Katz v. U.S.
Zaira Quiroga
Procedural Criminal Law
06-19-2017
Katz v. U.S.
The case of Katz v. United States began in 1967, when Charles Katz used a public telephone booth in Los Angeles California to call and do illegal gambling bets. Katz used the public phone to place bets with book keepers in Miami and Boston. While Katz was placing the illegal bets over the phone, the FBI was listening and Katz wasn’t aware. The FBI was able to listen to the conversation because the agency tapped that specific phone. Following the recorded conversations, Katz was arrested immediately and taken into custody by the FBI. While arrested Katz said the police had violated his rights as an American citizen, he claimed that the FBI and the Los Angeles police department disrupted his privacy rights. The right to privacy requires all government authorities to protect the privacy of American citizens because of these rights the case of Katz v United States is regarded as groundbreaking and unique.
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Katz appealed the charges and claimed that the FBI lacked sufficient evidence and probable cause to record his telephone conversation.
The court of appeals affirmed the conviction and held that the petitioners Fourth Amendment rights were not violated because there was no physical intrusion into the phone booth. The Katz v United States trial was decided on December 18, 1967. The case was heard in the Supreme Court of the United States. In Katz v United States the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of Katz, stating that Katz Fourth Amendment rights were violated because he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the phone booth. The right is expressed in the Fourth Amendment to the United States constitution. The United States Supreme Court stated that the use of a public phone is private in nature. When an individual is making a call, no government agency is allowed to listen to the call unless they have secure probable cause or evidence that points to illegal
activity. The law in Katz v. United States stated that if person has reasonable expectation of privacy in a conversation, that conversation is protected by the Fourth Amendment and can’t be recorded by the government without a warrant. I personally believe that we as Americans can have fear that when we are having a conversation via telephone we can be getting monitored by government officials. This case is important because the fact that law enforcement officials failed to receive a warrant made all the evidence to be seen as useless. Even though what Katz was doing was illegal in nature a warrant must have been issued. Thanks to the mistake that the FBI made in the case we now have the Fourth Amendment which protects us from unlawful searches and seizures. Also when an individual is making a call no government agency is allowed to listen to the call unless they have probable cause o or evidence that points to illegal activities. References www.kids.laws.com/katz-v-united-states www.legaldictionary.net/katz-v-united-states/
The court for this case found that the search and seizure of the stereo violated the fourth and fourteenth Amendments. The Decision was 6 votes for Hicks and 3 votes against.
Fraud is one of Canada's most severe acts of financial criminality as the economic impact of this crime could potentially handicap an entire society. According to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre Annual Statistic Report (CAFC), a report established to monitor fraud with the aid of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), and Competition Bureau of Canada, it reported an annual loss of 74 million dollars affecting over 14,472 victims (Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, 2014). Given this alarming statistic, it is worrisome that we as a society still ignore or turn a blind eye towards those who commit fraud as seen in the low conviction (Canada Revenue Agency, 2014), and focus our efforts on petty thefts as seen with the high rate of convictions
Justice Harlan’s reasonable expectations test in Katz vs. United States (1967) considers whether a person has an “actual (subjective) expectation of privacy” and if so, whether such expectation is one that “society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable.’” (Solove and Schwartz 99) If there is no expectation of privacy, there is no search and no seizure (reasonable, or not), and hence no Fourth Amendment issue. Likewise, we must first ascertain whether a search took place. A few questions from a police officer, a frisk, or the taking of blood samples do not constitute a search. (Solove and Schwartz 83; 86) Likewise, the plain view doctrine establishes that objects knowingly exhibited in a public area, in plain view for police to see, do not
Ernesto Miranda grew up not finishing high school. He didn’t finish the 9th grade, and he decided to drop out of school during that year. He also had a criminal record and had pronounced sexual fantasies after dropping out of high school. Ernesto Miranda was arrested in Phoenix in 1963. He had raped an 18 yr. girl who was mildly mentally handicapped in March of 1963. He was charged with rape, kidnapping, and robbery. When he was found and arrested, and he was not told of his rights before interrogation. After two hours of interrogation, the cops and detectives had a written confession from Miranda that he did do the crimes that he was acquitted for. Miranda also had a history mental instability, and had no counsel at the time of the trial. The prosecution at the trial mainly used his confession as evidence. Miranda was convicted of both counts of rape and kidnapping. He was sentenced to 20-30 years in prison. He tried to appeal to the Supreme Court in
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The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution states that people have the right “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” but the issue at hand here is whether this also applies to the searches of open fields and of objects in plain view and whether the fourth amendment provides protection over these as well. In order to reaffirm the courts’ decision on this matter I will be relating their decisions in the cases of Oliver v. United States (1984), and California v. Greenwood (1988) which deal directly with the question of whether a person can have reasonable expectations of privacy as provided for in the fourth amendment with regards to objects in an open field or in plain view.
Holloway, Carson. "Profiling and the Constitution." Public Discourse. N.p., n. d. Web. 4 Mar. 2014. .
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Can the Fourth Amendment be extended as far as to where it protects the rights of phone calls and conversations, and whether or not Katz had a reasonable expectation of privacy in an enclosed telephone booth in
When police showed up at the apartment it was trashed and the beds had been stripped and the first thing the police thought was that it was a murder. The officer then began to look around and started hearing a beeping sound and saw the victim’s cell phone beeping on the table. Now at this time the police officer did not have a warrant to search any of the victims stuff but despite his curiosity he picked up the victims phone and started going through her messages. When they went to court the judge had dismissed the case because did not obtain a warrant and had unreasonable evidence. The officer also violated the victim’s fourth amendment. An Example of a legal case is the United States v. The United States district courts on February 24, 1972 and ended on June 19, 1972. The U.S. had charged three different defendants on conspiracy to destroy government property. They ended up going to court because the defendant went to pretrial for the disclosure of electronic surveillance information. The government then cited an affidavit and it had been approved. The government then claimed that the surveillances, which were warrantless, was reasonable because they wanted to protect the national security. I hope you enjoy this paper as much as I enjoyed writing
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