Lead Opinion
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case we revisit an issue that was considered, but not conclusively resolved, in Coolidge v. New Hampshire,
I
Petitioner was convicted of the armed robbery of Erwin Wallaker, the treasurer of the San Jose Coin Club. When Wallaker returned to his home after the Club’s annual show, he entered his garage and was accosted by two masked men, one armed with a machine gun and the other with an electrical shocking device, sometimes referred to as a “stun gun.” The two men shocked Wallaker, bound and handcuffed him, and robbed him of jewelry and cash. During the encounter sufficient conversation took place to enable Wallaker subsequently to identify petitioner’s distinctive voice. His identification was partially corroborated by a witness who saw the robbers leaving the scene and by evidence that petitioner had attended the coin show.
Sergeant LaRault, an experienced police officer, investigated the crime and determined that there was probable cause to search petitioner’s home for the proceeds of the rob
Pursuant to the warrant, LaRault searched petitioner’s residence, but he did not find the stolen property. During the course of the search, however, he discovered the weapons in plain view and seized them. Specifically, he seized an Uzi machine gun, a .38-caliber revolver, two stun guns, a handcuff key, a San Jose Coin Club advertising brochure, and a few items of clothing identified by the victim.
The trial court refused to suppress the evidence found in petitioner’s home and, after a jury trial, petitioner was found guilty and sentenced to prison. The California Court of Appeal affirmed. App. 43. It rejected petitioner’s argument that our decision in Coolidge required suppression of the seized evidence that had not been listed in the warrant because its discovery was not inadvertent. App. 52-53. The court relied on the California Supreme Court’s decision in North v. Superior Court,
The Fourth Amendment provides:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
The right to security in person and property protected by the Fourth Amendment may be invaded in quite different ways by searches and seizures. A search compromises the individual interest in privacy; a seizure deprives the individual of dominion over his or her person or property. United States v. Jacobsen,
The criteria that generally guide “plain-view” seizures were set forth in Coolidge v. New Hampshire,
“It is well established that under certain circumstances the police may seize evidence in plain view without a warrant. But it is important to keep in mind that, in the vast majority of cases, any evidence seized by the police will be in plain view, at least at the moment of seizure. The problem with the ‘plain-view’ doctrine has been to identify the circumstances in which plain view*135 has legal significance rather than being simply the normal concomitant of any search, legal or illegal.
“An example of the applicability of the ‘plain-view’ doctrine is the situation in which the police have a warrant to search a given area for specified objects, and in the course of the search come across some other article of incriminating character. Cf. Go-Bart Importing Co. v. United States,282 U. S. 344 , 358 [(1931)]; United States v. Lefkowitz,285 U. S. 452 , 465 [(1932)]; Steele v. United States,267 U. S. 498 [(1925)]; Stanley v. Georgia,394 U. S. 557 , 571 [(1969)] (Stewart, J., concurring in result). Where the initial intrusion that brings the police within plain view of such an article is supported, not by a warrant, but by one of the recognized exceptions to the warrant requirement, the seizure is also legitimate. Thus the police may inadvertently come across evidence while in ‘hot pursuit’ of a fleeing suspect. Warden v. Hayden, [387 U. S. 294 (1967)]; cf. Hester v. United States,265 U. S. 57 [(1924)]. And an object that comes into view during a search incident to arrest that is appropriately limited in scope under existing law may be seized without a warrant. Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. [752,] 762-763 [(1969)]. Finally, the ‘plain-view’ doctrine has been applied where a police officer is not searching for evidence against the accused, but nonetheless inadvertently comes across an incriminating object. Harris v. United States,390 U. S. 234 [(1968)]; Frazier v. Cupp,394 U. S. 731 [(1969)]; Ker v. California, 374 U. S. [23,] 43 [(1963)]. Cf. Lewis v. United States,385 U. S. 206 [(1966)].
“What the ‘plain-view’ cases have in common is that the police officer in each of them had a prior justification for an intrusion in the course of which he came inadvertently across a piece of evidence incriminating the accused. The doctrine serves to supplement the prior justification—whether it be a warrant for- another object,*136 hot pursuit, search incident to lawful arrest, or some other legitimate reason for being present unconnected with a search directed against the acсused—and permits the warrantless seizure. Of course, the extension of the original justification is legitimate only where it is immediately apparent to the police that they have evidence before them; the ‘plain-view’ doctrine may not be used to extend a general exploratory search from one object to another until something incriminating at last emerges.” Id., at 465-466 (footnote omitted).
Justice Stewart then described the two limitations on the doctrine that he found implicit in its rationale: First, that “plain view alone is never enough to justify the warrantless seizure of evidence,” id., at 468; and second, that “the discovery of evidence in plain view must be inadvertent.” Id., at 469.
Justice Stewart’s analysis of the “plain-view” doctrine did not command a majority, and a plurality of the Court has since made clear that the discussion is “not a binding precedent.” Texas v. Brown,
It is, of course, an essential predicate to any valid warrantless seizure of incriminating evidence that the officer did not violate the Fourth Amendment in arriving at the place from which the evidence could be plainly viewed. There are, moreover, two additional conditiоns that must be satisfied to justify the warrantless seizure. First, not only must the item be in plain view; its incriminating character must also be “immediately apparent.” Id., at 466; see also Arizona v.
III
Justice Stewart concluded that the inadvertence requirement was necessary to avoid a violation of the express constitutional requirement that a valid warrant must particularly describe the things to be seized. He explained:
“The rationale of the exception to the warrant requirement, as just stated, is that a plain-view seizure will not turn an initially valid (and therefore limited) search into*138 a ‘general’ one, while the inconvenience of procuring a warrant to cover an inadvertent discovery is great. But where the discovery is anticipated, where the police know in advance the location of the evidence and intend to seize it, the situation is altogether different. The requirement of a warrant to seize imposes no inconvenience whatever, or at least none which is constitutionally cognizable in a legal system that regards warrantless searches as ‘per se unreasonable’ in the absence of ‘exigent circumstances.’
“If the initial intrusion is bottomed upon a warrant that fails to mention a particular object, though the police know its location and intend to seize it, then there is a violation of the express constitutional requirement of ‘Warrants . . . particularly describing . . . [the] things to be seized.’”403 U. S., at 469-471 .
We find two flaws in this reasoning. First, evenhanded law enforcement is best achieved by the application of objective standards of conduct, rather than standards thаt depend upon the subjective state of mind of the officer. The fact that an officer is interested in an item of evidence and fully expects to find it in the course of a search should not invalidate its seizure if the search is confined in area and duration by the terms of a warrant or a valid exception to the warrant requirement. If the officer has knowledge approaching certainty that the item will be found, we see no reason why he or she would deliberately omit a particular description of the item to be seized from the application for a search warrant.
“Let us suppose officers secure a warrant to search a house for a rifle. While staying well within the range of a rifle search, they discover two photographs of the murder victim, both in plain sight in the bedroom. Assume also that the discovery of the one photograph was inadvertent but finding the other was anticipated. The Court would permit the seizure of only one of the рhotographs. But in terms of the ‘minor’ peril to Fourth Amendment values there is surely no difference between these two photographs: the interference with possession is the same in each case and the officers’ appraisal of the photograph they expected to see is no less reliable than their judgment about the other. And in both situations the actual inconvenience and danger to evidence remain identical if the officers must depart and secure a warrant.” Id., at 516.
Second, the suggestion that the inadvertence requirement is necessary to prevent the police from conducting general searches, or from converting specific warrants into general warrants, is not persuasive beсause that interest is already served by the requirements that no warrant issue unless it “particularly describ[es] the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized,” see Maryland v. Garrison,
“The scope of a warrantless search of an automobile thus is not defined by the nature of the container in which the contraband is secreted. Rather, it is defined by the object of the search and the places in which there is probable cause to believe that it may be found. Just as probable cause to believe that a stolen lawnmower may be found in a garage will not support a warrant to search an upstairs bedroom, probable cause to believe*141 that undocumented aliens are being transported in a van will not justify a warrantless search of a suitcase. Probable cause to believe that a container placed in the trunk of a taxi contains contraband or evidence does not justify a search of the entire cab.” United States v. Ross,456 U. S. 798 , 824 (1982).
In this case, the scope of the search was not enlarged in the slightest by the omission of any reference to the weapons in the warrant. Indeed, if the three rings and other items named in the warrant had been found at the outset—or if petitioner had them in his possession and had responded to the warrant by producing them immediately—no search for weapons could have taken place. Again, Justice White’s concurring and dissenting opinion in Coolidge is instructive:
“Police with a warrant for a rifle may search only places where rifles might be and must terminate the search once the rifle is found; the inadvertence rule will in no way reduce the number of places into which they may lawfully look.”403 U. S., at 517 .
As we have already suggested, by hypothesis the seizure of an object in plain view does not involve an intrusion on privacy.
In this case the items seized from petitioner’s home were discovered during a lawful search authorized by a valid warrant. When they were discovered, it was immediately apparent to the officer that they constituted incriminating evidence. He had probable cause, not only to obtain a warrant to search for the stolen property, but also to believe that the weapons and handguns had been used in the crime he was investigating. The search was authorized by the warrant; the seizure was authorized by the “plain-view” doctrine. The judgment is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Notes
Although the officer viewed other handguns and rifles, he did not seize them because there was no probable cause to believe they were associated with criminal activity. App. 30; see Arizona v. Hicks,
“In Coolidge, the police arrested a murder suspect in his house and thereupon seized his automobile and searched it later at the police station,
“If the plurality opinion in Coolidge were entitled to binding effect as precedent, we would have difficulty distinguishing its holding from the instant case, for the discovery of petitioner’s car was no more ‘inаdvertent’ than in Coolidge. However, that portion of Justice Stewart’s plurality opinion which proposed the adoption of new restrictions to the ‘plain-view’ rule was signed by only four members of the court (Stewart, J., Douglas, J., Brennan, J., and Marshall, J.). Although concurring in the judgment, Justice Harlan declined to join in that portion of the opinion, and the four remaining justices expressly disagreed with Justice Stewart on this point.” North v. Superior Court, 8 Cal. 3d, at 307-308,
See, e. g., Wolfenbarger v. Williams,
“We reaffirm the basic rule of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence stated by Justice Stewart for a unanimous Court in Mincey v. Arizona,
“‘The Fourth Amendment proscribes all unreasonable seаrches and seizures, and it is a cardinal principle that “searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment—subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.” Katz v. United States,
“It is important to distinguish ‘plain view,’ as used in Coolidge to justify seizure of an object, from an officer’s mere observation of an item left in plain view. Whereas the latter generally involves no Fourth Amendment search, see infra, at 740; Katz v. United States,
The State primarily contended that the seizures were authorized by a warrant issued by the attorney general, but the Court held the warrant invalid because it had nоt been issued by “a neutral and detached magistrate.”
“This is simply a corollary of the familiar principle discussed above, that no amount of probable cause can justify a warrantless search or seizure absent ‘exigent circumstances.’ Incontrovertible testimony of the senses that an incriminating object is on premises belonging to a criminal suspect may establish the fullest possible measure of probable cause. But even where the object is contraband, this Court has repeatedly stated and enforced the basic rule that the police may not enter and make a warrantless seizure. Taylor v. United States,
We have since applied the same rule to the arrest of a person in his home. See Minnesota v. Olson,
See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 7, n. 4.
“If the police have probable cause to search for a photograph as well as a rifle and they proceed to seek a warrant, they could have no possible motive for deliberately including the rifle but omitting the photograph. Quite the contrary is true. Only oversight or careless mistake would explain the omission in the warrant application if the police were convinced they had probable cause to search for the photograph.” Coolidge,
“The Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment categorically prohibits the issuance of any warrant except one ‘particularly describing the place to
Even if the item is a container, its seizure does not compromise the interest in preserving the privacy of its contents because it may only be opened pursuant to either a search warrant, see Smith v. Ohio,
Dissenting Opinion
with whom Justice Marshall joins, dissenting.
I remain convinced that Justice Stewart correctly articulated the plain-view doctrine in Coolidge v. New Hampshire,
I
The Fourth Amendment states:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable*143 searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
The Amendment protects two distinct interests. The prohibition against unreasonable searches and the requirement that a warrant “particularly describ[e] the place to be searched” protect an interest in privacy. The prohibition against unreasonable seizures and the requirement that a warrant “particularly describ[e] . . . the . . . things to be seized” protect a possessory interest in property.
The Amendment protects these equally important interests in precisely the same manner: by requiring a neutral and detached magistrate to evaluate, bеfore the search or seizure, the government’s showing of probable cause and its particular description of the place to be searched and the items to be seized. Accordingly, just as a warrantless
The plain-view doctrine is an exception to the general rule that a seizure of personal property must be authorized by a warrant. As Justice Stewart explained in Coolidge,
Although joined by only three other Members of the Court, Justice Stewart’s discussion of the inadvertent discovery requirement has become widely accepted. See Texas v. Brown, supra, at 746 (Powell, J., concurring in judgment) (“Whatever my view might have been when Coolidge was decided, I see no reason at this late date to imply criticism of its articulation of this exception. It has been acceptеd generally for over a decade”). Forty-six States and the District of Columbia
The Court posits two “flaws” in Justice Stewart’s reasoning that it believes demonstrate the inappropriateness of the inadvertent discovery requirement. But these flaws are illusory. First, the majority explains that it can see no reason
Furthermore, there are a number of instances in which a law enforcement officer might deliberately choose to omit certain items from a warrant application even though he has probable cause to seize them, knows they are on the premises, and intends to seize them when they are discovered in plain view. For example, the warrant application process can often be time consuming, especially when the police attempt to seize a large number of items. An officer interested in conducting a search as soon as possible might decide to save time by listing only one or two hard-to-find items, such as the stolen rings in this case, confident that he will find in plain view all of the other evidence he is looking for before he discovers the listed items. Because rings could be located almost anywhere inside or outside a house, it is unlikely that a warrant to search for and seize the rings would restrict the scope of the search. An officer might rationally find the risk of immediately discovering the items listed in the warrant—thereby forcing him to conclude the search immediately-outweighed by the time saved in the application process.
The majority also contends that, once an officer is lawfully in a house and the scope of his search is adequately circumscribed by a warrant, “no additional Fourth Amendment
II
Fortunately, this decision should have only a limited impact, for the Court is not confronted today with what lower courts have described as a “pretextual” search. See, e. g., State v. Lair,
The discovery of evidence in pretextual searches is not “inadvertent” and should be suppressed for that reason. But even state courts that have rejected the inadvertent discovery requirement have held that the Fourth Amendment prohibits pretextual searches. See State v. Bussard,
III
The Fourth Amendment demands that an individual’s possessory interest in property be protected from unreasonable governmental seizurеs, not just by requiring a showing of probable cause, but also by requiring a neutral and detached
APPENDIX A
STATES THAT HAVE ADOPTED THE INADVERTENT DISCOVERY REQUIREMENT
Ala. Taylor v. State,
Alaska Deal v. State,
Ariz. State v. Ault,
Ark. Johnson v. State,
Colo. People v. Cummings,
Conn. State v. Hamilton,
D. C. Gant v. United States,
Fla. Hurt v. State,
Haw. State v. Barnett,
Ill. People v. Madison,
Ind. Clark v. State,
Iowa State v. Emerson,
Kan. State v. Doile,
Ky. Patrick v. Commonwealth,
La. State v. Stott,
Me. State v. Cloutier,
Md. Wiggins v. State,
Mass. Commonwealth v. Cefalo,
Mich. People v. Dugan,
Minn. State v. Buschkopf,
Miss. Smith v. State,
Mo. State v. Clark,
Neb. State v. Hansen,
Nev. Johnson v. State,
N. H. State v. Cote, 126 N. H. 514, 525, 526,
N. J. State v. Bruzzese, 94 N. J. 210, 237-238,
N. M. State v. Luna, 93 N. M. 773, 779,
N. Y. People v. Jackson, 41 N. Y. 2d 146, 150-151,
N. C. State v. White,
N. D. State v. Riedinger,
Ohio State v. Benner,
Okla. Farmer v. State,
Ore. State v. Handran,
Pa. Commonwealth v. Davidson,
S. C. State v. Culbreath, 300 S. C. 232, 237,
S. D. State v. Albright,
Tenn. State v. Byerley,
Tex. Stoker v. State,
Vt. State v. Dorn,
Va. Holloman v. Commonwealth,
Wash. State v. Bell,
W. Va. State v. Moore,
Wis. State v. Washington,
Wyo. Jessee v. State,
APPENDIX B
UNITED STATES COURTS OF APPEALS THAT HAVE ADOPTED THE INADVERTENT DISCOVERY REQUIREMENT
CA1: United States v. Caggiano,
CA2: United States v. Barrios-Moriera,
CA4: Tarantino v. Baker,
CA5: Crowder v. Sinyard,
CA6: United States v. Poulos,
CA7: United States v. Perry,
CA8: United States v. Peterson,
CA9: United States v. Holzman,
CA10: Wolfenbarger v. Williams,
CA11: United States v. Bent-Santana,
CADC: In re Search Warrant Dated July 4, 1977, for Premises at 2125 S Street, Northwest, Washington, D. C., 215 U. S. App. D. C. 74, 102,
As the majority recognizes, the requirement that warrants particularly describe the things to be seized also protects privacy interests by preventing general searches. Ante, at 139-141. The scope of a search is limited to those places in which there is probable cause to believe an item particularly described in the warrant might be found. A police officer cannot search for a lawnmower in a bedroom, or for an undocumented alien in a suitcase. Ante, at 140-141 (citing United States v. Ross,
See Appendix A, infra, at 149-152. Only three States—Cаlifornia, Idaho, and Utah—have rejected the inadvertent discovery requirement. See People v. Bittaker,
See Appendix B, infra, at 152-153.
The Court also does not dispute the unconstitutionality of a search that goes “so far astray of a search for the items mentioned in the warrant that it [becomes] a general exploratory search for any evidence of wrongdoing that might be found.” United States v. Tranquillo,