Smith v. Maryland | |
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Argued March 28, 1979 Decided June 20, 1979 | |
Full case name | Michael Lee Smith v. Maryland |
Citations | 442 U.S. 735 (more) 99 S. Ct. 2577; 61 L. Ed. 2d 220; 1979 U.S. LEXIS 134 |
Case history | |
Prior | Smith v. State, 283 Md. 156, 389 A.2d 858 (1978); cert. granted, 439 U.S. 1001 (1978). |
Holding | |
The installation and use of a pen register is not a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and hence no warrant is required. | |
Court membership | |
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Case opinions | |
Majority | Blackmun, joined by Burger, White, Rehnquist, Stevens |
Dissent | Stewart, joined by Brennan |
Dissent | Marshall, joined by Brennan |
Powell took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. |
Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979), was a Supreme Court case holding that the installation and use of a pen register by the police to obtain information on a suspect's telephone calls was not a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and hence no search warrant was required. In the majority opinion, Justice Harry Blackmun rejected the idea that the installation and use of a pen register constitutes a violation of the suspect's reasonable expectation of privacy since the telephone numbers would be available to and recorded by the phone company anyway.[1]
The Smith ruling was the Supreme Court's first significant articulation of the third-party doctrine in which government investigators may be permitted to search a person's private information by obtaining it not from the person directly, but from a business or other party with which the person has traded such information voluntarily.[2]