Katz v. U.S.

Citation: Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967).

Facts
Katz was a bookie convicted on the basis of evidence gathered by an electronic listening and recording device set up outside the public telephone booth that Katz used to take and place bets.

Supreme Court Decision
The Court held that the gateway for Fourth Amendment purposes stood at that point where an individual should to able to expect that his or her privacy would not be subjected to unwarranted governmental intrusion. 389 U.S. at 353.


 * “We conclude that the underpinnings of Olmstead and Goldman v. U.S.|Goldman]] have been so eroded by our subsequent decisions that the trespass doctrine there enunciated can no longer be regarded as controlling. The Government’s activities in electronically listening to and recording the petitioner’s words violated the privacy upon which he justifiably relied while using the telephone booth and thus constituted a search and seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The fact that the electronic device employed to achieve that end did not happen to penetrate the wall of the booth can have no constitutional significance.” Later courts seem to prefer the ‘expectation of privacy’ language found in Justice Harlan’s concurrence: ‘My understanding of the rule that has emerged from prior decisions is that there is a twofold requirement, first that a person have exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy and, second, that the expectation be one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable.’”

Id. at 361.

[[Category:Privacy