Arizona v. Hicks Case Brief

Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 107 S.Ct. 1149 (1987)

FACTS: On April 18, 1984, a bullet was fired through the floor of Hicks’ apartment striking and injuring a man in the apartment below. Police officers arrived and finding no one at home at the Hicks’ apartment, entered Hicks’ apartment to search for the shooter, for other victims, and for weapons. They found and seized three weapons, including a sawed-off rifle, and in the course of their search also discovered a stocking-cap mask.

One of the officers noticed two sets of expensive stereo components, which seemed to be out of place in the squalid and otherwise ill-furnished apartment. Suspecting that they were stolen, he read and recorded their serial numbers, moving some of the components, including a Bang and Olufsen turntable that he recognized was extremely unusual and expensive, in order to do so. The officer then reported his findings by phone to his headquarters. On being advised that the turntable had been stolen in an armed robbery, he immediately seized the turntable. It was later determined that some of the other serial numbers, on the remaining equipment, matched numbers on other stereo equipment taken in the same armed robbery, and a warrant was obtained to seize that equipment as well.

Defendant moved to suppress the stereo equipment, claiming the moving of the stereo was an additional but unrelated search to the original purpose of the entry.

ISSUE: Was the evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment?

HOLDING: Yes.

DISCUSSION: The officer’s moving of the equipment did constitute a "search." The officer's warrantless entry onto the premises to search for the shooter, victims, and weapons was a lawful entry into the apartment. Moving the equipment was a separate intrusion into an area of privacy unrelated to the original exigencies that justified the warrantless entry.

The moving of the stereo requires probable cause to believe it is evidence of a crime. Therefore, the search is illegal, because the entry was unrelated to the original objective of the entry. The Court distinguished, however, merely looking at an object that is already exposed to view, which is not a "search" for Fourth Amendment purposes.