Smith v. Maryland
442 U.S. 735 (1979)
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Rule of Law:
An individual has no legitimate expectation of privacy in the phone numbers they dial because that information is voluntarily conveyed to a third party, the telephone company. Therefore, the police's use of a pen register to capture this information does not constitute a 'search' under the Fourth Amendment.
Facts:
- After Patricia McDonough was robbed, she gave police a description of the robber and his 1975 Monte Carlo automobile.
- McDonough then began receiving threatening and obscene phone calls from a man who identified himself as the robber.
- During one such call, the man asked her to step outside, where she observed the same Monte Carlo she had previously described driving slowly past her home.
- Police later spotted a man, Michael Lee Smith, who matched the robber's description driving a 1975 Monte Carlo in McDonough's neighborhood.
- By tracing the license plate, police learned the car was registered to Smith.
- At the request of the police and without a warrant, the telephone company installed a pen register at its central office to record the numbers dialed from the telephone at Smith's home.
- The pen register revealed that a call was placed from Smith's home phone to McDonough's phone.
Procedural Posture:
- Michael Lee Smith was indicted for robbery in the Criminal Court of Baltimore, a state trial court.
- Smith filed a pretrial motion to suppress all evidence derived from the pen register, arguing its warrantless installation violated the Fourth Amendment.
- The trial court denied the suppression motion.
- Following a conviction at a bench trial on an agreed statement of facts, Smith appealed to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, the state's intermediate appellate court.
- Before the intermediate appellate court could rule, the Court of Appeals of Maryland, the state's highest court, issued a writ of certiorari to hear the case directly.
- The Court of Appeals of Maryland affirmed the conviction, holding that the use of a pen register was not a 'search.'
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among lower courts.
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Issue:
Does the warrantless installation and use of a pen register, which records the numbers dialed from a private telephone, constitute a 'search' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment?
Opinions:
Majority - Justice Blackmun
No. The installation and use of a pen register is not a Fourth Amendment 'search' because a telephone user has no legitimate expectation of privacy in the numbers they dial. First, it is doubtful that telephone users have a subjective expectation of privacy, as they know they must convey numbers to the phone company to complete calls and that the company keeps records for billing and other business purposes. Second, even if a subjective expectation exists, it is not one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable. Under the third-party doctrine established in cases like United States v. Miller, a person assumes the risk of disclosure when they voluntarily convey information to a third party. By dialing a number, an individual voluntarily conveys that numerical information to the telephone company and assumes the risk that the company will reveal it to the government. This differs from Katz v. United States, as a pen register captures only the non-content metadata of numbers dialed, not the contents of the conversation.
Dissenting - Justice Stewart
Yes. The warrantless use of a pen register constitutes a search because the numbers dialed from a private telephone are within the constitutional protection recognized in Katz. The information captured emanates from the privacy of the home, a location entitled to the highest Fourth Amendment protection. The fact that the telephone company's equipment is used to make a call is irrelevant; the content of a call is also transmitted via company equipment and is fully protected. A list of numbers a person has called is not without content, as it can reveal the most intimate details of a person's life, including their personal and professional associations.
Dissenting - Justice Marshall
Yes. The use of a pen register is a search because constitutional protections are not automatically forfeited whenever a person shares information with a third party for a limited purpose. The majority's 'assumption of risk' analysis is flawed because using a telephone is a practical necessity in modern life, not a meaningful choice to risk surveillance. Privacy is not an all-or-nothing concept; disclosing information to a phone company for the limited business purpose of connecting a call does not mean one assumes the risk of it being turned over to the government for criminal investigation. Allowing the government unregulated access to call records could chill First Amendment-protected activities, such as communications by political organizations or journalists with confidential sources.
Analysis:
This decision solidified the 'third-party doctrine' as applied to telecommunications, establishing a critical distinction between protected communication content and unprotected metadata. The ruling significantly narrowed the scope of Fourth Amendment protection in the face of emerging technology, creating a precedent that information voluntarily shared with a service provider forfeits its constitutional privacy protection from the government. This doctrine has become a cornerstone of modern surveillance law and a point of major contention in debates over government access to digital information, such as email headers, IP addresses, and cell-site location data.
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