Maryland v. MacOn

Background

A plainclothes police detective entered an adult bookstore, bought two magazines with a marked $50 bill, and showed them to fellow officers nearby. The officers then returned, arrested the lone clerk who had made the sale, retrieved the marked bill from the register, and closed the store. At trial the clerk was convicted of distributing obscene materials after the judge admitted the purchased magazines into evidence but not the marked bill. The clerk had sought to suppress both the magazines and the bill before trial.

Reasoning

The Supreme Court asked whether an undercover purchase of allegedly obscene magazines is a search or seizure under the Fourth Amendment that would require suppression. The Court’s majority explained that the officer’s entry and the sale occurred where the public was invited to transact business, so there was no reasonable privacy expectation and no search. The Court also said the clerk voluntarily transferred possession of the magazines in the sale, so the purchase did not meaningfully interfere with the clerk’s property interests and therefore was not a seizure. Because the magazines were lawfully in police hands before the arrest, the Court held they were properly admitted at trial and reversed the state appeals court.

Real world impact

The decision allows evidence from undercover purchases to be used against sellers of alleged obscene material, limits suppression remedies tied to such purchases, and leaves open whether a warrant is required for arrest on obscenity charges.

Dissents or concurrances

A dissent argued the obscenity statute is overbroad and warned that warrantless arrests and seizures of expression risk chilling protected speech; the dissent would have affirmed suppression and the conviction’s reversal.