364 U.S. 206, 80 S. Ct. 1487, 4 L. Ed. 2d 1669 (1960)
The petitioners, Elkins and Clark, were indicted in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon for intercepting and divulging telephone communications and conspiracy to do so under 47 U.S.C. §§ 501, 605 and 18 U.S.C. § 371.1 State law enforcement officers received information that Clark possessed obscene motion pictures and sound recordings.2 They procured a search warrant based on an affidavit reciting that "upon information and belief" Clark possessed such materials. The officers searched his home, found no obscene pictures, but seized wiretap paraphernalia and a recording machine.3
The state officers placed the seized articles in a local bank safe-deposit box.4 The Multnomah County District Court and later the Circuit Court for Multnomah County held the search warrant invalid and ordered suppression of the evidence.5 The state grand jury indictment was dismissed.6 Federal officers then obtained the articles from the bank box pursuant to a federal search warrant.7
Before trial in federal court the petitioners moved to suppress the tape and wire recordings and recording machine.8 The district judge assumed without deciding that the articles had been obtained as the result of an unreasonable search and seizure.9 He denied the motion because there was no evidence that any agent of the United States had any knowledge or information or suspicion that the search was being contemplated or was made by the state officers until they read about it in the newspaper.10 The articles were admitted in evidence at trial and the petitioners were convicted.11
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the convictions.12 That court held it unnecessary to determine whether the original state search and seizure had been lawful because there had been no participation by federal officers.13 The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider whether evidence obtained by state officers in an unreasonable search and seizure without federal involvement is admissible in a federal criminal trial over timely objection.14
Whether articles obtained as the result of an unreasonable search and seizure by state officers, without involvement of federal officers, may be introduced in evidence against a defendant over his timely objection in a federal criminal trial?15
Evidence obtained by state officers during a search which, if conducted by federal officers, would have violated the defendant's immunity from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment is inadmissible over the defendant's timely objection in a federal criminal trial.16 In determining whether there has been an unreasonable search and seizure by state officers, a federal court must make an independent inquiry, whether or not there has been such an inquiry by a state court, and irrespective of how any such inquiry may have turned out.17 The test is one of federal law.18
No. The state officers searched petitioner Clark's home pursuant to a warrant later invalidated by Oregon courts.19 They seized wiretap paraphernalia and a recording machine and placed the items in a bank safe-deposit box.20 Federal officers obtained the articles via federal warrant after the state indictment was dismissed and without any participation in the initial search.21 The district court denied suppression solely because no federal agent knew of the state search in advance, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed on the same ground of no federal involvement.22
Under the rule, the state officers' violation of Fourth Amendment standards as incorporated through the Fourteenth Amendment requires exclusion in federal court regardless of the absence of federal participation, because the violation is the same and exclusion deters misconduct while preserving judicial integrity.23
Articles obtained as the result of an unreasonable search and seizure by state officers without involvement of federal officers may not be introduced in evidence against a defendant over his timely objection in a federal criminal trial.24
Related opinions on this issue
Joined by Justices Clark, Harlan, And Whittaker
Justice Frankfurter dissented, joined by Justices Clark, Harlan, and Whittaker.25 He maintained that the Court should retain the Weeks-Byars rule permitting admission of evidence seized solely by state officers without federal participation.26 Frankfurter argued that Wolf v. Colorado does not undermine that rule. The Due Process Clause protects only the core of the Fourth Amendment against arbitrary state intrusion and does not impose the federal exclusionary remedy on the states.27
He stressed that the exclusionary rule functions as a supervisory mechanism over federal officers alone. The new rule would force federal courts into hypothetical constitutional rulings while conflicting with state policies on evidence admissibility.28 Frankfurter would have affirmed the convictions or adopted a narrower modification respecting state suppression orders.29