The interception of telephone conversations by government agents through wiretapping conducted outside the defendants' premises (without physical trespass) does not constitute a "search" or "seizure" prohibited by the Fourth Amendment, and therefore, the use of such intercepted conversations as evidence in a criminal trial does not violate the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination.

The case arose during the Prohibition era, involving a large-scale conspiracy to import, transport, possess, and sell intoxicating liquors in violation of the National Prohibition Act, operating primarily in the Seattle, Washington area and extending to British Columbia.

• Roy Olmstead and others operated a massive conspiracy involving bootlegging intoxicating liquors, employing numerous individuals, vessels, and locations, with annual sales exceeding two million dollars.
• Federal prohibition officers gathered crucial evidence over several months by secretly tapping the telephone lines connected to the main office (located in a large office building) and the residences of several conspirators.
• The wiretaps were installed in the basement of the office building and on public streets near the residences, involving no physical trespass onto the petitioners' property (homes or offices).
• Officers listened to and recorded incriminating conversations detailing the conspiracy's operations, including orders for liquor, delivery arrangements, internal communications, and dealings with police.
• This intercepted information, testified to by the officers using stenographic notes, formed a significant part of the evidence leading to the petitioners' convictions.
• Seventy-two individuals, including the petitioners, were indicted; some were not apprehended, some acquitted, and others pleaded guilty.

• The use of evidence obtained through wiretapping violated their Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures, arguing the amendment should be construed liberally to protect the "privacies of life," including telephone conversations.
• Wiretapping constituted a search for conversations and a seizure of words, analogous to searching for and seizing papers, even without physical trespass.
• The admission of the intercepted conversations compelled them to be witnesses against themselves, violating their Fifth Amendment rights, as the effect was the same as forcing them to testify or produce incriminating documents.
• The government's methods were unethical and constituted a trespass upon their property rights in the telephone lines they used.
• The Fourth and Fifth Amendments should be interpreted broadly to adapt to modern technology like the telephone, which was unknown when the amendments were adopted.
• The Washington state statute making wiretapping a misdemeanor should render the evidence inadmissible in federal court, or at least indicate a policy against such methods.

• The Fourth Amendment protects only against searches and seizures of material things – "persons, houses, papers, and effects" – and does not extend to intangible conversations transmitted over telephone wires outside the home or office.
• There was no physical search of the petitioners' houses or offices, nor seizure of their persons, papers, or tangible material effects; the tapping occurred on lines external to their property.
• The Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination is not implicated because there was no compulsion; the petitioners' conversations were voluntary, not forced testimony.
• The common law rule, applicable in federal courts in Washington, dictates that the admissibility of evidence is not affected by the illegality (short of a constitutional violation) or unethical nature of the means used to obtain it.
• The Washington state statute making wiretapping a misdemeanor does not govern the rules of evidence in federal criminal trials.
• Excluding evidence obtained through wiretapping would require an unwarranted expansion of the Fourth Amendment beyond its text and historical purpose, a change that should be left to Congress.

• Does the use of evidence obtained by federal officers through the secret interception of private telephone conversations (wiretapping), without trespass upon the defendant's property, constitute an unreasonable search and seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment?
• Does the admission of such intercepted telephone conversations as evidence in a federal criminal trial compel the defendants to be witnesses against themselves in violation of the Fifth Amendment?
• Should evidence obtained unethically or in violation of a state statute (but not the Constitution) be excluded from a federal criminal trial?

• The Supreme Court affirmed the judgments of the lower courts, holding that wiretapping without physical trespass does not violate the Fourth or Fifth Amendments.
• The Court reasoned that the Fourth Amendment protects tangible items ("persons, houses, papers, and effects") and requires a physical invasion or search of a specified place or seizure of material things; conversations are intangible and not explicitly listed.
• Because the wiretaps were placed on lines outside the petitioners' premises, there was no entry into their houses or offices, and thus no search or seizure in the constitutional sense occurred.
• The evidence was obtained solely through the sense of hearing, not by entry or physical seizure.
• Since the Fourth Amendment was not violated, the Fifth Amendment was not implicated; the defendants were not compelled to speak, their conversations were voluntary.
• The Court declined to exclude the evidence based on the unethical means of obtaining it or its illegality under state law, adhering to the common law rule that admissibility depends on relevance, not the method of procurement (unless obtained in violation of the Constitution by federal officers, per the Weeks exception).
• The Court stated that extending Fourth Amendment protection to telephone messages is a policy decision for Congress, not the courts through an enlarged interpretation of the amendment.

Four justices dissented from the majority opinion which held that wiretapping did not constitute a search or seizure under the Fourth Amendment and that the evidence obtained was admissible.

1. Justice Holmes' Dissent:

   • While not definitively stating the Fourth and Fifth Amendments covered wiretapping, he emphasized that laws often have policies extending beyond their literal words.
   • His primary argument was based on governmental ethics and the rule of law. He argued that the government should not use evidence obtained through a criminal act (wiretapping was illegal under Washington state law).
   • He believed it was a "dirty business" and that allowing such evidence meant the government was complicit in the crime used to obtain it.
   • He concluded it was a lesser evil for some criminals to escape than for the government to play an "ignoble part" by sanctioning illegal methods. He felt the principle excluding evidence obtained by violating the Constitution should logically extend to excluding evidence obtained by a crime committed by officers.

2. Justice Brandeis' Dissent:

   • He argued for a broad interpretation of the Constitution, stating it must adapt to changing times and technologies not foreseen by the framers.
   • He asserted that the Fourth and Fifth Amendments protect the "privacies of life" against governmental intrusion, regardless of the means employed. He saw wiretapping as a "subtler and more far-reaching means of invading privacy" than physical search.
   • He equated the privacy of a telephone conversation with that of a sealed letter, arguing the distinctions were immaterial. He viewed wiretapping as a greater evil than tampering with mail because it invades the privacy of both parties and potentially anyone they communicate with.
   • He cited precedents where the Court applied the amendments beyond their literal wording to protect against the substance of the evil, not just its historical form.
   • Independently of the constitutional question, he argued the evidence was inadmissible because it was obtained by federal officers committing a crime under state law. He invoked the "unclean hands" doctrine, stating that the government, by using the fruits of its officers' crimes, becomes a lawbreaker itself and contaminates the judicial process.

3. Justice Butler's Dissent:

   • He focused directly on the Fourth Amendment question.
   • He argued that telephone communications, including private and privileged ones, are intended to be private.
   • He stated that wiretapping literally constituted a "search for evidence" as the communications were overheard and recorded as they passed.
   • He emphasized the principle of liberal construction for constitutional provisions safeguarding personal rights, arguing that the Fourth Amendment protects against evils equivalent to those in its ordinary meaning. Applying this principle, he believed wiretapping violated the amendment.

4. Justice Stone's Dissent:

   • He explicitly concurred with the dissenting opinions of Justices Holmes and Brandeis.
   • He also agreed with Justice Butler's opinion regarding the merits of the constitutional question.
   • Additionally, he noted that the Court's order limiting the initial argument to the constitutional question did not prevent the Court from considering other issues presented by the record, such as the admissibility based on the illegality under state law.

In essence, the dissenters believed that the Fourth and Fifth Amendments should be interpreted broadly to protect individual privacy against government intrusion via new technologies like wiretapping, and/or that the government should not be allowed to benefit from evidence obtained by its agents committing criminal acts.

• Fourth Amendment (Search and Seizure): Defined narrowly to apply only to searches of "persons, houses, papers, and effects" and seizures of tangible items. The Court held wiretapping intangible conversations without physical trespass falls outside this definition, emphasizing a literal interpretation and the absence of physical invasion.
• Fifth Amendment (Self-Incrimination): Interpreted as protecting against compelled testimony. Since the intercepted conversations were voluntary and not compelled by government action, their use as evidence did not violate this amendment. The Court linked its application here directly to a prior violation of the Fourth Amendment, which it found did not occur.
• Common Law Rule of Evidence Admissibility: The principle that evidence, if relevant, is admissible regardless of how it was obtained (lawfully or unlawfully), unless a specific constitutional prohibition applies. The Court applied this rule, noting the Weeks exclusionary rule is a specific exception for evidence obtained via Fourth/Fifth Amendment violations by federal officers, which was not found here.
• Literal vs. Liberal Construction: The Court explicitly rejected a liberal construction of the Fourth Amendment that would expand its scope beyond the "possible practical meaning" of its words to include intangible conversations or forbid hearing/sight, opting for a more literal interpretation based on the text and historical context.
• Exclusionary Rule (Weeks Doctrine): Acknowledged as an exception to the common law rule, excluding evidence obtained by federal officers through methods forbidden by the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. The Court found this exception inapplicable because it determined no constitutional violation occurred.
• Federalism (State Law vs. Federal Evidence Rules): The Court held that a state statute criminalizing wiretapping (Washington) does not dictate the rules of evidence admissibility in federal courts.

• "The [Fourth] Amendment itself shows that the search is to be of material things—the person, the house, his papers or his effects. The description of the warrant necessary to make the proceeding lawful, is that it must specify the place to be searched and the person or things to be seized."
• "The Amendment does not forbid what was done here. There was no searching. There was no seizure. The evidence was secured by the use of the sense of hearing and that only. There was no entry of the houses or offices of the defendants."
• "The reasonable view is that one who installs in his house a telephone instrument with connecting wires intends to project his voice to those quite outside, and that the wires beyond his house and messages while passing over them are not within the protection of the Fourth Amendment."
• "But the courts may not adopt such a policy [protecting telephone message secrecy] by attributing an enlarged and unusual meaning to the Fourth Amendment."
• "The common law rule is that the admissibility of evidence is not affected by the illegality of the means by which it was obtained."
• (Holmes, dissenting) "It is desirable that criminals should be detected... It also is desirable that the Government should not itself foster and pay for other crimes... We have to choose, and for my part I think it a less evil that some criminals should escape than that the Government should play an ignoble part."
• (Brandeis, dissenting) "The makers of our Constitution... conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone—the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

• Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616: Cited extensively by both petitioners and the Court. The Court distinguished it, noting Boyd involved compulsory production of papers, deemed equivalent to search/seizure, unlike the voluntary conversations here. Petitioners argued its principle of protecting privacy applied.
• Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383: Referenced as establishing the exclusionary rule for evidence obtained by federal officers in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The Court found it inapplicable as no Fourth Amendment violation occurred. Petitioners relied on it to argue for exclusion.
• Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U.S. 385: Cited for the principle that knowledge gained from illegally seized evidence cannot be used (fruit of the poisonous tree). Distinguished because the initial act (wiretapping) was deemed not illegal under the Fourth Amendment.
• Gouled v. United States, 255 U.S. 298: Discussed as extending Fourth Amendment protection to searches conducted by stealth rather than force. The Court confined Gouled to its facts involving physical entry and seizure of papers, unlike the non-trespassory wiretapping here.
• Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132: Cited by the Court for the principle that the Fourth Amendment should be construed in light of what was deemed unreasonable search/seizure at the time of its adoption.
• Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57: Cited by the Court to show that evidence obtained by officers trespassing on open land (but not searching person, house, papers, effects) was admissible, supporting the idea that not all illegal actions by officers trigger exclusion.
• Ex parte Jackson, 96 U.S. 727: Cited by petitioners and the Court regarding the protection of sealed letters in the mail under the Fourth Amendment. The Court distinguished mail (carried under specific government protection and statutes) from telephone messages.
• Adams v. New York, 192 U.S. 585: Cited by the Court as recognizing the common law rule that admissibility is not affected by illegal procurement, though noting the Weeks case later established an exception for federal courts regarding constitutional violations.
• McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316: Cited in Brandeis' dissent to support a broad, adaptive interpretation of the Constitution.
• Entick v. Carrington, 19 Howell St. Tr. 1029: Referenced by the Court (via Boyd) and dissents as a foundational case explaining the meaning of unreasonable searches and seizures and the importance of privacy.

• U.S. Constitution, Fourth Amendment: Central to the case; its prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures was interpreted by the Court not to cover wiretapping without physical trespass.
• U.S. Constitution, Fifth Amendment: Its privilege against self-incrimination was held not to be violated because the intercepted conversations were voluntary and not compelled, and no underlying Fourth Amendment violation was found.
• National Prohibition Act: The underlying federal statute the petitioners were convicted of conspiring to violate.
• Washington Remington Compiled Statutes, 1922, § 2656-18: State statute making interception of telephone messages a misdemeanor. The Court held this state law did not affect the admissibility of evidence in federal court.
• Act of June 22, 1874 (related to Boyd): Discussed in the context of the Boyd case concerning compelled production of invoices.
• U.S. Revised Statutes, §§ 3978-3988, § 3929: Mentioned by the Court to illustrate the specific statutory protection afforded to sealed mail, distinguishing it from telephone communications.
• Judiciary Act, Section 34 (construed in United States v. Reid): Referenced to support the principle that state rules of evidence do not control in federal criminal trials.