The legal issues presented in this case will be displayed here.

This section contains the nature of the case and procedural background.

A supervisor at the Airport Federal Express office asked the office manager to look at a package that had been damaged and torn by a forklift. They then opened the package in order to examine its contents pursuant to a written company policy regarding insurance claims. Inside the box were five or six pieces of crumpled newspaper covering a tube about 10 inches long; the tube was made of the silver tape used on basement ducts. They cut open the tube and found a series of four zip-lock plastic bags, the outermost enclosing the other three and the innermost containing about six and a half ounces of white powder. They notified the Drug Enforcement Administration. Before the first DEA agent arrived, they replaced the plastic bags in the tube and put the tube and the newspapers back into the box. When the DEA arrived, the box, still wrapped in brown paper but with a hole punched in its side and the top open, was placed on a desk. The agent saw that one end of the tube had been slit open; he removed the four plastic bags from the tube and saw the white powder. He then opened each of the four bags and removed a trace of the white substance with a knife blade. A field test made on the spot identified the substance as cocaine. The agents obtained a warrant to search the place to which it was addressed, executed the warrant, and arrested D. Ds were indicted for the crime of possessing an illegal substance with intent to distribute. Ds moved to suppress the evidence on the ground that the warrant was the product of an illegal search and seizure. It was denied, and Ds were convicted and appealed. The Court of Appeals reversed. It held that the testing constituted a significant expansion of the earlier private search and that a warrant was required. P appealed.

The applicable rule of law for this case will be displayed here.

The court's holding and decision will be displayed here.

Legal analysis from Dean's Law Dictionary will be displayed here.