U.S. Supreme Court NATHANSON v. U. S., 290 U.S. 41 (1933)

[Page 290 U.S. 41, 47]

The amendment applies to warrants under any statute; revenue, tariff, and all others. No warrant inhibited by it can be made effective by an act of Congress or otherwise.

It is argued that searches for goods smuggled into the United States in fraud of the revenue, based upon affidavits of suspicion or belief, have been sustained from the earliest times; that this practice was authorized by the Revenue Act of July 31, 1789, 1 Stat. 43, also subsequent like enactments. But we think nothing in these statutes indicates that a warrant to search a private dwelling may rest upon mere affirmance of suspicion or belief without disclosure of supporting facts or circumstances.

Although relied upon, we find nothing in Locke v. United States and Boyd v. United States which upholds the view of the Circuit Court of Appeals. The first of these causes was a proceeding to forfeit a cargo of imported goods seized for violation of the revenue laws. It presented no question concerning the validity of a warrant. The second denied the right to compel production of private papers in a suit by the United States to establish a forfeiture of goods fraudulently imported.

Under the Fourth Amendment, an officer may not properly issue a warrant to search a private dwelling unless he can find probable cause therefor from facts or circumstances presented to him under oath or affirmation. Mere affirmance of belief or suspicion is not enough.

Reversed. Footnotes

Footnote 1 Act 1922 and Act of 1930, 595. Searches and Seizures. (a) Warrant. If any collector of customs or other officer or person authorized to make searches and seizures shall have cause to suspect the presence in any dwelling house, store, or other building or place of any merchandise upon which the duties have not been paid, or which has been otherwise brought into the United States contrary to law, he may make application, under oath, to any justice of the peace, to any municipal, county, State, or Federal judge, or to any United States commissioner, and shall thereupon be entitled to a warrant to enter such dwelling house in the daytime only, or such store or other place at night or by day, and to search for and seize such merchandise. ...