''United States v. Karo'', 468 U.S. 705 (1984), was a
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
decision related to the
Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable
search and seizure
Search and seizure is a procedure used in many civil law and common law legal systems by which police or other authorities and their agents, who, suspecting that a crime has been committed, commence a search of a person's property and confiscat ...
. It held that use of an electronic beeper device to monitor a can of
ether
In organic chemistry, ethers are a class of compounds that contain an ether group—an oxygen atom connected to two alkyl or aryl groups. They have the general formula , where R and R′ represent the alkyl or aryl groups. Ethers can again be c ...
without a
warrant constituted an unlawful search. However, the Court upheld the conviction of Karo and his accomplices, stating that the warrant
affidavit
An ( ; Medieval Latin for "he has declared under oath") is a written statement voluntarily made by an ''affiant'' or '' deponent'' under an oath or affirmation which is administered by a person who is authorized to do so by law. Such a statemen ...
contained enough information not derived from the unlawful use of the beeper to provide sufficient basis for
probable cause
In United States criminal law, probable cause is the standard by which police authorities have reason to obtain a warrant for the arrest of a suspected criminal or the issuing of a search warrant. There is no universally accepted definition or f ...
.
Background
Drug Enforcement Administration
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA; ) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating drug trafficking and distribution within th ...
agents installed an electronic beeper in a can of ether with the consent of the owner, a government informant. The marked can was sold along with a shipment of 50 gallons of ether to the respondents, who intended to use the ether for the extraction and production of
cocaine
Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly recreational drug use, used recreationally for its euphoria, euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from t ...
. Having tracked the can of ether as it was moved between various residences and commercial storage lockers, the federal investigators determined the location of the can and obtained an arrest warrant. Respondent Karo and his accomplices were arrested for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute.
Karo's attorneys petitioned to have various portions of the evidence
suppressed because they were the "tainted fruit" of an unlawful search. In ''
United States v. Knotts'',
[.] the Court held that the monitoring of a beeper did not violate the Fourth Amendment when it revealed no information that could not have been obtained through visual surveillance.
Opinion of the Court
The Supreme Court held that the use of the beeper to conduct surveillance on Karo and his accomplices constituted an unlawful search and seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment. However, they determined that since the affidavit which led to the issuance of the arrest warrant contained a significant amount of evidence not obtained through use of the beeper (such as the smell of ether emanating from the storage locker and visual tracking of the cans of ether in automobiles), the arrest warrant was valid. Thus, Karo's conviction was upheld.
The majority stated that the installation of the beeper in the can of ether did not constitute "search" or "seizure" by definition. Rather, the Fourth Amendment was not implicated until the beeper was turned on and used to track the ether shipment on private property.
See also
*
List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 468
This is a list of all United States Supreme Court cases from volume 468 of the ''United States Reports
The ''United States Reports'' () are the official record ( law reports) of the Supreme Court of the United States. They include rulings, ord ...
*
''Carpenter v. United States,'' 585 U.S. ____ (2018) – Supreme Court ruling that the Government's acquisition of a weeks worth location from cell-site records is a Fourth Amendment search.
References
External links
*
{{US4thAmendment, scope, state=expanded
United States privacy case law
United States Fourth Amendment case law
United States Supreme Court cases
United States Supreme Court cases of the Burger Court
1984 in United States case law
Drug Enforcement Administration litigation