Mancusi v. DeForte, 392 U.S. 364 (1968), is a decision of the United States Supreme Court on privacy and the Fourth Amendment. It originated in the lower courts as United States ex rel. Frank DeForte, appellant v. Vincent R. Mancusi, Warden of Attica Prison, Attica, New York, appellee, a petition for a writ of habeas corpus by a prisoner who had exhausted all his state appeals. By a 6–3 margin the Court affirmed the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit's reversal of a district court denial of the petition.
The prisoner, Frank DeForte, was one of several labor union officials on Long Island who had been convicted of racketeering-related charges connected to a scheme in which they attempted to monopolize the jukebox market in the New York Metropolitan area. Early in the investigation, local prosecutors had issued a subpoena duces tecum for records from the union officials. When they refused to comply, the prosecutors went to the union offices themselves and seized the records from the officials' desks themselves. DeForte had been present and voiced his objections. The state later admitted the action was illegal but the documents, which formed the bulk of the case against the officials, were not suppressed at trial. Both the state's appellate court and the New York State Court of Appeals sustained the verdict, and all the defendants went to prison. There they began filing habeas petitions to the federal courts. The first, alleging that the court's orders to the jury to continue deliberating after they had done so for almost 24 hours and twice asked for a break constituted coercion, was denied.
DeForte's second, arguing as he had at trial and on his state appeal, that the search of his desk violated his reasonable expectation of privacy and thus his Fourth Amendment rights, was the one the Supreme Court heard. Justice John Marshall Harlan II wrote for the majority that under the Court's recent holding in Katz v. United States, DeForte had a reasonable expectation of privacy over the papers he kept at work even though they were not his personal property and he shared the office with his co-defendants. Nor did the subpoena authorize the prosecutor to act as he might with a search warrant, since the subpoena was not subject to independent judicial review before its execution. In dissent, Hugo Black, who had also dissented in Katz, said he could not find why the Court chose to depart from previous holdings that documents in the possession of one's employer enjoyed no Fourth Amendment protection, and was misreading the cases it relied on.
The case is seen as a seminal case in privacy law, since it extended it for the first time to a non-residential space. Lower courts have used it to guide them in distinguishing Fourth Amendment claims into the present day. The Supreme Court has, in later holdings, extended it to include public employees during administrative investigations and considered its application in the context of modern telecommunications.
Background of the case
For most of American history the Fourth Amendment's requirement that the people "be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures" was taken to apply strictly only to their physical bodies and real property they had an ownership interest in. Advances in communications technology at the start of the Information Age would challenge that. In the 1928 case Olmstead v. United States the Court upheld a bootlegging conviction that relied solely on transcripts of telephone conversations that had been obtained through warrantless wiretapping of the defendants' telephone lines, an action illegal under Washington state law.Olmstead v. United States, The majority held that since the Prohibition agents had not actually trespassed on the bootleggers' property to place the wiretaps, the Fourth Amendment had not been violated, and that the language of the amendment in any event referred only to material things.Olmstead, 277 U.S. at 462–69, Taft, C.J. One of the dissenting justices, Louis Brandeis, wrote a frequently quoted opinion arguing that the Fourth Amendment protected not just those rights associated with property but "the right to be let alone", speculating that future technological advances might be yet more intrusive.Olmstead, 277 U.S. at 471, 478, Brandeis, J., dissenting.
In the ensuing decades the Olmstead majority's holding began to seem more and more inadequate. Telephone use became more widespread, and the public grew concerned over the idea that anyone, not just the government, could listen into private and intimate conversations which once took place only in person. Improvements in audio recording technology meant that such intrusions were possible without a human actually present. This led Congress to pass anti-wiretapping statutes which still allowed law enforcement to listen in with the telephone company's permission, since those companies were the lawful owners of the wires and switches where the wiretapping could take place.
The Warren Court was the first to recognize that the traditional application of the Fourth Amendment to property one owned had its shortcomings. In Jones v. United States, a drug prosecution where the defendant had challenged the use of evidence taken during a search of an apartment he had access to, the Court had extended the Fourth Amendment's protections to anyone "legitimately on the premises"., Frankfurter, J.That aspect of Jones would be overruled as too broad in Rakas v. Illinois, , which replaced it with a rule that defendants must show that they had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the place searched. A line of cases in the area of reproductive freedom had also entertainedPoe v. Ullman, . and eventually adoptedGriswold v. Connecticut, . the idea that personal privacy in that area was protected independently of the premises of a dwelling. In Mapp v. Ohio, the Court extended the exclusionary rule under which evidence obtained unconstitutionally cannot be used at trial, to state as well as federal prosecutions,Mapp v. Ohio, greatly increasing the cases of alleged Fourth Amendment violations it was asked to review.
Underlying prosecution
In the late 1950s, allegations of racketeering activities by some labor unions led the U.S. Senate to create a Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management to investigate."New Senate Unit to Widen Inquiry In Labor Rackets." New York Times. January 24, 1957; "Teamster Study Is 3 Months Old." New York Times. May 26, 1957; "Senate Votes Inquiry on Labor Rackets." New York Times. January 31, 1957. It soon became known as the Labor Rackets Committee or the McClellan Committee, after its chair, John McClellan of Arkansas. Chief committee counsel Robert F. Kennedy was frequently criticized for apparent disregard of witnesses' constitutional rights. The committee and its large staff devoted much of their attention to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), where Jimmy Hoffa had been allegedly working with organized crime figures to unseat Dave Beck as union head. It feared that if Hoffa led the Teamsters, the union would have enough power to disrupt the U.S. economy.
The committee had focused on some of the paper locals Hoffa had purportedly created to stack votes in his favor during the leadership election.Loftus, Joseph A. "Top Beck Aide Links Hoffa to 'Phony' Teamster Locals." New York Times. August 20, 1957. The officers of one, Local 266 in Manhattan, were nominally attempting to organize juke box and coin-operated game servicemen in the New York metropolitan area. District attorneys around New York began their own investigations into allegations that Local 266 was trying to intimidate employers into allowing the Teamsters to represent their employees instead of other unions they already had collective bargaining agreements with. McClellan called Local 266 "phony and gangster-ridden".
Criminal investigation and trial
In May 1959 prosecutors from the Nassau County district attorney's office, who had been investigating Local 266 for three months, subpoenaed its records. The local refused to produce them. The prosecutors then went to the headquarters themselves with the subpoena and took, according to a contemporary account, "records, membership lists, bank books and even pictures on the wall." The local's vice president, Frank DeForte, was present at the time and objected strongly to the seizure of the documents.
The Nassau County prosecutors took the documents back to Mineola and presented it to a grand jury. It indicted 15 defendants, including DeForte and the other Local 266 officials, on 16 separate counts of conspiracy, criminal coercion and extortion. The trial began the following February.
Over the next three and a half months the jury heard 125 witnesses and reviewed 100 written documents submitted as exhibits. In May, after closing arguments, it received its instructions and withdrew to deliberate over the fate of the 10 remaining defendants. After breaks for lunch and dinner, the jury continued deliberating until late in the evening. The foreman sent a note to the judge saying jurors were fatigued and asking for advice. The judge asked if they wanted coffee and sandwiches. The foreman responded that the jurors felt that they were unable to reach a decision on all the charges and could benefit from some rest.
All-night jury deliberations
The jurors were told to continue. They took their sandwiches and coffee four hours later, at 2:30 a.m. Almost two hours further into the night, the foreman sent another note to the judge saying the jurors were at an impasse and needed to get some sleep. The judge called them into the courtroom to tell them that it would not be until 6 a.m. at the earliest that any hotel rooms could be arranged and that any rest they got would thus be brief as they would have to return to the courtroom by 1 p.m. He asked if they would rather continue to deliberate, resolve their impasse and go home.DeGrandis, 335 F.2d at 174–75.
The foreman said the jury would prefer to get some sleep. The judge responded by telling them to go back to their rooms while overnight accommodations were sought. At 5 a.m. he summoned them back into the courtroom to tell them that most of the nearby hotels and motels were fully booked. The only possibility that might work was four rooms at a motel where cots could be set up. The foreman asked to retire and consider this. Again the judge reminded them it might be better to continue on.DeGrandis, 335 F.2d at 175.
After the jury withdrew, they again began to deliberate, requesting more exhibits, testimony and additional instructions. Following a breakfast break after 6 a.m., they returned to the courtroom and were instructed as they had requested. The jury again withdrew for three hours. As noon approached the judge sent a note asking if they were close to a verdict. The reply said they were. Following another helping of sandwiches and coffee, they returned with their verdict just before 2 p.m., 28 hours after deliberations began.
They returned a mixture of verdicts. For one defendant they could not agree; another was acquitted of all charges. The remaining defendants were convicted of at least some of the charges.DeGrandis, 335 F.2d at 176. At sentencing most received fines and suspended sentences. The judge was harsher with DeForte and the other Local 266 officials, president Joseph De Grandis and secretary Ernest Zundel. All three were sentenced to prison. De Grandis, with a prior felony conviction, got seven and a half to eight years. DeForte and Zundel, both of whom were first-time felons, got terms of three to five years.
Appeals to state courts