HESTER
v.
UNITED STATES
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Hester was convicted of illegally concealing distilled spirits, and he challenged his conviction on Fourth and Fifth Amendment grounds, arguing that revenue officers' observations and seizure of whiskey bottles and a jug were obtained illegally without a warrant. The Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, holding that the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures does not extend to open fields, only to persons, houses, papers, and effects, and that evidence obtained from the defendant's own abandoned property observed in plain view does not constitute an illegal search or seizure.
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Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the Court.
The plaintiff in error, Hester, was convicted of concealing distilled spirits &c. under Rev. Stats., § 3296. The case is brought here directly from the District Court on the single ground that by refusing to exclude the testimony of two witnesses and to direct a verdict for the defendant, the plaintiff in error, the Court violated his rights under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution of the United States.
The witnesses wh©se testimony is objected to were revenue officers. In consequence of information they went toward the house of Hester’s-father, where the plaintiff in error lived, and as they approached saw one Henderson drive near to the house. They concealed themselves from fifty to one hundred yards away and saw Hester come out and hand Henderson a quart bottle. An alarm was given. Hester went to a car standing near, took a gallon jug from it and he and Henderson ran. One of the officers pursued, and fired a pistol. Hester dropped his jug, which broke but kept about a quart of its contents. Henderson threw away his bottle also. The jug and bottle both contained what the officers, being experts, recognized as moonshine whiskey, that is whiskey illicitly distilled; said to be easily recognizable. The other officer entered the house, but being told there was no whiskey there left it, but found outside a jar that had been thrown out and broken and that also contained whiskey. While the officers were there other cars stopped at the house but were spoken to by Hester’s father and drove off. The officers had no warrant for search or arrest, and it is contended that this made their evidence inadmissible, it being assumed, on the strength of the pursuing officer’s saying that he supposed they were on Hester’s land, that such was the fact. It is obvious that even if there had been a trespass, the above testimony was not obtained by an illegal search or seizure. The defendant’s own acts, and those of his associates, disclosed the jug, the jar and the bottle — and there was no seizure in the sense of the law when the officers examined the contents of each after it had been abandoned. This evidence was not obtained by the entry into the house and it is immaterial to discuss that. The suggestion that the defendant was compelled to give evidence against himself does not require an answer. The only shadow of a ground for bringing up the case is drawn from the hypothesis that the examination of the vessels took place upon Hester’s father’s land. As to that, it is enough to say that, apart from the justification, the special protection accorded by the Fourth Amendment to the people in their “ persons, houses, papers, and effects,” is not extended to the open fields. The distinction between the latter and the house is as old as the common law. 4 Bl. Comm. 223, 225, 226.
Judgment affirmed.
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Citator
Cited By (219 total)
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Norman v. State, 379 So. 2d 643 (Fla. 1980)…itimate expectation of privacy by virtue of this right to exclude.” 439 U.S. at 144, n.12, 99 S.Ct. at 431, n.12. The district court’s reliance below on the “open fields” doctrine as enunciated in Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57, 44 S.Ct. 445, 68 L.Ed. 898 (1924), was misplaced. Hester stands for the unremarkable proposition that the fourth amendment’s protection of one’s person, house, papers and effects does not extend to the open fields. Whatever the precise parameters of this long-standing but sel…
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State v. Oliver, 368 So. 2d 1331 (Fla. 3d DCA 1979)…the public streets after being ordered to stop by the police or whether such abandonment was involuntary as being fatally tainted by the unreasonable police stop. If it is the former, no search of the person has taken place, Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57, 44 S.Ct. 445, 68 L.Ed. 898 (1924); if it is the latter, such a search has taken [*1335] place under the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine. Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). Our constitutional analy…1 / 2
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Mitchell v. State, 60 So.2d 726 (Fla. 1952)…espass or search, it follows that our judgment must be one of affirmance. See the following cases which we conclude are in point in this case but which we did not consider controlling in the case of Kraemer v. State, supra; Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57, 44 S.Ct. 445, 68 L.Ed. 898; Billingsley v. State, 156 Tenn. 116, 299 S.W. 797; Goodman v. State, 158 Miss. 269, 130 So. 285; Coleman v. State, 111 Tex.Cr.R. 154, 11 S.W. 2d 794. Affirmed. SEBRING, C.J., and TERRELL and THOMAS, JJ., concur.…
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