Oliver v. United States 466 U.S. 170 (1984)
OLIVER v. UNITED STATES 466 U.S. 170 (1984)
A 6–3 Supreme Court, speaking through Justice lewis f. powell, reinvigorated the sixty-year-old " open fields " doctrine, according to which the fourth amendment, whose language protects "persons, houses, papers, and effects," does not extend to open fields. No one doubts that the police, or public, may view land from a plane. The question in Oliver was whether the police could ignore "No Trespassing" signs and make a warrantless investigation of fenced-in backlands used to grow marijuana, seize evidence, and introduce it in court despite a trespass on private property. Powell declared that no one could reasonably have a constitutionally protected expectation of privacy in an open field, well away from the curtilage or land immediately surrounding a house (and therefore part of the area to which the Fourth Amendment's protection extends). The dissenters objected that the language of the amendment does not expressly include many areas which the Court has ruled to be within its protection, such as telephone booths, offices, curtilages, and other places which one may reasonably expect to be secure against warrantless police intrusion.
Leonard W. Levy
(1986)