Kyllos home was searched, and over 100 marijuana plants were being cultivated. After being arrested, Kyllo tried to repress the evidence seized during the search. He failed, and pleads guilty to all charges that were brought against him. The Ninth Circuit Court ruled that the use of the thermal imager was not in violation of Kyllos privacy. Due to the fact that Kyllo did not try to hide the heat escaping from his garage, "he did not establish an expectation of privacy because the imager did not expose private details of Kyllos life" (United States pg. 2). Kyllo appeals, and the case goes before the Supreme Court. .
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.
