouts, bookkeepers, collectors and an attorney. In a bad month sales amounted to $176,000; the aggregate for a year must have exceeded.two millions of dollars.
Olmstead was the leading conspirator and the genera] manager of the business. He made a contribution of $10,000 to the capital; eleven others contributed $1,000 each. The profits were divided one-half to Olmstead and the remainder to the other eleven. Of the séveral offices in Seattle the chief one was in a large office building. In this there .were three telephones on three different lines. There were telephones in an office of the manager in his own home, at the homes of his associates, and at .other places in the city. Communication was had frequently with Vancouver, British Columbia. Times were fixed for the deliveries of the "stuff," to places along Puget Sound néar Seattle and from there the liquor was removed and deposited in the caches already referred to. One of the chief men was always on duty at the main office to receive orders by: telephones and to direct their filling by a corps of men stationed in another room — the "bull peri." The call numbers of the telephones were given to those known to be likely customers. At times the salés amounted to 200 cases of liquor per day.
The information which led to the discovery of the conspiracy and its nature and extent was largely obtained by intercepting messages on the telephones of the conspirators by four federal prohibition officers. Small wires were inserted along the ordinary telephone .wires from the residences of four of the petitioners and those leading from the chief office. The insertions were made without trespass upon any property of the defendants. They were made in the basement of the large office building. The taps from house lines were made in the streets near the houses.
The gathering of evidence continued for many months. Conversations of the conspirators of which refreshing stenographic notes were currently made, were testified to by the government witnesses. They revealed the large business transactions of the partners and their subordinates. . Men at the wires heard the orders given for liquor by customers and the acceptances; they became auditors of the conversations between the partners. All this disclosed the conspiracy charged in the indictment. Many of the intercepted conversations were not merely reports but parts of the criminal acts. The evidence also disclosed the difficulties to which the conspirators were subjected, the reported news of the capture of vessels, the arrest of their men and the seizure of cases of liquor in garages and other places. It showed the dealing by Olmstead, the chief conspirator, with members of the Seattle police, the messages to them which, secured the release of arrested members of the conspiracy, and also direct promises to officers of payments as soon as opportunity offered.
The Fourth Amendment provides — " The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated; and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or. affirmation and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized." And the Fifth: "No person . . shall be compelled, in any criminal case, to be a witness against himself."
It will be helpful to consider the chief cases in this Court which bear upon the construction of these Amendments!
Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, was an information filed by the District Attorney in the federal court in a cause of seizure and forfeiture against thirty-five cases of plate glass) which charged that the owner and importer, with intent to defraud the revenue, made an entry of the imported merchandise by means of a fraudulent or false invoice. It became important to show the quantity and value of glass contained in twenty-nine cases previously imported. The fifth section of the Act of June 22, 1874, provided that in cases not criminal upder the.revenue laws,, the United States Attorney, whenever he thought an invoice, belonging to the defendant, would tend to prove any allegation made by the United States, might by a written motion describing the invoice and setting forth the allegation which he expected to prove, secure a notice from the court to the defendant to produce the invoice, and if the defendant refused to produce it, the allegations stated in the motion should be taken as confessed, but if produced, the United States Attorney should be permitted, under the direction of the court, to make an examination of the invoice, and might offer the same in evidence. This Act had succeeded the Act of 1867, which provided that in -such cases the District Judge, on affidavit of any person interested, might issue a warrant to the marshal to enter the premises where the invoice was and take possession of it' and hold it subject to the order of the judge. This had been preceded by the Act of 1863 of a similar tenor, except that it directed the warrant to the collector instead of the marshal.. The United States Attorney followed the Act of 1874 and compelled the production of the invoice.
The court held the Act of 1874 repugnant to the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. As to the Fourth Amendment, Justice Bradley said (page 621) :
" But, in regard to the Fourth Amendment, it is contended that, whatever might hav.e been alleged against the constitutionality of the acts of 1863 and 1867, that of 1874, under which the order in the present case was made, is free from constitutional objection because it does not authorize the search'and seizure of books and papers, but only requires the defendant or claimant to produce them. That is so; but it declares that if he does not produce them, the allegations which it is affirmed they will prove shall be taken as confessed. This is tantamount to compelling their production; for the prosecuting attorney will always be sure to state the evidence expected to be derived from them as strongly as the case will admit of. It is true that certain aggravating incidents of actual search and seizure, such as forcible entry into a man's house and searching amongst his papers, are wanting, and to this extent the proceeding under the Act of 1874 is a mitigation of that which was authorized by the former acts; but it accomplishes the substantial object of those acts in forcing from a party evidence against himself. It is our opinion, therefore, that a compulsory production of a man's private papers to establish a criminal charge against him, or to forfeit his property, is within the scope of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, in all cases in which a search and seizure would be; because it is a material ingredient, and effects the sole object and purpose of search and seizure."
Concurring, Mr. Justice Miller and Chief Justice Waite said that they did not think the machinery used to get this evidence amounted to a search and seizure, but they agreed that the Fifth Amendment had been violated.
The statute provided an official demand for the production of a paper or document by the defendant for official search and use as evidence on penalty that by refusal he- should be conclusively held to admit the incriminat ing character of the document as charged. It was certainly no straining of the language to construe the search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment to include such official procedure.
The next case, and perhaps the most important, is Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383, — a, conviction for using the mails to transmit coupons or tickets in a lottery enterprise. The defendant was arrested by a police; officer without a warrant. After his arrest other police officers and the United States marshal went to his house, got the key from a neighbor,; entered the defendant's room and searched it, and took possession of various papers and articles. Neither the marshal nor the police officers had a search warrant. The defendant filed a petition in court asking the return of all his property. The court ordered the return of everything not pertinent to the charge, but denied return of relevant evidence. After the jury was sworn, the defendant again made objection, and on introduction of the papers contended that the search without warrant was a violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments and they were therefore inadmissible. This court held that such taking of papers by an official of the United States, acting under color of his office, was in violation of the constitutional rights of the defendant, and upon making seasonable application he was entitled to have them restored, and that by permitting their use upon the trial, the trial court erred.
The opinion cited with approval language of Mr. Justice Field in Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S. 727, 733, saying that the Fourth Amendment as a principle of protection was applicable to sealed letters and packages in the mail and that, consistently with it, such matter could only be opened and examined upon warrants issued on oath or affirmation particularly describing the thing to be seized.
In Silverthorne Lumber Company v. United States, 251 U. S. 385, the deféndants were arrested at their homes and detained in custody. While so detained, representatives of the Government without authority went to the office of their company and seized all the books, papers' and documents found there. An application for return of the things was opposed by the District Attorney, who produced a subpoena for certain documents relating to thé charge in the indictment then on file. The court said:
"Thus the case is not that of knowledge acquired through the wrongful act of a stranger, but it must be assumed that the Government planned or at all events ratified the- whole performance."
And it held that the illegal character of the original seizure characterized the entire proceeding and under the Weeks case the seized papers must be restored.
In' Amos v. United States, 255 U. S. 313, the. defendant was convicted of concealing whiskey on which the tax had not been paid. At the trial he presented a petition asking that private property seized in a search of his house and store " within his curtilage," without warrant should be returned. This was denied, A woman, who claimed to be his wife, was told by the revenue officers that they had come to search the premises for violation of the revenue law. She opened the door; they entered and found whiskey. Further searches in the house disclosed more. It was held that this action constituted a violation of the Fourth Amendment, and that the denial of the motion to restore the whiskey and to exclude the testimony was error.
In Gouled v. The United States, 255 U. S. 298, the facts were these: Gouled and two others were charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States. One pleaded guilty and another was acquitted. Gouled prosecuted error. The matter was presented here on questions propounded by the lower court. The first related to the admission ih evidence of a paper surreptitiously taken from the office of the defendant by one acting under the direc tion of an officer of the Intelligence Department of the Army of the United States. Gouled was suspected of the crime. A private in the U. S. Army, pretending to make a friendly call on him, gained admission to his office and in his absence, without warrant of any character, seized and carried away several documents. One of these belonging to Gouled, was delivered to the United States Attorney and by him introduced in evidence. When produced, it was a surprise to the defendant. He had had no opportunity to make .a previous motion to secure a return of it. The paper had no pecuniary value, but was relevant to the issue made on the trial. Admission of the paper was considered a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Agnello v. United States, 269 U. S. 20, held that the Fourth and Fifth Amendments were violated by admission in evidence of contraband narcotics found in defendant's house, several blocks distant from the place of arrest, after his arrest, and seized there without a warrant. Under such circumstances the seizure could not be justified as incidental to the arrest.
There is no room in the present case for applying the Fifth Amendment .unless the Fourth Amendment was first violated. There was no evidence of compulsion to induce the defendants to talk over their many telephones. They were continually and voluntarily transacting business without knowledge of the interception. Our consideration must be confined to the Fourth Amendment.
The striking outcome of the Weeks case and those which followed it was the sweeping declaration that the Fourth Amendment, although not referring to or limiting the use of evidence in courts, really forbade its introduction if obtained by government officers through a violation of the Amendment. Theretofore many had supposed that under the ordinary common law rules, if the tendered evidence was pertinent, the method of obtaining it was unimportant. This was held by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in Commonwealth v. Dana, 2 Metcalf, 329, 337. There it was ruled that the only remedy open to a defendant whose rights under a state constitutional equivalent of the Fourth Amendment had been invaded was by- suit and judgment for damages, as Lord Camden held in Entick v. Carrington, 19 Howell State Trials, 1029. Mr. Justice Bradley made effective use of this case in Boyd v. United States. But in the Weeks case, and those which followed, this Court decided with great emphasis, and established as the law for the federal courts, that the protection of the Fourth Amendment would be much impaired 'unless it was held that not only was the official violator of the rights under the Amendment subject to action at the suit of the injured defendant, but also that the evidence thereby obtained could not be received.
The well known historical purpose of the Fourth Amendment, directed against general warrants and writs of assistance, was to prevent the use of governmental force to search a man's house, his person, his papers and his effects; and to prevent their seizure against his will. This phase of the misuse of governmental power of compulsion is the emphasis of the opinion of the Court in the Boyd case. This appears too in the Weeks case, in the Silverthorne case and ih the Amos case.
Gouled v. United States carried the inhibition against unreasonable searches and seizures to the extreme limit. Its authority is not to be enlarged by implication and must be confined to the precise state of facts disclosed by the record. A representative of the Intelligence Department of the Army, having by stealth obtained admission to the defendant's office, seized and carried away certain private papers valuable for evidential purposes. This was held an unreasonable search and seizure within the Fourth Amendment. A stealthy entrance in such cir cumstances became the equivalent to an entry by force.. There was actual entrance into the private quarters of defendant and the taking away of something tangible. Here we have testimony only of voluntary conversations secretly overheard.
The Amendment itself shows that the search is to be of material things — the person, the house, his papers or his effects. The description of the warrant necessary to make the proceeding lawful, is that it must specify the place to be searched and the person or things to be seized.
It is urged that the language of Mr. Justice Field in Ex parte Jackson, already quoted, offers an analogy to the interpretation of the Fourth Amendment in respect of wire tapping. But the analogy fails. The Fourth Amendment may have proper application to a sealed letter in the mail because of the constitutional provision for the Postoffice Department and the relations between the Government and those who pay to secure protection of their sealed letters. See Revised Statutes, § 3978 to 3988, whereby Congress monopolizes the carriage of letters and excludes from that business everyone else, and § 3929 which forbids any postmaster or other person to open any letter not addressed to himself. It is plainly within the words of the Amendment to say that the unlawful rifling by a government agent of a sealed letter is a search and seizure of the sender's papers or effects. The letter is a paper, an effect, and in the custody of a Government that forbids carriage except under its protection. .
The United States takes no such care of telegraph or telephone messages as of mailed sealed letters. The Amendment does not forbid what was done here. There was no searching. There was no seizure. The evidence, was secured by the use of the sense of hearing and that only. There was no entry of the houses or offices of the defendants, .
By the invention, of the telephone, fifty years ago, and its .application for the purpose of extending communications, one can talk with another at a far distant place. The language of the Amendment can not be extended and expanded to include telephone wires reaching to the whale, world from-the defendant's ;house or office. The intervening wires are not part of his house or office any more than are the highways along which they are stretched.
This Court in Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 149, declared:
"The Fourth Amendment is to be construed in the light of what was deemed an unreasonable- search and seizure when it was adopted and in a manner which will conserve public interests as well as the interests and rights of individual citizens,"
Justice Bradley in the Boyd case, and Justice Clark in the Gouled case, said that the Fifth Amendment-and the Fourth Amendment were to be liberally construed to effect the purpose of the framers of the .Constitution in the interest of liberty. But that dan riot justify enlargement of the language employed beyond the possible practical meaning of houses, persons, papers, and effects, or so to apply the words search and seizure as to forbid hearing or sight.
Hester v. United States, 265 U. S. 57, held that the testimony of two officers of the law who trespassed on the defendant's land, concealed themselves one hundred yards away from his house and saw him come out and hand a bottle of whiskey to another, was not inadmissible. While there was a trespass,-there was no search of person, house, papers <5r effects. United States v. Lee, 274 U. S. 559, 563; Eversole v. State, 106 Tex, Cr. 567.
Congress may of course protect the secrecy of telephone messages by making them, when intercepted, inadmissible iri evidence in federal criminal trials, by direct legislation, and thus depart from the common law of evidence. But the courts may not adopt such a policy by attributing an enlarged and unusual meaning to the Fourth Amendment. The reasonable view is that one who installs in his house a telephone instrument with connecting wires intends to' project his voice to those quite outside, and that the wires beyond his house and messages while passing over them are not within the protection of the Fourth Amendment. Here those who intercepted the projected voices were not in the house of either party to the conversation.
Neither the cases we have cited nor any of the many federal decisions brought to our attention hold the Fourth Amendment to have been violated as against a defendant unless there has been an official search and seizure of his person, or such a seizure of his papers or his tangible material effects, or an actual physical invasion of his house " or curtilage " for the purpose of making a seizure.
We think, therefore, that the wire tapping here disclosed did not amount to a search or seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.
What has been said disposes of the only question that comes within the terms of our order granting certiorari in these cases. But some of our number, departing from that order, have concluded that there is merit in the twofold objection overruled in both courts below that evidence obtained through intercepting of telephone messages by government agents wap inadmissible because the mode of obtaining it was unethical and a misdemeanor under the law of Washington. To avoid any misapprehension of our views of that objection we shall deal with' it in both of its phases.
While a Territory, the English common law prevailed in Washington and thus continued after her admission in 1889. The rules of evidence in criminal cases in courts of the United States sitting there, consequently are those of the common law.' United States v. Reid, 12 How. 361, 363, 366; Logan v. United States, 144 U. S. 263, 301; Rosen v. United States, 245 U. S. 467; Withaup v. United States, 127 Fed. 530, 534; Robinson v. United States, 292 Fed. 683, 685.
The common law rule is that the admissibility of evidence is not affected by the illegality of the means by which it was obtained. Professor Greenleaf in his work on evidence, vol. 1, 12th ed., by Redfield, § 254(a) says:
" It may be mentioned in this place, that though papers and other subjects of evidence may have been illegally taken from the possession of the party against whom they are offered, or otherwise unlawfully obtained, this is no valid objection to their admissibility, if they are pertinent to the issue. The court will not take notice how they were obtained, whether lawfully or unlawfully, nor will it form an issue, to determine that question."
Mr. Jones in his work on the same subject refers to Mr. Greenleaf's statement, and says: ~
" Where there is no violation of a constitutional guaranty, the verity of the above statement is absolute." Yol. 5, § 2075, note 3.
The rule is supported by many English and American cases cited by Jones in vol. 5, § 2075, note'3, and § 2076, note 6; and by Wigmore, vol. 4, § 2183. It is recognized by this Court in Adams v. New York, 192 U. S. 585. The Weeks case, announced an exception to the common law rule by excluding all evidence in the procuring of which government officials took part by methods forbidden by the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. Many state courts do not follow the Weeks case. People v. Defore, 242 N. Y. 13. But those who do, treat it as an exception to the general common law rule and required by constitutional limitations. Hughes v. State, 145 Tenn. 544, 551, 566; State v. Wills, 91 W. Va. 659, 677; State v. Slamon, 73 Vt. 212, 214, 215; Gindrat v. People, 138 Ill. 103, 111; People v. Castree, 311 Ill. 392, 396, 397; State v. Gardner, 77 Mont. 8, 21; State v. Fahn, 53 N. Dak. 203, 210. The cqmmon law rule must apply in the case at bar;
Nor can we, without the sanction of congressional enactment, subscribe to the suggestion that the courts 'have a discretion to exclude evidence, the admission of which is not unconstitutional, because unethically secured. This would be at variance with the common law doctrine generally supported by authority. There is no case that sustains, nor any recognized text book that gives color to such a view. Our general experience shows that much evidence has always been receivable although not obtained by conformity to the highest ethics. The history of criminal trials shows numerous cases of prosecutions of oath-bound conspiracies for murder, robbery, and othér crimes, where officers of the law have disguised themselves and joined the Organizations, taken the oaths and given themselves every appearance of active members engaged in the promotion of crime, for the purpose-of securing evidence. Evidence secured by such: means has always been received. .
' A standard which would forbid' the reception of evidence if obtained by other than nice ethical conduct by government officials would make society suffer and give criminals greater immunity than has been known heretofore. In the absence of controlling legislation by Congress, those, who realize the difficulties in'bringing offenders to justice may well 'deem it wise that the exclusion of evidence should be confined to cases where rights under the Constitution would be violated by' admitting it.
The statute of Washington, ádopted.in 1909, provides (Remington Compiled Statutes, 1922, § 2656-18) that:
"Every person . . . who shall intercept, read or in any manner interrupt .or delay the sending of a message over any telegraph or telephone line . . ; shall be guilty of a misdemeanor." .
This statute does not declare that evidence obtained by such interception shall be inadmissible, and by the common law, already referred to, it would not be. People v. McDonald, 177 App. Div. (N. Y.) 806. Whether the State of Washington may prosecute and punish federal officers violating this law and those whose messages were intercepted may sue them civilly is not before us. But clearly a statute, passed twenty years after the admission of the State into the Union can not affect the rules of evidence applicable in courts of the United States in criminal cases. Chief Justice Taney, in United States v. Reid, 12 How. 361, 363, construing the 34th section of the Judiciary Act, said:
".But it could not be supposed, without very plain words to show it, that Congress intended to give the states the power of prescribing the rules of evidence in trials for offenses against the United States. For. this construction would place the criminal jurisprudence of one'sovereignty under the control of another." ' See also Withaup v. United States, 127 Fed. 530, 534.
The judgments of the Circuit Court of Appeals are affirmed. The mandates will go down. forthwith under Rule 31.
Affirmed.