Case Citator › On Lee v. United States

On Lee v. United States

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Limited by some courts
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Citation
343 U.S. 747
Decided
Confirmed treatments
1
Flagged citations read
35 of 35
Citing cases (total)
35
Treatment dates
1971
Limited by some courts
At least one reviewed court has limited this case’s holding to narrower facts or a narrower rule. No reviewed court has overruled it. On Lee v. United States remains authority for admitting a conversation transmitted by a cooperating participant, but its lack-of-trespass rationale was limited after Katz. In United States v. White, a four-Justice plurality said that rationale could not survive Katz v. United States while expressly preserving On Lee's independent ground and result.
More on how this was screened

Justice Black concurred in the judgment on different grounds. All 35 flagged citations have been read; the confirmed limited treatment is listed below. Source note: The texts of United States v. Scott (289727) and United States v. Choate (355886) were read but did not contain an attributable On Lee citation. The two treatment phrases for Torry v. Montanye (8846624) concern one opinion. No source text was unavailable.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

35 later cases cite On Lee v. United States; 35 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on On Lee v. United States?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Limited

  • The four-Justice plurality held that On Lee's lack-of-trespass reasoning could not survive Katz, while preserving its independent ground for admitting the transmitted conversation.

    United States v. White · Supreme Court of the United States (plurality) · filed

    To reach this result it was necessary for the Court of Appeals to hold that On Lee v. United States was no longer good law. In that case, which involved facts very similar to the case before us, the Court first rejected claims of a Fourth Amendment violation because the informer had not trespassed when he entered the defendant's premises and conversed with him. To this extent the Court’s rationale cannot survive Katz. See 389 U. S., at 352-353. But the Court announced a second and independent ground for its decision;
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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