Us Vs Walling Case Study

Oklahoma Press Pub. Co. v. Walling, 327 U.S. 186, 208 (1946), the Court said that "the Fourth Amendment, if applicable to subpoenas for the production of business records and papers, at the most guards against abuse only by way of too much indefiniteness or breadth in the things required to be 'particularly described, ' if also the inquiry is one the demanding agency is authorized by law to make and the materials specified are relevant." See- United States v. Dionisio, 410 U.S. 1, 11-12 (1973). Citing United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297 (1972), in which it discussed the application of the warrant requirements of the Fourth Amendment to domestic security surveillance through electronic eavesdropping, suggests that greater judicial scrutiny, equivalent to that required for a search warrant, is necessary when a subpoena is to be used to obtain bank records of a depositor 's account.” It is untenable to conclude that property may not be searched unless its occupant is reasonably suspected of crime

And if those considered free of criminal involvement may nevertheless be searched or inspected under civil statutes, it is difficult to understand why the Fourth Amendment would prevent entry onto their property to recover evidence of a crime not committed by them but by others. As we understand the structure and language of the Fourth Amendment and our cases expounding it, valid warrants to search property may be issued when it is satisfactorily demonstrated to the magistrate that fruits, instrumentalities, or evidence of crime is located on the premises. The Fourth Amendment has itself struck the balance between privacy and public need, and there is no occasion or justification for a court to revise the Amendment and strike a new balance by denying the search warrant in the circumstances present here and by insisting that the investigation proceed by subpoena duces tecum, whether on the theory that the latter is a less intrusive alternative or