Case Citator › Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States

Silverthorne Lumber Co. 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
251 U.S. 385
Decided
Confirmed treatments
2
Flagged citations read
49 of 49
Citing cases (total)
49
Treatment dates
1974–1980
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. Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States remains authority against using unlawfully seized information to obtain evidence for a criminal prosecution, but the Supreme Court later confined its broad exclusionary language. The two confirmed limitations are listed below.
More on how this was screened

All 49 flagged citations have been read.

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.

49 later cases cite Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States; 49 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 Silverthorne Lumber Co. 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 Supreme Court held that an unindicted grand jury witness could not invoke Silverthorne to halt questioning based on unlawfully seized evidence during an ongoing investigation.

    United States v. Calandra · Supreme Court of the United States · filed

    By contrast, in the instant case respondent had not been indicted by the grand jury and was not a criminal defendant. Under traditional principles, he had no standing to invoke the exclusionary rule. The effect of the District Court’s order was to deprive the grand *353jury of testimony it needed to conduct its investigation. Furthermore, respondent’s motion to suppress had not been previously made and required interruption of the grand jury proceedings. In these circumstances, Silverthorne is certainly not controlling.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

  • The Supreme Court rejected Silverthorne’s broad statement that unlawfully seized evidence could not be used at all, permitting its use to impeach a defendant’s answers to proper cross-examination.

    United States v. Havens · Supreme Court of the United States · filed

    The Court also said, quoting from Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U. S. 385, 392 (1920), that the exclusionary rule not only commands that illegally seized evidence “shall not be used before the Court but that it shall not be used at all.” 269 U. S., at 35. The latter statement has been rejected in our later cases, however, and Agnello otherwise limited.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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