person aggrieved by an unlawful search or seizure

On March 17, 1962, an armed robber entered the business premises of the Diamond Cab Company in Baltimore, Maryland, took some $363, and fled. Two cab drivers followed the man, described as a Negro about 5'8" tall wearing a light cap and dark jacket, to 2111 Cocoa Lane and notified police. Within minutes police arrived at the house in patrol cars, knocked, and after Mrs. Hayden answered entered to search for the robber. Officers spread through the first and second floors and cellar. Hayden was found in an upstairs bedroom feigning sleep and was arrested after other officers reported no other man was present. An officer searching the cellar for the man or the money found a jacket and trousers of the type the fleeing man was said to have worn in a washing machine. Another officer was attracted to an adjoining bathroom by the noise of running water and discovered a shotgun and a pistol in a flush tank. A clip of ammunition for the pistol and a cap were found under the mattress of Hayden's bed, and ammunition for the shotgun was found in a bureau drawer in Hayden's room. All these items of evidence were introduced against respondent at his trial. A Maryland court sitting without a jury convicted respondent of armed robbery. After unsuccessful state court proceedings, he sought and was denied federal habeas corpus relief in the District Court for Maryland. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

On the morning of November 26, 1965, agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics entered Webster Bivens's apartment in the Bronx. The agents broke open the door, handcuffed Bivens in front of his wife and young children, and thoroughly searched the apartment. They then transported Bivens to the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, where he was interrogated, booked, and subjected to a visual strip search. Several days later Bivens was released on his own recognizance, and he was never indicted or prosecuted for any offense. Bivens filed suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York against the six agents in their individual capacities. His complaint sought fifteen thousand dollars in damages from each agent and alleged that the arrest and search were effected without a warrant, that unreasonable force was employed, and that the arrest was made without probable cause. Bivens claimed to have suffered great humiliation, embarrassment, and mental suffering as a result of the agents' conduct. The District Court dismissed the complaint on the ground that it failed to state a cause of action. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal. The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari to review the judgment.

Petitioners Alderman and Alderisio, along with Ruby Kolod (now deceased), were convicted in federal court of conspiring to transmit murderous threats in interstate commerce under 18 U.S.C. §§ 371 and 875(c). Their convictions were affirmed by the Tenth Circuit in 1967, and the Supreme Court initially denied certiorari. After denial, the petitioners alleged in a rehearing petition that Alderisio's Chicago business premises had been subjected to government electronic surveillance. The government responded by acknowledging that Alderisio's conversations had been overheard through unlawful eavesdropping. Petitioners Ivanov and Butenko were convicted in separate proceedings of conspiring to transmit national defense information to the Soviet Union under 18 U.S.C. §§ 794(a) and (c) and related charges under 18 U.S.C. § 951. The Third Circuit affirmed most convictions. Following the Alderman rehearing developments, certiorari was granted in Ivanov and Butenko on parallel questions concerning surveillance. After the convictions were affirmed and while the cases were pending, it was revealed that the United States had engaged in electronic surveillance that might have violated Fourth Amendment rights and tainted the convictions. The Supreme Court vacated the judgments and remanded each case to the District Court for adjudication of whether any government evidence supporting the convictions was the product of illegal surveillance. The government moved for modification of the remand order, proposing that surveillance records first undergo in camera inspection by the trial judge, who would disclose to petitioners and counsel only those materials found arguably relevant to the prosecution. Petitioners opposed the in camera procedure and sought full disclosure of all surveillance records to which they claimed standing. The government maintained that none of the overheard conversations were arguably relevant to the prosecutions and that disclosure of irrelevant conversations would endanger third parties or national security. The Supreme Court restored the cases for reargument specifically on the disclosure issue and the question of standing to object to the fruits of illegal surveillance.

Police officers in Lexington, Kentucky, set up a controlled buy of crack cocaine outside an apartment complex. Undercover Officer Gibbons watched the deal from an unmarked car in a nearby parking lot and radioed uniformed officers to move in on the suspect as he moved quickly toward the breezeway of an apartment building. Upon arriving at the breezeway, the uniformed officers detected a strong odor of burnt marijuana coming from the apartment on the left. Officer Steven Cobb banged on the door of that apartment as loud as he could and announced "This is the police" or "Police, police, police." As soon as the officers began banging, they heard people inside moving and sounds consistent with things being moved, which led them to believe drug-related evidence was about to be destroyed. The officers announced they were going to make entry, kicked in the door, and found respondent Hollis King, his girlfriend, and a guest inside the front room. During a protective sweep the officers saw marijuana and powder cocaine in plain view, and a later search uncovered crack cocaine, cash, and drug paraphernalia. Police later entered the apartment on the right and found the initial suspected drug dealer. A Fayette County grand jury charged King with trafficking in marijuana, first-degree trafficking in a controlled substance, and second-degree persistent felony offender status. The Fayette County Circuit Court denied King's motion to suppress the evidence from the warrantless search. King entered a conditional guilty plea reserving his right to appeal the suppression ruling and was sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment. The Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of the suppression motion. The Supreme Court of Kentucky reversed. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.

In September 1976, Jack Payner was indicted in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio on a charge of falsifying his 1972 federal income tax return in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001. The indictment alleged that Payner denied maintaining a foreign bank account when he knew he had one at the Castle Bank and Trust Company of Nassau, Bahamas. The government's case relied on a loan guarantee agreement dated April 28, 1972, in which Payner pledged funds in his Castle Bank account as security for a $100,000 loan. Payner waived his right to a jury trial and moved to suppress the guarantee agreement. The district court consolidated the suppression hearing with the trial on the merits. After hearing evidence, the court found Payner guilty based on all evidence but determined that the government had discovered the guarantee agreement by exploiting a flagrantly illegal search of Michael Wolstencroft's briefcase on January 15, 1973. The court suppressed all government evidence except Payner's 1972 tax return and related testimony, then set aside the conviction because the remaining evidence was insufficient. The illegal search stemmed from the IRS's Operation Trade Winds investigation into American citizens' financial activities in the Bahamas, which focused on the Castle Bank in 1972. Special Agent Richard Jaffe enlisted private investigator Norman Casper to gather information. Casper arranged for Sybol Kennedy to host Wolstencroft, a Castle Bank vice president, in Miami. On January 15, 1973, while Wolstencroft dined with Kennedy, Casper stole the briefcase containing bank documents, delivered it to Jaffe, who supervised the copying of approximately 400 documents before returning it. The documents revealed connections to the Bank of Perrine in Florida, leading to subpoenas that uncovered the loan guarantee agreement. The district court found that the United States, through Jaffe, knowingly and willfully participated in the unlawful seizure. The court concluded that the government had counseled agents that the Fourth Amendment standing limitation allowed unconstitutional searches of one person to obtain evidence against third parties. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the suppression in a brief order. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the case.