The Violation of Amendments

4th Amendment

Katz v United States

In 1967, federal agents began to suspect that a man in Los Angeles, Charles Katz, was transmitting illegal gambling information to people in other cities. The agents placed a wire inside the phone booth that he frequently used and began recording his conversations. Based on the recording that they collected, they confirmed that Katz had indeed been sending gambling information to Boston and Miami. He was promptly arrested and tried for violating federal law. During his trial, Katz requested that any evidence regarding the wiretaps be excluded on the grounds that the federal agents attained it without first getting a warrant.

What set this case apart from others was that there had already been a case that involved the same subject. In the 1928 case, Olmstead v United States, the Supreme Court ruled that the use of wiretaps did not constitute a violation of the 4th amendment as long as no actual intrusion to an area took place. Five years later, congress passed the Federal Communications Act of 1933, which required federal agents to acquire a warrant prior to wiretapping private phone lines.

Even with this past case against him, the Supreme Court found in favor of Katz with a 7-1 vote, with one justice abstaining. They ruled that tapping a public phone constituted as an unreasonable search and was therefore a violation of the 4th amendment. Their rational was that the 4th amendment protected people, and not places, and therefore a violation is a violation, regardless of where it happens. I can agree with that ideology, and although the agents placed the tap outside of the phone booth, any evidence attained without a warrant should be subject to the exclusionary rule.

5th Amendment

Miranda v Arizona

On March 13, 1963, Ernesto Miranda