Arizona v. Hicks

Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321 (1987), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court held that the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires the police to have probable cause before they can seize items in plain view.

Facts

On April 18, 1984, a bullet was fired through the floor of James Thomas Hicks' apartment, striking and injuring a man in the apartment below. The police arrived and entered Hicks' apartment to search for the shooter, for other victims, and for weapons. While in Hicks's apartment, one of the officers noticed two sets of expensive-looking stereo equipment, "which seemed out of place in the squalid and otherwise ill-appointed four-room apartment." The officer moved the equipment to record the serial numbers, suspecting that the equipment was stolen, and then reported the serial numbers to police headquarters. The officer was informed that the equipment had been taken in an armed robbery, for which Hicks was later indicted.

The state trial court granted Hicks' motion to suppress the stereo equipment, and the Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed. It was conceded that the police's initial entry into Hicks' apartment was lawful, although it took place without a warrant, because of the emergency created by the shooting. But moving the stereo equipment was an additional search, the appellate court reasoned, which lacked a warrant and was unrelated to the purpose the police were in Hicks' apartment to begin with. The appellate court therefore found that the police's actions violated the Fourth Amendment, and affirmed the trial court's granting of the motion to suppress.