Rehnquist, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which OConnor, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas, JJ., joined. Karo, 468 U.S. at 714. We went to the absolute limit of what text and tradition permit in Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U. S. 91 (1990),when we protected a mere overnight guest against an unreasonable search of his hosts’ apartment. I would answer the question on the basis of the following factual assumptions, derived from the evidentiary record presented here: (1) On the evening of May 15, 1994, an anonymous individual approached Officer Thielen, telling him that he had just walked by a nearby apartment window through which he had seen some people bagging drugs; (2) the apartment in question was a garden apartment that was partly below ground level; (3) families frequently used the grassy area just outside the apartment’s window for walking or for playing; (4) members of the public also used the area just outside the apartment’s window to store bicycles; (5) in an effort to verify the tipster’s information, Officer Thielen walked to a position about 1 to 1½ and one-half feet in front of the window; (6) Officer Thielen stood there for about 15 minutes looking down through a set of Venetian blinds; (7) what he saw, namely, people putting white powder in bags, verified the account he had heard; and (8) he then used that information to help obtain a search warrant. CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF MINNESOTA. See Silverman v. United States, 365 U. S. 505, 511 (1961) (“At the very core [of the Fourth Amendment] stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.”). He then walked behind some short bushes in front of the window and stood approximately 12 to 18 inches from the window. 23Id. at 315 (footnote omitted). If the illegality of the activity made constitutional an otherwise unconstitutional search, such Fourth Amendment protection, reserved for the innocent only, would have little force in regulating police behavior toward either the innocent or the guilty. When that self-indulgent test is employed (as the dissent would employ it here) to determine whether a “search or seizure” within the meaning of the Constitution has occurred (as opposed to whether that “search or seizure” is an “unreasonable” one), it has no plausible foundation in the text of the Fourth Amendment. Id., at 176–179. And we were right to hold in Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U. S. 543 (1968), that an unreasonable search of a grandmother’s house violated her resident grandson’s Fourth Amendment rights because the area searched “was his home,” id., at 548, n. 11 (emphasis added). Since they were admitted to the bosom of the family, visitors might witness some intimate activities. The Court’s premise was a more fundamental one. . 1, 13 (1983) (“[O]ne of the main rights attaching to property is the right to share its shelter, its comfort and its privacy with others.”). In support of this, he cites only a passage from Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573 (1980), which noted “a deep divergence among scholars” as to whether Semayne’s Case accurately described one aspect of the common law of arrest. The Minnesota Supreme Court merely found that respondents had a sufficient nexus with Thompson's residence to contest police surveillance that disclosed private conduct within a home. See also McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451 (1948) (excluding evidence that officers discovered after climbing through landlady's window of roominghouse and standing on a chair in a hallway to look through the transom of defendants' room).
Although the window blinds were closed, Thielen looked through gaps in the blinds to see what was going on inside the apartment. Petitioner's position not only disregards the teaching of Alderman, it is bad constitutional law because no neutral principle justifies a different result depending upon whether police conduct monitors private conduct in the home rather than private conversation. Even if, at the time of Semaynes’s Case, a man’s home was not his castle with respect to incursion by the King in a criminal matter, that would not be dispositive of the question before us.
These cases strengthen and protect the right of the homeowner to privacy in his own home. . Accordingly, the court below correctly ignored respondents' criminal acts when deciding whether they had a legitimate expectation of privacy in a home. But while the holding of Jones—that a search of the apartment violated the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights—is still valid, its statement that “anyone legitimately on the premises where a search occurs may challenge its legality,” id., at 267, was expressly repudiated in Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U. S. 128 (1978). "9 Alderman's ruling that a defendant could contest the illegal monitoring of his conversations that occurred on another's premises was the inevitable extension of the rule announced in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967), that conversational privacy is protected by the. See also id., at 92a, 77 Eng. Const., Art. 487, 539 (1988) (“[I]f the police have no probable cause, they have everything to gain and nothing to lose if they search under circumstances where they know that at least one of the potential defendants will not have standing.”).
For instance, under the formulaic analysis of petitioner and its amici, a homeowner's sexual partner would have no expectation of privacy unless he spent the night and no standing to object if the police peered through the closed blinds of a bedroom window. 3William Cuddihy, "The Fourth Amendment: Origins and Original Meaning, 602-1791," at 1545-46 (1990)(unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Claremont Graduate School).
at 52-53. Riley, 488 U.S. at 452. The Minnesota trial court held that since they were not overnight social guests, they were not entitled to Fourth Amendment protection, and that the officer’s observation was not a search under the Amendment. Constitutional Amendment IV, but one who was merely The Fourth Amendment protects persons against unreasonable searches of “their persons [and] houses,” and thus indicates that it is a personal right that must be invoked by an individual. "We will all be hosts and we will all be guests many times in our lives. Wayne Carter, Melvin Johns, and Kimberly Thompson were bagging 450 (1972). Moreover, the extent of an apartment dweller's curtilage endorsed by the United States is unduly cramped. The Minnesota Civil Liberties Union is one of its statewide affiliates. I join the opinion of the Court because I believe it accurately applies our recent case law, including Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U. S. 91 (1990). In my view, when a homeowner or lessor personally invites a guest into her home to share in a common endeavor, whether it be for conversation, to engage in leisure activities, or for business purposes licit or illicit, that guest should share his host’s shelter against unreasonable searches and seizures. at 107 (White, J., dissenting)("Since Berger was rightfully in Steinman's office when his conversations were recorded through the Steinman eavesdrop, he is entitled to have those recordings excluded at his trial if they were unconstitutionally obtained"). See, e.g., O’Connor v. Ortega, 480 U. S. 709 (1987). “From the overnight guest’s perspective, he seeks shelter in another’s home precisely because it provides him with privacy, a place where he and his possessions will not be disturbed by anyone but his host and those his host allows inside. Since its founding in 1920, the ACLU has frequently appeared before this Court, both as direct counsel and as amicus curiae. It contends, citing United States v. Dunn, 480 U.S. 294, 297-98, 304 (1987), and California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35, 44 (1988), that state law concepts of privacy do not control the existence of expectations of privacy under the Fourth Amendment.
1996) (noting that Carter’s only evidence—that he was there to package cocaine—was inconsistent with his claim that “he was predominantly a social guest” in Thompson’s apartment). A police officer looked in an apartment window through a gap in the closed blind and observed respondents Carter and … Id. Be My Guest: The Hidden Holding of Minnesota v. Carter Abstract This Article first examines theCarter case in detail, including the opinions of the state courts and the briefs and oral argument in the United States Supreme Court, before turning to the Court's decision.
Here, the purely commercial nature of the transaction, the relatively short period of time that respondents were on the premises, and the lack of any previous connection between them and the householder all lead to the conclusion that their situation is closer to that of one simply permitted on the premises. 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 669 (1995). It must be acknowledged that the phrase “their . You also agree to abide by our. During the trial in Minnesota state court, the defendants moved to suppress the cocaine as evidence. §609.487(3) (1981)(fleeing a peace officer in a motor vehicle). There, we explained the justification for extending Fourth Amendment protection to the overnight visitor: “Staying overnight in another’s home is a long-standing social custom that serves functions recognized as valuable by society. According to petitioner, because the Fourth Amendment was not designed to protect criminal conduct, the nature of a defendant's activity "is worthy of inquiry" when determining whether he may claim Fourth Amendment protection. §609.746 (1996)(interference with privacy): Any person who enters upon another's property and surrepti tiously gazes, stares, or peeps in the window of a house or place of dwelling of another with intent to intrude upon or interfere with the privacy of a member of the household thereof is guilty of a misdemeanor. Its privacy is explicitly protected by the text of the Fourth Amendment. See Brief of Petitioner at 14; Brief of United States at 19. Because a visitor's privacy interest in a home parallels the privacy interest a visitor has when using the telephone of a host or while conversing inside the home of a host, the ruling below properly recognized respondents' right to contest Thielen's search. Although their intention was probably to entice his servants out of the house, Severn's ideas about privacy obviously did not include such liberties. L. Rev.