The U.S. Supreme Court: An Impartial Arbiter?

Judicial activism of both conservatives and liberals has become a pertinent factor in influencing the judgment of the Supreme Court. With political ideologies swaying recent decisions of the court, many critics of the federal judiciary have questioned whether the Supreme Court of the United States can still act as an impartial arbiter. However, recent court cases have shown that the justices can make decisions independent of their political opinions. A case in point is the Supreme Court decision of Kyllo v. United States where the court upheld the Constitutions's right to an individual's privacy.

The case originated in 1992 when a Department of Interior agent used a thermal-imaging device, the Agema 210 thermal imager, to scan Danny Kyllo's triplex of Florence, Oregon (Oyez.org). Detecting infrared radiation as visible light, the device allowed the agent to measure heat emanating from inside the house (Richey 2001). As one of law enforcement's newest tools, police and federal officers have often used these highly-advanced technologies to detect suspicious heat flows that could direct them to further criminal conduct (Lane 2001).

After discovering that more heat radiated outside of the home than other neighboring residences, drug agents suspected that banks of high-intensity light bulbs used for growing marijuana were producing the large quantities of heat in Kyllo's home (Oyez.org). Using several informants, utility bills, and the thermal imaging, a federal magistrate judge supplied the agents with a search warrant. The agents raided Kyllo's home to find a nursery of more than 100 marijuana plants, weapons, and marijuana-growing equipment (Richey 2001).

Charged with manufacturing marijuana, Kyllo pleaded guilty under the condition that he could challenge the legality of the search (Elsasser 2001). Kenneth Lerner, Kyllo's lawyer, claimed that the agents were required by the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States to obtain a search warrant before aiming the thermal imaging device at his house (Lane 2001).

Furthermore, Lerner suggested to the justices that the unavoidable progress of technology will continue to pose a problem in determining an individual's privacy when using these current devices. Initially, lower courts agreed with the law enforcement officials that using a thermal imager should not require a warrant because it does not expose any incriminating details of Kyllo's life. The Court of Appeals came to a similar decision, also noting that Kyllo had made no attempt to conceal the heat escaping his home (Oyez.org).

However, the Supreme Court decided to hear Kyllo's appeal in order to investigate how much privacy citizens can expect to have at home in the modern era where technology can see through walls (Lane 2001).

In recent years, the Supreme Court ruled that the police must have bus passengers' consent or a search warrant before searching luggage for drugs (Reinert 2001). In a 1967 case, the Supreme Court established a rule that required a warrant for police to place "bugs," or electronic eavesdropping devices outside of public telephone booths (Lane 2001).

Along with these rulings, the high court has allowed police to search garbage bags left on the curb without any searchwarrant or even fly over someone's yard to see if any suspicious material exists. Thus, the issue of personal privacy, especially with new technological advancements, remains ambiguous as far as what and where federal authorities can exactly search.

On the other side of the argument, government lawyers argued that the agents were not looking inside the house but rather picked up heat waves released outside (Savage 2001). In addition, the agents that raided Kyoll's home did not at any time intrude on the owner's personal space while using the thermal imaging devices.

In the Supreme Court hearing, Chief Justice William Rehnquist along with Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, and Anthony Kennedy dissented, agreeing that the officers' detection of heat from the outer walls of the home was not considered a search (Reinert 2001). The dissenters proclaimed that no further details of the house's interior were revealed with the Agema 210 and any neighbor could have recognized the heat coming from Kyllo's house (Elsasser 2001). Justice Stevens led the argument, explaining that the "observations of the exterior of the home were made with a fairly primitive thermal imager that gathered data exposed on the outside of Kyllo's home but did not invade any constitutionally protected interest in privacy" (Oyez.org).

Several other dissenting justices questioned the plausibility of how the thermal imaging device could be more invasive than everyday objects such as binoculars and night-vision goggles (Lane 2001). Assistant Solicitor General Michael R. Dreeben also argued for the United States, explaining that the thermal imager does not penetrate and reveal any specific possessions in the house but rather gives federal authorities a brief picture of heat on the exterior walls of the home (Lane 2001).

With an unusual coalition of conservatives and liberals, the Supreme Court of the United States decided 5-4 that authorities violated Kyllo's Fourth Amendment rights by an unreasonable search and seizure. Simultaneously, the Supreme Court of the United States officially ruled on June 11, 2001 that police are now required to obtain a warrant from a judge in order to start using any technology that reveals minor details of private homes (Reinert 2001).

Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the most conservative members of the court who supports the government's in the war on drugs, spoke on behalf of the majority opinion in Kyllo v. United States: "The Fourth Amendment draws a firm line at the entrance to the house...Where, as here, the government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of the home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a 'search' and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant" (Savage 2001, A.18).

The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution requires all law-enforcement officials to receive a court-approved warrant, based on probable cause, before invading the privacy of American citizens (Elsasser 2001).

Justices Clarence Thomas, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer joined Scalia in claiming that spying inside a private home warrants unconstitutional practices of search and seizure. Without this reversal of the lower court ruling, Scalia believed that surveillance technology could one day record the daily occurrences in a person's home: "Just as a thermal imager captures only heat emanating from a house, so also a powerful directional microphone picks up only sound emanating from a house, and a house, and a satellite capable of scanning from many miles away would pick up only visible light emanating from a house" (Reinert 2001, 3).

Although Scalia and Thomas have been known to side with more conservative views compared to liberals Scouter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, political ideologies have not influenced search-and-seizure cases (Savage 2001). While Scalia has been a consistent advocate of privacy of the home, Thomas has supported the privacy of private papers (Rosen 2001). These parallel opinions on personal privacy have established a model that adheres to the provisions of the Fourth Amendment in relation to regulating electronic surveillance (Rosen 2001). Therefore, the decision of Kyllo v. United States confirmed that judicial activism does not play a role when hearing cases of search and seizure (Savage 2001).

The Supreme Court of the United States did exercise its proper role in Kyllo v. United States, ruling that the actions of the law enforcement agents violated the constitutional rights of search and seizure. The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution clearly states that law enforcement officials must have a warrant approved by the courts before conducting any searches. Even though Kyllo did commit the crime of cultivating marijuana in his garage, federal authorities would not have discovered such evidence without using today's technology to encroach upon his privacy rights. This new wave of technology grants the United States government too much opportunity to reach into the private lives of American citizens. As invasive technology continues to progress, the Supreme Court may have to establish guidelines regarding invasions of privacy.

The five principles of politics are strongly reflected in the case of Kyllo v. United States. The Supreme Court's behavior was purposeful in its decision to throw out the initial drug conviction of Kyllo-police violated the Constitution in conducting an unreasonable search through the use of heat-sensing devices without a court-approved warrant. With a 5-4 decision on the matter, the United States Supreme Court showed that collective action and cooperation are difficult to achieve. This difficulty is often due to the conflicting ideologies of liberals and conservatives, creating a split in the court. Rules and procedures are an important aspect of politics, and the case of Kyllo v. United States revealed the importance of bestowing all rights granted in the Constitution to its citizens.

The procedure of the court system also played an important role in offering Kyllo an opportunity to appeal the search of his home in front of the United States Supreme Court. The political outcome of Kyllo v. United States showed that it was product of both individual preferences and institutional procedures. While several Justices agreed that the case violated the constitutional rights of the Fourth Amendment, other members of the high court disagreed that federal authorities did not violate search and seizure procedures. The final decision clarified the boundaries of personal privacy with regard to search and seizure. In addition, the history of unreasonable search and seizure cases helped the court determine a fair and rational decision. These previous cases allow the Supreme Court to have a better understanding of what actions violate personal privacy and are considered unconstitutional.

Today, judicial activism of liberals and conservatives continues to pose a problem citizens. While these political differences have created plenty of controversy in recent court rulings-Gore v. Bush for instance-the case of Kyllo v. United States in 2001 renews our faith in a system that is supposed to overlook personal ideologies in favor of actions based purely on the Constitution. So far the Supreme Court has impartially upheld the Fourth Amendment in most of it's decisions pertaining to search and seizure but the same is not true of other issues.

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