Horton v. California

Horton v. California
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 21, 1990 Decided June 4, 1990
Full case name	Terry Brice Horton v. California
Citations	496 U.S. 128 (more) 110 S. Ct. 2301; 110 L. Ed. 2d 112; 1990 U.S. LEXIS 2937; 58 U.S.L.W. 4694
Case history
Prior	In re Horton, No. H002749 (Cal. Ct. App. filed Feb. 14, 1983) pet. denied.
Holding
The Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the warrantless seizure of evidence in plain view even though the discovery of the evidence was not inadvertent. Although inadvertence is a characteristic of most legitimate plain-view seizures, it is not a necessary condition.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices William J. Brennan Jr. · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy
Case opinions
Majority	Stevens, joined by Rehnquist, White, Blackmun, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy
Dissent	Brennan, joined by Marshall
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. IV

Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128 (1990), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the warrantless seizure of evidence which is in plain view. The discovery of the evidence does not have to be inadvertent, although that is a characteristic of most legitimate plain-view seizures. The opinion clarified the plain view doctrine of the Court's Fourth Amendment analysis.