Kyllo, Danny V. United States

KYLLO, DANNY v. UNITED STATES
99-8508
Appealed From: 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (190 F.3d 1041)
Oral Argument: 2000 term (after Jan. 1, 2001)
The main subject in the Kyllo case deals with the advance in modern technology and how it relates to constitutional law. The overall question in this case is whether or not the use of thermal imaging technology should be used as a tool for searching the home of a person. The argument by the appellant, Mr. Kyllo, uses the unreasonable search and seizure clause of the Fourth Amendment as a defense against the use of thermal imaging systems without a warrant to search for illegal drug production inside his home. Kyllo v. U.S. is currently pending before the United States Supreme Court so the objective of this essay is to explain the procedural history of this case and to predict a final result and the implications of that prediction.
The question presented to the court is: Does the 4th Amendment protect against the warrantless use of a thermal imaging device which monitors heat emissions from a person’s private residence? As with any case, before any court, it is important to understand all aspects of a case. For example, the facts, procedural history, issues, holding(s), legal reasoning, sources of law, and values are all relevant to predicting a potential outcome as the U.S. Supreme Court sees it.
The facts and procedural history of the case are as follows. On January 16, 1992, at 3:20 a.m., Sergeant Daniel Haas of the Oregon National Guard examined, from his parked car, a triplex of houses where Kyllo lived. The full nature of the examination involved the use of an Agema Thermovision 210 thermal imaging device to ?look? for heat generated from inside the home of Kyllo. The purpose of the examination was to possibly locate an abnormally high heat source coming from inside Kyllo’s home, indicating the production of marijuana. If marijuana is to be grown inside it must have some source of intense ultraviolet light to aid it. Haas did indeed locate a high heat source in Kyllo’s home with the Agema 210 and noted that Kyllo’s home ?showed much warmer? than the other two houses in the triplex (Find Law). This indicated the presence of lights used to grow marijuana. This information was forwarded to William Elliot, an agent of the United States Bureau of Land Management. Elliot had already subpoenaed Kyllo’s utility records as Kyllo was already under investigation for the production of marijuana. With the information gathered by the use of the Agema 210, Elliot ?inferred? that the high levels of heat emission indicated the presence of high intensity lights used to grow marijuana indoors (Find Law). Elliot presented this information to a judge and was issued a search warrant. In searching Kyllo’s home the Bureau of Land Management found more than one hundred marijuana plants, weapons and drug paraphernalia. Kyllo was then indicted for manufacturing marijuana and filed a motion to suppress the evidence on the grounds that it was obtained illegally in accordance with the 4th Amendment. The district court denied Kyllo’s motion to suppress and he entered into a conditional guilty plea. Kyllo was sentenced to prison for 63 months. Kyllo appealed the denial of the suppression of motion, challenging the warrantless scan of his home with a thermal imager. In 1994, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed whether the warrant used to search the home of Kyllo was based on knowingly and recklessly false information in the affidavit for the warrant (OTDNWU). The court reversed and remanded the decision of the district court and sent the case back to hold an evidentiary hearing on the capabilities of the Afema 210. Again the district court denied Kyllo’s motion to suppress with the conclusion that warrantless searches of homes with the Agema are permissible. Kyllo then appealed again in 1998 to the 9th Circuit. The court of appeals found, in a 2-1 decision, that the use of thermal imaging systems was unconstitutional. The government petitioned for a rehearing and the case went back to the 9th Circuit which retired one judge and picked up another. This time the decision was 2-1, holding that the