With the suspicion that marijuana was being grown in a house, and in particular a garage, federal agent William Elliot, used a therma

First and foremost, the court knows that they are dealing with the Fourth Amendment because of the nature of the case. The court is deciding on the constitutionality of a federal law versus a state law. The main question the court has to answer is whether “ the governments use of the thermal imager to explore details of the home n that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion is constitutional” (Colb pg. 3). The court also had to decide on whether a “search” was conducted at all and if the officers’ actions fit the criteria of what constitutes a search. The government argued that the thermal imager only detected heat and not any intimate details of Kyllos’ home. The government also contends “ no search, for the Fourth Amendment purposes occurred because the thermal imager took its measurements from a public vantage point” (Colb, pg. 1). On the other hand, Kyllo believed that since the imager gave the police information about the inside of his house, it did constitute a search. When the court tries to determine what constitutes a “search”, they usually refer to the Katz test. The Katz test was established on a previous court case involving warrant less eavesdropping. The importance of this case is that it time-honored the notion that a Fourth Amendment search occurs when the “government violates a subjective expectation of privacy that society recognizes as reasonable” (United States pg. 8). With this criterion, the Supreme Court ruled that the government’s use of thermal imagining was unconstitutional. “Any information obtained by the thermal imager regarding the homes’ interior that could not have been obtained without physical intrusion, constitutes a search” (United States pg.4). The Ninth Circuit Court ruling was reversed. The opinion of the court was that of a majority opinion. The ruling was 5-4.

l imaging device to scan the home of Danny Kyllo. When cultivating marijuana, high intensity heat lamps are generally used. Federal agent Elliot wanted to use the thermal imaging device to determine “if the amount of heat emanating from Kyllos home was consistent with that of high intensity lamps” (United States pg.1). While

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