''United States v. Ramsey'', 431 U.S. 606 (1977), 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 ...
case in which the Court held the search of letters or envelopes from foreign countries falls under the
border exception to the
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable
searches and seizures
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 ...
.
[''United States v. Ramsey'', .]
Background
United States customs agents, investigating a "
mail-order
Mail order is the buying of goods or services by mail delivery. The buyer places an order for the desired products with the merchant through some remote methods such as:
* Sending an order form in the mail
* Placing a telephone call
* Placing ...
" drug business, opened eight envelopes from Thailand. This search was conducted without a
warrant. The envelopes were found to contain
heroin.
Under established United States law and tradition, the protection from government search did not extend to borders: "the historical practice of warrantless searches and their acceptance at the time the Bill of Rights was adopted indicate that border searches are inherently 'reasonable,' and thus exempt from the Fourth Amendment's probable cause and warrant requirements."
Case
The government used the evidence it obtained from opening the letters when charging Charles W. Ramsay and James W. Kelly with violating federal laws related to drug trafficking.
Ramsay and Kelly argued that the evidence was inadmissible, as the result of an illegal search. At issue was whether opening mailed letters was within the scope of the
border search exception
In United States criminal law, the border search exception is a doctrine that allows searches and seizures at international borders and their functional equivalent without a warrant or probable cause. The doctrine is not regarded as an exceptio ...
to the
Fourth Amendment's requirement of either a search warrant or probable cause to conduct a search.
In a six to three decision, the Supreme Court ruled that "searches made at the border, pursuant to the longstanding right of the sovereign to protect itself by stopping and examining persons and property crossing into this country, are reasonable simply by virtue of the fact that they occur at the border," declaring the warrantless search of the envelopes to be legal and the evidence to be admissible.
References
External links
*
{{US4thAmendment, warrantexceptions
1977 in United States case law
United States Supreme Court cases
United States Supreme Court cases of the Burger Court
United States Fourth Amendment case law