Elkins v. United States

Mr. Justice Stewart delivered the opinion of the Court.

The petitioners were indicted in the United States District Court in Oregon for the offense of intercepting and divulging telephone communications and of conspiracy to do so. 47 U. S. C. §§ 501, 605; 18 U. S. C. § 371. Before trial the petitioners made a motion to suppress as evidence several tape and wire recordings and [*207] a recording machine, which had originally been seized by state law enforcement officers in the home of petitioner Clark under circumstances which, two Oregon courts had found, had rendered the search and seizure unlawful.[1] At the hearing on the motion the district judge assumed without deciding that the articles had been obtained as the result of an unreasonable search and seizure, but denied the motion to suppress because there was no evidence that any “agent of the United States had any knowledge or information or suspicion of any kind that this search was being contemplated or was eventually made by the State officers until they read about it in the newspaper.” At the trial the articles in question were admitted in evidence against the petitioners, and they were convicted.

[*208] The convictions were affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 266 F. 2d 588. That court agreed with the district judge that it was unnecessary to determine whether or not the original state search and seizure had been lawful, because there had been no participation by federal officers. “Hence the unlawfulness of the State search and seizure, if indeed they were unlawful, did not entitle defendants to an order of the .District Court suppressing the property seized.” 266 F. 2d, at 594.